Literary Studies SoSe 17 Zsmfassung PDF

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Sommersemester 17 Zusammenfassung 'Introduction to literary studies'...

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Literary Studies: Zsmfassung SoSe17 (Hartmann & Ehland) General The Subject – Matter of Literary Studies - writing = form of cummunication - most important = author of a work addresses his text to the reader - communication: transmission of a message to other → addresser & addressee have to share in at least some degree a common code

What do you need for a literary text? Character/protagonist

time/

action/events

structure

setting/scenery => alles zsm = narration

Model of literary communication

- communication model includes entire social sphere in which literary texts are written/pulished/discussed/reviewed - literary system = network of relations - author (addresser) produces literary text (message) in which material basis/medium (channel) via which the message reaches the recipient/reader (addressee)

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Functions of language in literary texts - six functions of language (Roman Jakobson) → emotive/expressive (addresser) → expresses feelings to addresser → conative (imperative) → refers to addressee → he should do sth, command sth. → referential (refers to the outside world, conveys information → phatic (opens up channels for communication, makes sure the other person is listening) → metalingual (talking about language) → poetic (foregrounding the message aesthetic quality, Sprache verweist auf eigene Struktur zurück - Codes → linguistic, cultural, genetic

Functions of language in the communication model

- written communication = characterised by time lag between production & reception - addressee = no opportunity to influence addresser directly - text = only link between the addresser and addressee - each form & genre of literary communication is characterised by number of distinguish features

Markers of fictionality - introductory/concluding formula - ambuguity/polyvalence - intertextuality = networks of thematic & formal references between texts - representational techniques - stylistic devices 2

- devience of everyday language Mimesis vs. Poesis - Literature imitates real world - poesis = literature creates independent models of reality

Paradigmatic vs. Syntagmatic - Syntagmatic = how words are connected by the binding rules of grammar - Paradigmatic = exchangeability of word while still keeping meaning of the sentence

Literary genres → lyric (sonnet) → narrative (epic, novel, short story) → drama (comedy, tragedy) - concept of the period → periodization enables us to sibdivide history of literature into a chronology of ages/phrases

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Theoretical approaches and methods in literary studies

Historical reality as context - Sociological and Marxist approaches - Feminist approaches - new Historicism - Cultural Materialism Author – oriented approaches - Biographical approaches - Psychoanalytical approaches - Studies of a text's genesis and it's place within an author's oeuvre

Text – oriented approaches - Text – intrinsic approaches - Formalist/Structuralist approaches - Poststructuralism/ Deconstruction

Reader – oriented approaches - Reception Aesthetics - History of Reception and Effects of Works - Emprirical Reception Studies - Reader – Response Criticism - Cognitive Narratology

Other texts as context - Sources and Influence Studies - Studies in Intertextuality and Intermediality

- Gender Studies - Postcolonial Criticism - Empirical Literary Theory

→ Different kinds of contextual relationship (author – text, text – other texts etc.) → text – oriented approaches = concerned primarily with matters related to analysis of thematic, formal or linguistic characteristics of literary texts → for long time = New Criticism most influential text – oriented approach in Anglo – American sphere → text – oriented approaches also include textual critisicm, stylistic interpretations & all approaches concerned with content of a work

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Periods in English and Irish literary History

Dates

Periods

500 – 1150 1150 – 1500

Old English Period Middle English Period

1500 – 1649

Renaissance

1649 – 1660 1660 – 1700

Commonwealth & Protectorate Restoration

1700 – 1780 1780 – 1837

Neoclassicism & Enlightment Romanticism

1837 – 1901

Victorian Period

1901 – 1914 1914 – 1945

Edwardian Period Modernism

1945 – 2004

Post – war era

Historical events → 43: Roman Conquest → 1066: Norman Conquest → 1215: Magna Carta signed → 1558: Elisabeth 1. becomes Queen → 1588: Spanish Armada destroyed< → 1603: King James 1. of Scotland becomes King of England → 1620: Mayflower → first settlers in America → 1642: English Civil war → 1688: Glorious Revolution → 1707: Union of crowns → 1745: Scotland = „rewon“ by Edward Stuart → 1776: Declaration of Independence → 1805: Battle of Trafalgar → 1818: Waterloo → 1832: Great reform act → 1837: Victoria becomes Queen → 1851: „Great World Exhibition“ → 1901: Death of Queen Victoria

