Blockveranstaltung Politics Nature and Culture in Thomas Hardy

The British author Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) is best known for his novels set in the deeply rural fictional county of Wessex. However, Hardy did more than merely celebrate the idylls of the rural life that had shaped his childhood. He was one of the foremost writers of the Victorian period to engage critically with the ideas and trends of his age: developments in scientific thought and technology, new philosophies that aimed to fill the vacuum left by waning religious faith, the struggle of the working class for social equality and democracy, and the push by women for political reform. Yet while his portraits of lower-class rural folk were deemed accurate portrayals of their plight, Hardy’s plots were criticized for their unrealistic, perhaps even anti-realist, character, brought about in part by Hardy’s self-censure of his own writing to make it acceptable for a mid-to-late Victorian readership. In this seminar we will be exploring issues of realism and determinism, gender and social criticism, atheism and morality in two central works by Hardy. We will start by focusing on the book and film versions of Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd (1874) and compare these with his later, much darker, novel of rape and murder, Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891), which bore the provocative subtitle ‘A Pure Woman’. Given that Hardy was also a prodigious poet, we shall be looking at a brief selection of his verse, from the mid-1860s through to his poetry written during World War I. Students are requested to buy the Penguin Classics editions of Hardy’s novels: Far from the Madding Crowd, ed. Rosemarie Morgan (London: Penguin Classics, 2000 [reprint 2003]), ISBN 978-0-141-43965-5, and Tess of the D’Urbervilles, ed. by Margaret Higonnet (London: Penguin Classics, 1998 [reprint 2003]) ISBN 978-0-141-43959-4. Copies of the poetry to be studied will be made available to students at the start of the course. A course outline will be provided in the first meeting. Bemerkung Termine der Blocksitzungen: - Mi 30.10.13, 14-18 Uhr, voraussichtlich KW 5, R. 3044. - Mo-Fr/16.-20.12.13, jeweils 10-16 Uhr, KW 5, R. 4048. Voraussetzungen This course is only open to students who have successfully completed at least an undergraduate research paper (-Proseminararbeit-) in Literary Studies. Regular and active participation, including a short oral report, is required of everybody. Prior to the first meeting, you must have read at least Far from the Madding Crowd and you should be familiar with key concepts of textual and narratological analysis. Leistungsnachweis Credit (-Studienleistung-) for regular and active participation, including an oral presentation with handout; full credit (-Prüfungsleistung-) for an additional term paper (approx. 20-25 standard pages). FB 02 Institut für Anglistik / Amerikanistik This course is only open to students who have successfully completed at least an undergraduate research paper (-Proseminararbeit-) in Literary Studies. Regular and active participation, including a short oral report, is required of everybody. Prior to the first meeting, you must have read at least Far from the Madding Crowd and you should be familiar with key concepts of textual and narratological analysis. Credit (-Studienleistung-) for regular and active participation, including an oral presentation with handout; full credit (-Prüfungsleistung-) for an additional term paper (approx. 20-25 standard pages). Uni Kassel WiSe 2013/14 Anglistik/Englisch Dr. Martin Alison