SoSe 23: PS-Surveying English Literatures: Victorian Short Fiction
Susanne Schmid
Comments
When talking about fiction and the Victorian Age, we are frequently confronted with the cliché that readers devoured long three-decker novels. In fact, also many shorter texts were printed and read. Many well-known authors also published in shorter formats. In this seminar we will look at fictional texts, among them detective stories, ghost stories and fairy tales by a range of authors (among them Charles Dickens, Sheridan Le Fanu, M. R. James, R. L. Stevenson, Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle). We will analyse the stories as literary texts and discuss them. Besides we will look at contexts of publication (magazines, keepsakes), readerships and print culture. Please be aware that you will have to read one story per week. You will also be expected to attend regularly, to participate in an oral presentation and to write a term paper.
We will begin with Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s ‘Eveline’s Visitant’ (1862), to be made accessible via Blackboard.
close12 Class schedule
Regular appointments