GNM5025

Sixteenth and seventeenth-century German literature

Silke Hesse

8 points -2 hours per week -First/second semester -Clayton

Objectives Students should acquire an understanding of the processes of change that led to the establishment of a German literary language, to the development of the genres of poetry, drama and the novel from rule-bound to structured forms, and that enabled more critical attitudes to authority (expressed, eg in parody and satire). Students should comprehend how cultural change in the broadest sense comes about, what the characteristics of modernity are, and what the preconditions of modern German literature and culture were. Students should also acquire an extraordinary wealth of German idiomatic expression, as many of the texts studied draw strongly on the spoken language.

Synopsis The literature of the Renaissance and the baroque is of special significance for the formation of political, social and religious ideas after the Reformation and the devastations of the Thirty Years' War, and at the beginning of the Enlightenment. These experiences are still relevant in German speaking countries today. Students will study selected writings of Opitz, Gryphius, von Lohenstein, Grimmelshausen, Reuter and Leibniz in their European context and focus on important emerging issues like the responsible individual, war, death and eternity, the transition from alchemy to modern science, and the acquisition of the European literary heritage.

Assessment Written (5000 words): 70% -Examination (1 hour): 30%

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