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→ 1947: Indo – Pakistanis war of independence

Poetry Communication model of poetry

Central features of poetry → level of sound, metre, rhythm → level of individual words & their formation → level of sentences → level of meaning → tendency towards brevity, compression (Verdichtung), reduction, increased subjectivity, muiscality (rhyme), phonological complexity, morphologigal & syntactical complexity, deviation, self – referentiality, artificiality (Künstlichkeit), aesthetic

Speech situations → who's talking to whom? → lyrical I/persona → lyrical thou/you → overt/covert bzw. implicit/explicit → Mediation (eine bestimmte Entfernung zw. Geschehen & Reader oder einfach nur ein Bild vor Augen (es ist nicht klar, dass es uns durch lyrisches Ich erzählt wird) - Lanser's rule → wenn Geschlecht vom lyrischen Ich nicht identifizierbar ist, wird angenommen, dass es Geschlecht des Autors hat (→ gilt auch für Narrative) → I = overt → no teller (I, we etc.) → covert

The Enounced vs. Enunciation → the Enounced = what? (content) → Enunciation = how? (the way things are created)

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Figurative/figural vs. Literal meaning - Figurative/figural = Bedeutung eines Wortes im übertragenen Sinne („Juliet is the sun“ → Juliet = schön, hell, unerreichbar, gefährlich) - literal meaning = Bedeutung eines Wortes, wie sie im Wörterbuch steht → „Juliet is the sun“ → no literal meaning

Rhymes & other sound patterns - end – rhyme: rhyme between stressed final vowels in lines/verse - rhyming couplets: aa bb cc - alternate rhyme: abab cdcd - embracing rhyme/envelope rhyme: abba cddc - chain rhyme/interlocking rhyme: aba bcb cdc - tail rhyme: aab ccb - alliteration: succession of words with the same initial sound or succeccion of accented syllables with the same consonant - consonance: congruence of consonants short of alliteration, repitition of a sequence of 2/more consonants but with a change in the intervening vowel - assonance: congruence between vowel sounds only - use of words to imitate sounds

Rhetorical figures - morphological devices = rhetorical figures which work on the level of words & word formation - syntactical devices = employed on the level of sentence structure (syntax) - semantic devices = level of meaning → e.g. metaphor - pragmatic devices = involving language use - phonological devices = level of sound (e.g. rhyme, metre, alliteration) - stress - foot (Iamb, trochee, anapest, dactyl) - rhymes (couplets, cross, embracing, tail) - stanzas

Morphological rhetorical figures Exact word repitition Anaphora

Repitition of a word/group of words at the 7

beginning of clauses/lines of verse Epiphora

Repitition of a word/group of words at the end od successive clauses/lines of verse

Epanalepsis

Repitition of words in close succession

Anadiplosis

Repitition of end of the preceding clause/line of verse at the beginning of the text

Repitition involving variation of repeated elements Polyptoton

Repitition of a word in different inflected forms

Figura etymologica

Repitition of a root in different forms

Synonymy

Repitition by the replacement of one word with another of the same meaning

Syntactic rhetorical figures Parralelism between clauses or entire sentences Parralelism

Seccession of clauses or sentences of the same structure

Chiasmus

Reversal of structures in successive clauses

Connection of sentences & sentences components Asyndeton

Succession of words/phrases wothout conjoining words

Polysyndeton

Succession of words or phrases linked by conjoining words

Deviation from normal word order Inversion

Reversal of normal word order

Hysteron proteron

Reversal of the logical succession of events

Figures involving omission Ellipsis

Omission of sentence components

Aposiopesis Foot ( - = unbetont; / = betont)

Abrupt cessation before the end of an utterance

→ Iamb = - /

→ Anapest = - - /

→ Trochee = / -

→ Spondee = / /

→ Dactyl = / - -

→ Amphibrach = - -

Types of Meter → dimeter (2 feet)

→ pentameter (5 feet)

→ trimeter (3 feet)

→ hexameter (6 feet)

→ tetrameter (4 feet)

→ heptameter (7 feet)

