CLS2530

Modernism in European literature

Proposed to be offered next in 1999

Millicent Vladiv-Glover

8 points
* 3 hours per week
* 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 Essay (3000 words): 45%
* Class paper (1500 words): 25%
* Test (1.5 hours): 30%

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 Abrams.
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