Personal Revision: STEOP VgL

Question 1

Explain the difference between the real and imaginative author (realer vs irrealer Autor)

Answer 1

Real author is the author as in autobiographies. Imaginative author is the fictional narrator (ficktiver Erzähler)

Question 2

Define Produktiver Rezeptionsgeschichte and give an example

Answer 2

Productive reception history refers to the study of influence from one work to the next in order to generate an anatomy, the Bloomian term, of influence in literary history. Infinite examples of this. Milton’s Satan on Byron, the Byronic Hero on Nietzsche’s Übermensch. Byronic hero on Batman etc.
Other Random examples:
Virgil’s Aeneas on Petrarch’s Africa
The Odyssey on James Joyce’s Ulysses
Shakespeare on everyone
Ovid’s Metamorphosis on Shakespeare (especially Pyramis and Thisbee in Midsummer’s Night Dream and Titus Andronicus)
The Ilyiad on Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida
The Odyssey on Luis de Camoes’ The Lusiads

Question 3

Define the study of typological analogy

Answer 3

Typological analogy is the study of structural features across works, including intermedial crossovers.

Typological analogy can be either historical-typological or psychological-anthropological.

Best example is Märchenforschung but also the study of motifs.
This can be done from a variety of critical stances, psychoanalytical, Marxist, feminist etc.

Question 4

Define intextuality

Answer 4

The term entered the scholastic lexicon of western academe through Julia Kristeva’s encounter with Mikhail Bakhtin. Bakhtin discussed dialogism in terms, the concept that authors were dialogue with one another. For Kristeva, intertextuality is stronger, the idea of semiotic systems, a la Saussurean structuralism, passing intertwining texts through quotes, allusions, pastiche and parody etc.

The complexity of this topic, evidenced by the infinite number of examples, suggests it needs to be rethought.

Examples:
Ulysses again.
The World’s Wife by Carol Ann Duffy

Question 5

Define Paratextuality

Answer 5

Paratextuality denotes the study of the book’s features like the title, contexts, etc. Not the literary itself.

According to David Gorman, this term was coined by Gerard Genette, who identified the following as paratextual: titles and subtitles (of chapters, sections, and volumes as well as the whole work), epigraphs, dedications, prefaces, afterwords, running heads, the copyright page, and all jacket copy.

Question 6

Define architextuality

Answer 6

Strange term. This is the study of how one text becomes identified with its genre “Gattung und Gattungstheorie”.

This term can be traced to Gerard Genette’s works, in which he identifies how a text placed within a certain genre designation.

Question 7

What example of intertextuality was used in the lecture series?

Answer 7

Geoffrey Chaucer: The General Prologue. The description of April is reworked in T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, “April is the cruelest month”, and David Lodge’s Small Worlds.
For Chaucer, April is the time of creativity, renewal and adventure when people go on pilgrimages; for Eliot, a period of nostalgia and renewal but with a tone of sadness: a piece of history is lost in every season.
Lodge almost directly quotes Chaucer as the set-up for a punchline about academics heading to conferences.

Question 8

Define the object of comparative literary study

Answer 8

A comparison of texts across linguistic borderlines. Beware conceptual problems with this notion: boundaries within linguistic and national groupings and the definition of primary and secondary literature

Question 9

What are the three definitions of Weltliteratur.

Answer 9

World literature can be defined as :
1: a collection of canonised “great works” across the world
2: the study of aesthetic features seen across all works written in the world (obviously impossible)
3: Goethe’s program of promoting literature across national boundaries and leading to the eventual dissolution of “nationalliteratur”&raquo_space; “Epoch der Weltliteratur”

Secret 4th: the literary dictatorship of the cultural production of the bourgeoisie on a global scale… Clearly silly and totalitarian

Question 10

Define “Allgemeine Literaturgeschichte” and how it is distinguished from comparative literature

Answer 10

Allgemeine Literaturgesichte handelt sich mit den Problemen der Periodisierung.

Komparatisk baut diese Forschung auf und quer literarische Grenzen.

Question 11

What are the differences between Rezeptionsforschung, Rezeptionsgeschichte und Rezeptionsaesthetik?

