Freshmen Writing Seminar (3 credits). Readings in English. No knowledge of German required.
The course will provide an introduction to the study
of
German cultural and political history through the discussion of
exemplary
writings from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Poems,
short stories and plays will include Schiller's Ode to Joy and
and
Beethoven's rendition of it in his Ninth Symphony, his drama Don
Carlos and a novella by Kleist
reflecting the authors'
preoccupation
with the principal political events of the age, the American and French
revolutions. We will read The Tragedy of Gretchen, Faust's
young
lover, from Goethe's Faust, and explore the issue of
infanticide.
We'll close with Mozart's Magic Flute, the work that most
eloquently
restates the Enlightenment's faith in the perfectibility of the human
race.
1.1 Introduction. The First Meeting
1.2 The second meeting. Poems
and Songs
2.1
2.2 Schiller/Beethoven
IX,4
3.1 TIECK: Eckbert
The Fair
3.2
4.1 KLEIST: The Earthquake in Chile
4.2
5.1 KLEIST: The Betrothal on Santo
Domingo
5.2
6.1 ff. SCHILLER: DON CARLOS
Some
background
material provided for Goethe's EGMONT
is
helpful here too.
Check also my
webpgage
Galileo
for information on the cosmology employed in the Prologue in Heaven.
Faust
(I) The
scholar
A very
brief
introduction to the nature of both Faust and Mephisto can be found in
my
review
of Pelikan's
Faust,
The Theologian. (hand-out).
Faust
(II) The
lover
Faust
(III) The
fugitive. Gretchen
in Hell
Final week: MOZART: The Magic Flute
For the Goethe connection please check my web page on Goethe's Novelle.
For general background information on the historical
period
and on individual pieces and topics I have placed some books on reserve
in the Uris Library Reading Room. Don't panic, none of it is required
reading,
but you might find them helpful when putting the individual "German"
pieces
into an international context. They all reflect concerns and
preoccupations
and deal with topics and events that are not restricted to the German
scene
or, like the two principal events of the age, the American and French
revolutions,
were even part of it.
I'll comment on some titles and add others as we go on.
Please do NOT take these books out of the library. Read them there, in the Reading Room if possible.
Will and Ariel Durant, The Story of
Civilization.
Vols X (Rousseau and Revolution) and XI (The Age of
Napoleon).
The authors had intended volume X to be the final one
of the series but found they couldn't let go. Volume XI came as an
unexpected
gift to their large and appreciative audience.
"We pass it on, not to specialist scholars, who will
learn nothing from it, but our friends, wherever they are, who have
been
patient with us through many years, and who may find in it some
moment's
illumination or brightening fantasy." (Quoted from the Preface).
Page Smith, A New Age Now Begins. A
People's
History of the American Revolution. 2 vols.
The first two volumes of a 4-volume set. Written
against
the grain, as it were, abandoning the view of nineteenth century
historians
who "believed that the past could be understood and, moreover, that
they
understood it; and they believed that the history of the United States
constituted the greatest success story since man had emerged from
prehistory."
He quotes Arnold Toynbee's statement in 1961 "that we had lost the
leadership
in our own revolution - that we had become, in the common phrase,
'counterrevolutionary,'
more concerned with wealth and security than with justice and
equality."
Among his spiritual ancestors are not "those amiable and optimistic
historians
of our past - Bancroft , McMaster, Rhodes ... Perhaps the Roman Tacitus
is a more appropriate model." (From the Introduction to vol. 3, pp. xii
and xiii).
R.R. Palmer, The World of the French Revolution.
Read in particular chapter 9: "Germany: The Revolution
Philosophized."
Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason. Being an
Investigation
of True and Fabulous Theology.
The 1794 classic. "It contains my opinion upon
Religion.
... I have always strenuously supported the Right of every man to his
opinion,
however different that opinion might be to mine. ... The most
formidable
weapon against errors of every kind is Reason. I have never used any
other,
and I trust I never shall."
Daniel Boorstin, The Americans. The Colonial
Experience.
The Americans. The National Experience.
V.S. Naipaul, The Loss of El Dorado.
Kirkpatrick Sale, The Conquest of Paradise.
Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.
Garrett Mattingly, The Armada.
Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading.
Brigid Brophy, Mozart the Dramatist.
Nicholas Till, Mozart and the Enlightenment.
Helmut Perl, Der Fall "Zauberfloete" (German).
Please check thw eb site Gretchen
for material on the issue of infanticide