Syllabus

 

The Double in Literature

Plato (B.C. 427-347)

                             The Republic, Book VII* (by b.c. 387)

E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822)

                            “The Golden Flower Pot ” (1814)

                            “A New Year’s Eve Adventure ” (1814)

Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875)

                             “The Shadow “*

“The Little Mermaid”*

Mary Shelley  (1797-1851)Frankenstein (1817)

Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852)                                     

                            “Nevsky Prospect ” (1835)

                            “The Nose ” (1836)*

Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849)

                            “William Wilson ” (1839)*

Fyodor Dostoevsky   (1821-1881), The Double (1845)

R.L.Stevenson  (1850-1894), Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde (1886)

Oscar Wilde  (1854-1900), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)

Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977)                       

                            Despair (1936)

                            The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (1938)

Lolita (1955)

Curtis Bernhardt (dir.)                                         

                           A Stolen Life (film) (1946)

Background Reading

F.W.J. von Schelling, The System of Transcendental Idealism (1800)* (1775-1854), Part six

Geoffrey Hartman,  “Romanticism and Anti-self-consciousness “* (1970)

Alfred Bem,  “The Nose and The Double

Priscilla Meyer,  “Black and Violet Words: Despair and The Real Life of Sebastian Knight ” (e-mail)

There will be three 4-page papers and a final project, as well as regular class work (presentations, close readings, short jottings)