→ Shakespearean iambic pentameter = - / - / - / - / 8

Traditional Metaphor Model

→ source & target → 2 semantic fields → Metaphor = a covert comparison → X is Y → Simile = X is like Y → „My heart is like a singing bird“ → Metonymy = literal term for one thing is applied to another on the basis of some causal, material or conceptual relation → Synechdochy = is the metonymy → relationship between one single thing to entire thing → part – whole relationship

The sonnet Italian (Petrarchan) vs. English (Shakespearean) → the sonnet in general → 14 lines, usually iambic pentameter, volta/shift → focus is shifting, love is often the topic → Italian → octave (8 lines, abba abba) + sestet (6 lines, cdccdc (cdecde)), volta after octave → English → 3 quatrains + couplet, abab cdcd efef gg, volta before couplet

Narrative → Narrative = written in prose (ordinary language, no rhythm etc)

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Model of communication

Analysing the communication on the text after Meyer → who speaks to whom? → which position does the narrator have inside/outside the world of the story → in which way & in which order does the narrator speak about characters & events?

Points of view → external vs. Internal → narrator vs. Character

Representing consciousness (gilt auch für Drama) - 3 basic operations: → psychonarration (narrator presents thoughts & feelings in a highly compressed way) → free indirect discourse (highly mimetic, quotes thoughts & feelings without mediating distance, direkter Einfluss in Psyche) → interior monologue → free indirect discourse (illusion of immediate insight into internal processes of character) Kernels/Nucleus vs. Satellite → Kernels/Nucleus = Main events, must be there to understand the story → Satellite = background events, have no big importance for the story

Action vs. Happening → Action = done by someone → Happening = it just happens without influence of characters

Setting: space → Setting = important for atmosphere, characterization, symbolism

Mimesis vs. Diegesis 10

→ Mimesis = showing, narrator in background, reader – as – witness, „painting a mental picture“ → Diegesis = telling, narrator in action & in foreground, narrator guiding reader

Narrating I vs. Experiencing I → Narrating I = 70 – jährige Frau berichtet über die Zeit als sie 20 war → Experiencing I = das 20 – jährige Ich der Frau ist das experiencing I

Dichotomy → division/contrast between 2 things, that are entirely different

Short Story Theory – Edgar Allan Poe → unity of effect: totality of impressions - appeal to the emotions, generating emotional responses (the aim is to affect/move the reader) - rejection of didactism - brevity so that the world doesn't interrupt reading - single focus/theme, few characters, space & time limited → Density

Analysis of Time → 3 aspects: duration, order & frequency to analyse story → story – time vs. Discourse – time → story time → length of time that passes in story (erzählte Zeit) → discourse time → covers length of time that is taken up by telling of story (Erzählzeit) → scene/real time = story time & discourse time = equal → summary/speed up = story – time longer than discourse – time → stretch/slow – down → discourse – time longer than story – time → ellipsis = discourse – time skips to later part in the story – time → pause = story – time comes to a standstill while discourse – time continues → Order = chronological vs. Anachronological

Genettes model 1. On which level? 11

→ Extradiegetic (level of narrative transmission, Rahmenhandlung außerhalb narrative world) vs. Intradiegetic (level of the story, character who's part of the narrated world)

2. Character of the story? → Homodiegetic (Narrator inside the story, takes part in events he narrates ( I – as – witness), Stanzels 1st person) vs. Heterodiegetic (Narrator outside the narrated world, not part of the story) → Autodiegetic (subcategory of homodiegetic narrator/character tells own story → autobiography)

3. Degree of explicitness → Overt → narrator appears on level of narrative transmission as an individualized speaker & a concrete person → Covert → narrator = anonymous voice

4. Degree of reliablity → reliable vs. Unreliable → unreliable = limited knowledge, narrator emotional involved, questionnable norms/values → Signals for unreliable relation → explicit contradictions, contrasting versions of same event, discrepancies between narrators statements & actions, conflicting extratextual frames 5. male vs. Female → wenn Geschlecht nicht bekannt → Lanser's rule 6. Focalization → who sees/psychological center of orientation → External? (objective) → you see world from outside, level of narration → Internal? (feelings of characters → character level)

