Syllabus
Organisatorische Hinweise, Pflichtlektüre, Themen für die Referate/ Seminararbeiten
Arbeit mit den literarischen Texten:
Die Fabeln (Lessing, Gellert)
Anakreontik (Gleim)
G. E. Lessing: Nathan der Weise
G. E. Lessing: Nathan der Weise (Ringparabel)
J. W. Goethe: Die Leiden des jungen Werthers
F. Schiller: Der Handschuh
F. Schiller: Die Räuber / Kabale und Liebe
G. A. Bürger: Lenore
J. W. Goethe: Faust I
Annotation
The aim of this course is to provide students with a brief overview of 18th and 19th century German literature in a European context (the Enlightenment, the Sturm und Drang movement, the German Classics). An integral part of the course is the explanation of the main literary historical concepts (Aufklärung, Empfindsamkeit, Sturm und Drang, Klassik) and the interpretation of the developmental tendencies of the prevailing literary types and genres. Literary phenomena are presented against the historical, philosophical and cultural background of the 18th and 19th centuries, including a survey of various interpretations of literary-historical development and the main aesthetic theories. Emphasis is placed on the so-called Weimar classics (Goethe and Schiller).
Seminar work will focus on selected texts of the period and on the analysis of poetic, prose and dramatic works. The course covers the following topics: the philosophical foundations of the Enlightenment, rationalism and sentimentalism as the main trends in Enlightenment literature; lyrical works, the Enlightenment theatre (Gottsched, Lessing), the influence of sentimentalism (Klopstock), the novel in the German Enlightenment (Wieland, Schnabel, Gellert); the literature of the Sturm und Drang movement, the philosophical conception of the movement (J. G. Herder), the young Goethe and Schiller, the drama of the Sturm und Drang movement, the work of G. A. Goethe and Schiller, Weimar as a centre of cultural life, classical drama, joint artistic activity of Goethe and Schiller.