Answer 11

Rezeptionsgeschichte is a study of influence
Rezeptionsforschung is the empirical study of the reader. What is known as reader reception or reception theory in English.
Rezeptionsaesthetik refers to the study of how aesthetic value is conferred to a text.

Rezeptionsaesthetik and Rezeptionforschung are linked to the Constance School and the German critics Wolfgang Iser and Hans Robert Jause. Jause’s concept of Erwartungshorizont is important in that it highlights the number of expectation that a reader brings to a text and how a text interacts with it. These expectations are premised on genre identification.

Question 12

What the four literarische Gattungen and give examples of Untergattungen

Answer 12

The four genres are epic, (Erzählliteratur), lyric, drama and non-fiction. Untergattungen (English doesn’t have a good word for this concept) is the study of “content genre”: tragedy, comedy, novel… That definition is problematic because a novel doesn’t necessitate content.

Question 13

What are the two different types of literary translation?

Answer 13

Production translation: the aim is to be as close to the original as possible. This has been dominant since the romantics.
Receptive translation: focus on making the original accessible to a contemporary reader.

Question 14

What is intercultural hermeneutics?

Answer 14

The study of how something becomes stereotyped across cultures as well as the study of how native and foreignness are constructed. Sometimes called “Imagologie”.

Karl May is an interesting example.

Vathek by Willam Beckford is another good example, as well as Byron’s Turkish Tales

Question 15

Define intermediality?

Answer 15

Come on man! The concept is in the morphology of the word.

Think of William Blake and Clive Barker

Question 16

Give examples of Irina O. Rajewsky’s examples of intermediality.

Answer 16

• Intermediale Bezüge (Zitate, Verweise auf andere Kunstformen)
• Medienwechsel (Beispiel Literaturverfilmung, Oper nach einem Roman …)
• Medienkombination (Beispiel Multimediakunst, illustriertes Buch, Comics …)

Question 17

Contrast genetic comparison with typological

Answer 17

Genetic comparison denotes analysing how one writer reinterprets or makes use of earlier writers. Ulysses is the best example.

Typological is a study of structural similarities in different pieces of literature. An interesting example of this could be the different uses of muses at the beginning of epic poetry.

Question 18

Give an example of historical typological analysis

Answer 18

The key to historical-typological analysis is social parallels as reflected in the work itself.

An analysis of Rittererzählen in Feudal societies.

An analysis of national epic poetry, Pan Tadeusz in Polish and Os Lusiads in Portugese.

Question 19

Give an example of psychological/anthropological typology

Answer 19

Jungian and Darwinian evolutionary theory as defined by Joseph Campbell.

The analysis of motifs in Märchenforschung.

Question 20

What is the difference between autobiography and autofiction?

Answer 20

Autofiction is a fictionalised autobiography, a mischung of novel and autobiography. Autofiction, in other words, is a fictional narrative that alludes tp or reconstructs the author’s life.

Annie Ernaux’s The Years is autobiographical, whereas Klaus Mann’s Wendepunkt is autofiction.

Serge Doubrovsky was the first to use the term in the preface to his novel Fils, according to Frank Zipfel. Doubrovsky has gone on to explain autofiction is a form of psychoanalytic reorganising of the author’s life. Post-structuralists have argued that the blending of fact and fiction could have been deployed by minority authors to help narrate their contested identities.

Question 21

Define Passive Reception?

Answer 21

The passive reception’s history of a literary work from the reader’s point of view.

Question 22

Discuss intertextuality in Don Quixote

Answer 22

Don Quixote is obsessed with the medieval romances. He contains an encyclopedic knowledge of the romances written before and quote examples. This has engendered some form of psychosis and the delusion belief that he is a knight. Thus intertextuality frames the main theme of the novel, the disjuncture between his inner reality and the external world.

Question 23

Discuss the productive reception history of Don Quixote

Answer 23

Your answer must include at least two of the following:

Catherine Moorland in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey
Emma Bovary in Flaubert’s Madame Bovary
Prince Myshkin in The Idiot by Dostoevsky
Candide by Voltaire

Question 24

Wie könnte man die Nationalphilologien, die Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft und die Allgemeine Literaturwissenschaft voneinander abgrenzen?

