MÜ-Negotiating Gender: Romanticism and Gender
Justus Conrad Gronau
Kommentar
The foundational notions of British Romanticism (ca. 1780-1830) have traditionally rested upon the poetic pillars of the so called ‘male Big Six’: William Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, Byron, Shelley, and Keats. This is all the more surprising taking into account both the sheer amount of literature written by women in the Romantic era (more than 200 publishing women poets) and the fact that several of these women were financially much more successful than their male peers.
In the context of the revision of the exclusively male canon of Romantic literature, the (re)‘discovery’ of female Romantic poets like Charlotte Smith, Felicia Hemans, Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Mary Robinson, Mary Tighe, or Letitia Elizabeth Landon, raises a series of important questions to be discussed in this course: Is there such a thing as a “feminine Romanticism”, which can be differentiated from a “masculine Romanticism”, as suggested by critic A.K. Mellor? What, then, would be its characteristics, and how useful is such a binary distinction? Are there specific topics more prevalent in Romantic poetry by female poets? Does the inclusion of women writers into the canon of Romantic literature necessitate a re-evaluation of our understanding of what we call ‘Romantic’? Which significance do the male romantics ascribe to questions of gender in their poetry?
A differentiated and comprehensive analysis of Romantic poetry and its poetics presupposes knowledge about all authors from the Romantic period, regardless of gender. Therefore, we will read and critically analyse both canonical male poets and women poets which were for a long time underrepresented in the canon, exploring the various ways in which gender, as part of the discursive construction of identity, plays a pivotal role in the socio-political, cultural, aesthetic, and epistemological dimensions of Romanticism.
Participants of the class will have to read and present their thoughts on a variety of different authors and poems in class. Course material will be made available at the beginning of the semester.
Schließen
13 Termine
Regelmäßige Termine der Lehrveranstaltung