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CLS2530/3530

Modernism in European literature

Millicent Vladiv-Glover

8 points
* 3 hours per week
* Second semester
* Clayton

Objectives On successful completion of this subject students should have acquired a theoretical and historical overview of the cultural phenomenon of European Modernism and be in a position to analyse texts theoretically in the context of ruptures or continuities in the cultures of 20th-century Europe.

Synopsis A study of the modernist movement as a supra-national European cultural paradigm. The texts will cover the literatures of both Eastern and Western Europe, and will be studied in English translation, though they may be read in their original languages. The poetics of the various modernist `schools,' such as symbolism, futurism, expressionism and surrealism, will be studied in the context of the theory of the avant-garde and with reference to the major twentieth-century cultural paradigm shift from modernism to postmodernism.

Assessment second year Essay (3000 words): 45%
* Class paper (1500 words): 25%
* Test (1.5 hours): 30%

Assessment third year Essay (3000 words): 45%
* Class paper (1500 words): 25%
* Test (1.5 hours): 30%
* Third-year level students will write essays which require more theoretical reflection and presuppose a wider reading than essays written by students enrolled at second-year level.

Prescribed texts

Andric I The pasha's concubine and other tales Allen and Unwin

Bely A Petersburg Indiana U P

Bürger P Theory of the avant-garde Minnesota U P

Chekhov A The Seagull (first act) OUP

Gide A The counterfeiters Penguin

Gerould D (ed.)Doubles, demons and dreamers: An international collection of symbolist drama Performing Arts Journal Public

Hesse H Siddhartha Penguin

Lawton A (ed.)Russian futurism through its manifestos, 1912-1928 Cornell U P

Lange F Metropolis (constructivist film)

Magritte R `Magritte' or `The Lesson of Objects' (film script) in Harry Torczyner's Magritte: Ideas and images Harry N Abrams Inc.

Nietzsche F The birth of tragedy Pantheon

Rilke R M The notebook of Malte Laurids Brigge OUP

Tzara T Seven Dada manifestos and lampisteries Calder

Vertov D Enthusiasm (constructivist film)

Whitman W The complete poems Penguin

Wilde O Salome Orbis

Woolf V To the lighthouse Vintage


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