Victorians Reloaded Adapting and Appropriating the Victorian Era

In his book Inventing the Victorians (2001), Matthew Sweet wonders, -[s]uppose that everything we think we know about the Victorians is wrong. That in the century which has elapsed since 1901, we have misread their culture, their history, their lives – perhaps deliberately, in order to satisfy our sense of ourselves as liberated Moderns” (ix). Today, Victorians continue to be imagined, reimagined, adapted, appropriated and revisited. This seminar looks at such contemporary adaptations of the Victorian era. It considers these new interpretations with reference to such issues as contemporary -writing back” and deconstruction of the Victorian hegemonies, our relation to the imagined past and the presence of Victorian Values today, the question of sexuality, gender and servitude as well as the question concerning metafictional and highly intertextual narratives of the past. To approach these questions, we will read A. Gray, Poor Things (1992) and J. Fforde, The Eyre Affair (2001) as well as excerpts from J. Wood Endurance and Suffering (2009). We will also reflect on these questions with reference to contemporary filmic adaptations, such as J. Amiel, Creation (2009), J. Vallee, Young Victoria (2009), K. Reisz, French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981) and S. Norrington’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003). Finally, we will also look at the Steampunk movement. To be able to discuss the above issues with reference to the chosen texts, we will refer to critical literature by M.L. Kohlke, J. Kucich, M. Sweet, Ch. Krueger, K. Caplan, A. Heilmann and other prominent scholars of Neo-Victorian studies. Please acquire and read the following novels: A. Gray, Poor Things (1992) and J. Fforde, The Eyre Affair (2001). Critical and shorter literary texts will be available as a bound reader during the first session. Englisch, LA Gymnasium / Gesamt, PO 2004 Universität Siegen WiSe 2010/11 Literaturwissenschaft: Literatur, Kultur, Medien, Englisch, Master, PO 2009 Anglistik - Literaturwissenschaft Dr. Pietrzak Franger Monika Maria