Answer 24

National philology is the study of literature within its national community. Underlying this definition is the false assumption that national, linguistic traditions are hermetically sealed and static. Within a nation, there may be many communities who share that language or that language with another nation, such as the UK and the US.

The study of general literature is the ontological study of literature. In other words, things which apply all literature, such as genre, stylistic movements.

Comparative literature entails comparing and contrasting literature as well as the study of influence between literary works across linguistic boundaries.

The borders between these studies can be conceptualised as hierarchical, with national literary studies at the base of the pyramid, comparative in the middle and general at the top. For example, a comparison of national epic poetry requires understanding those works in their national contexts, comparing their features and then make general observation about the genre itself.

Question 25

7.1.Erklären Sie die Unterschiede zwischen typologischen Analogien und genetischen Vergleichen.
7.2. Wie kann man diese Typen des Vergleichs sonst noch nennen?

Answer 25

Typological analysis is the analysis of structural similarities across literary works. These can be historical or psychological anthropological. Genetic comparison is the study of lineal, historical comparison of works between texts.

Kontrastive and influence study are the alternative names.

Question 26

8.1. Was versteht man unter „Interkultureller Hermeneutik“? (12 Punkte)
8.2. Wie kann man noch zu diesem Arbeitsbereich der Komparatistik sagen? (4 Punkte)
8.3. Betrifft diese Theorie auch Ihren Alltag?

Answer 26

As a term, hermeneutics is derived from Bible studies. As such, the intercultural hermeneutics shares with the Bible studies interpretation and how meaning is assigned as its primary object of study. It can entail the study of how stereotypes are established as well as conveyed. Crucially, such research relies on a notion of identity established through difference/alterity. The viewer culture establishes its own identity through contrast with the other. Orientalism is a famous example of how this can be practiced.

Question 27

9. Daniela Dröscher berichtet in „Zeige deine Klasse“ über ihr Studium der Literaturwissenschaft. In folgendem Textausschnitt schreibt sie über wissenschaftliche Zitate. Vergleichen Sie die Funktion des wissenschaftlichen Zitats mit der von intertextuellen Verweisen. Welche Ähnlichkeiten, welche Unterschiede gibt es? Kann man das Zitat von Daniela Dröscher auch auf die Intertextualität ganz allgemein anwenden?

„Ich liebte alles am Hausarbeiten-Schreiben: die Fußnoten, die Zitate, das Ineinander aus Primär- und Sekundärtexten. Detektivisch suchte ich nach sprachlich schönen und prägnanten Wendungen. Hier waren sie wieder, meine Sinnsprüche. Das Zitat hat viele Gesichter. Es kann die Funktion haben, meine Belesenheit auszustellen oder meine Sicht durch andere, gewichtigere Stimmen zu legitimieren. Für mich waren Zitate immer vor allem eines: Gefährten. Stimmen – an denen ich mich orientierte. Die ich – bewunderte.“ (Daniela Dröcher: Zeige dein Klasse) (20 Punkte)

Answer 27

Repeat what you said to Julia earlier.

Question 28

Beim Übergang von Kapitel 8 auf Kapitel 9 nimmt Cervantes im Don Quijote eine Änderung der Erzählperspektive vor. Durch welche Erzählinstanzen wird uns die „wahrhaftige Geschichte“ des edlen Ritters vermittelt?

Answer 28

You were write about what you said to Julia, except Don Quixote believes the windmills are giants not castles.

Question 29

Define the six qualitative factors in intercultural allusion/reference?

Answer 29

Referentiality (Referentialität): How closely connected are the themes of the two texts
Communication (Kommunikativität): How strongly pronounced or degree of awareness is communicated in the text.
Autoreflexivity (Autoreflexivität): How consciously the writer uses the reference
Dialogism (Dialogizität): how strongly the text is reconsidered or reconceptualised in its new context.

Question 30

Discuss reader and authorial constructs

Answer 30

The answer must define the difference between the following:

The real author vs implicit author vs fictional author

The real reader vs implicit reader vs fictional reader

The best, and perhaps most famous example in the English speaker world, is Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.

Question 31

Discuss empirical aesthetics and its possible uses in comparative literature.

Answer 31

This is your bread and butter specialty Rob… So let loose!