Syllabus
1) Puppet theatre and poetic imagination; introduction to the course
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (Marionette theatre chapters 1-8)
Heinrich von Kleist: On the Marionette Theatre 2) Automata and das Unheimliche
Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, Der Sandmann 3) Pygmalion: rivisited
Joseph von Eichendorff, The Marble Statue 4) Puppets and metaphors of power
Georg Büchner, Woyzeck 5) Puppets and metaphors of power (2)
Georg Büchner: Leonce and Lena 6) Puppets, mirrors and discovery of the Self
G. Meyrink, Walpurgisnacht 7) Mechanics and progress (?)
K. H. Strobl: The triumph of the mechanics; G. Meyrink: The Preparation/The Plants of Doctor Cinderella 8) Machines, utopias and creativity
Paul Scheerbart, The Perpetual Motion Machine: The Story of an Invention 9) Golems (1)
Extracts from: Jakob W. Pascheles, Sippurim
Paul Wegener, The Golem (film) 10) Golems (2)
Gustav Meyrink, The Golem (chosen parts) 11) Masters of puppets and seduction
Hans Heinz Ewers, The Spider 12) The puppet and the city
Gustav Meyrink, The Mysterious City
Alfred Kubin, The Other Side (chosen parts) 13) Mechanics, humans and representations of power in mass society
Fritz Lang, Metropolis
Annotation
The course analyses the presence of puppets, golems and automata in German and Austrian literature between the last years of the 18th century and the beginning of the 20th. It embraces multiple genres and literary movements, including uncanny literature of late romanticism, fantastic literature, dramatic texts experimenting with the puppet metaphor and essays regarding puppets and devices in relation to human imagination.
Two silent films are also part of the program. Puppets, golems and automata are considered, in the proposed materials, actual objects of artistic value, political metaphors, representations of human behavior, mirrors of the Self, as well as devilish devices symbolizing the decline of human society.
Special attention also goes to the motif of the puppet master embodying the mechanisms of mass society, between the second half of the 19th century and WWI.