7. Types of internal focalization → fixed focalization → one & same person throughout the narrative → Variable focalization → different scenes presented through different perspectives → Multiple focalization → several perspectives of same event → Collective focalization → focalization through either plural narrators or group of characters

Stanzel Narrative Theory → Questions = perspective? Person? Mode? → 1st person narrative situation 12

→ mode = narrator → person = 1st person → perspective = internal for the „I“, external for the others & involved in events → I – as – protagonist vs. I – as – witness → authorial narrative situation → mode = narrator → person =1st/3rd person → perspective = external, but can „zoom in „ on characters, not a character in the story, no limitation → omniscient & omnipresent → figural narrative situation → mode = reflector → person = 3rd person → perspective = internal for the reflector, events are represented „through the eyes“ of the character

Drama Communication Model of dramatic texts

- usually no narration - one intratextual level/no intratextual level - if narration → by actors - characters → talking to each other (character communication)

Difference to literary texts → no narrator → external & internal communication system overload → time – space continuum = no arbitrary rearrangement of time & space → no jumping during 13

scene → dialogue is a fundamental mode of presentation

How does drama compensate the (usual) absence of the narrator? → epic communication structures: → narrator figure inside or outside the dramatic action → extended stage – directions → film, banners, scene headings etc. → alienation effect (Brecht) → destruction of aesthetic illusion → character & action = most elementary constituents of dramativ/narrative texts → 4 factors influence the behaviour of the characters & development of action: → abilities → needs → motivation → intention

Theatrical texts vs. Dramatic texts - theatrical texts → various aspects of performance & productions of plays in mind, plurimediality - dramatic texts → drama as a printed text, primary text → words spoken on stage → secondary text → stage directions, like a narrator)

Plurimediality - reading dramatic text vs. watching a play → beim watching hat man mehrere Codes die gesendet werden (siehe semantics of drama)

Types of Drama - Tragedy → no happy ending (many people are dead at the end) - Comedy → happy ending (nobody dies, just there for entertaining, no serious subject)

Semantics of Drama (84) - durative vs. Non – durative → durative = something is on stage all the time → non – durative = something is on stage just for a moment 14

- verbal vs. Non – verbal (code) - actor vs. Stage - acoustic vs. Visual (channel)

Character & Characterization (kann man auch auf Narrative anwenden) - Characters → static vs. Dynamic (flat vs. Round, means: unchanged vs. Developing) → one – dimensional vs. Multidimensional (few individual features vs. Many individual features) - extremes: personification ↔ individual (wird durch multidimensional hergestellt)

Type vs. Individual - Type (psychological, social, ethnic, gender etc.)

E.M. Forster (from story vs. Plot) - flat (comedy, satire, romance, western) vs. Round (tragedy → jmd. entwickelt sich oft von gut zu schlecht) characters Techniques of characterization → characterization = how are characters supplied with characteristics & semantic features? - figural = characters supply the information - authorial = derives from structure of the entire play - explicit vs. Impicit (wird es explizit gesagt oder nicht ob Zentrierung auf actor oder structure?)

Writing process

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- in Shakespeares times → theatre was entertainment and business, he was a comission writer/wrote for money - Quatro → one page of printing paper is used for 4 book pages - folio → bigger than a Quatro, one page of printing paper is used for 2 book pages, Quarto → for different audience - 1623 → first folio, large expensive book, first printed collection of all Shakespeare's plays - prompt book = directors book, was obligatory for the performance (instructions of play) - entry at „stationer's register“ around 1600 → no one else was allowed to copy your book (today: copyright), you had to pay the stationers register so your book can be printed → As you like it → 1600

Dramatic communication

Consequences of the absence of a mediating communication system (Pfister) - external & internal communication system overlap - time – space continuum: no arbitrary rearrangement of time & space - dialogue as fundamental mode of presentation → because you don't have a narrator

Characterisation → Text & Stage - stage → plurimedial characterization

Techniques of characterization → Dialogue – Monologue/Soliloquy - Monologue → Soliloquy (no one else on stage → not a normal form of communication) → spoken thoughts → only way for the audience to look inside a character → functions of monologues: → familiarizing the audience with atmosphere of play & description of s cenery/surroundings → commenting on previous events → introducing protagonist 16

→ giving expression to the speaker's innermost thoughts & feelin...