BMA-ANGD17-B1: Chapters from British Literature and Culture

from the Perspective of the History of Ideas

(lecture-course, 2017, FALL)

Time and Location: Thursday 10:00-11:30, Rákócziút5., Room 414

Lecturer: Géza Kállay

Office Hours:Thursday, 14:00-15:30,R5, Room 345, or by appointment

E-mail address:

Mobile phone: 06-30-488-82-45

Course description:

One of the course’s main goals is to provide a – highly selective and biased – overview of British literature, with a lot of European background, from the perspective of the history of ideas, the latter primarily understood here as philosophy. It is designed with the purpose that those students who will later specialise in other fields than literature might find something useful in it as well. Another aim will be to show what it has meant to be human (and inhuman) over the centuries and the point of view of the selection has been to indicate major turning points in worldviews, attitudes to representation, and verbal expression, ways of thinking, genres, styles and literary forms. After (briefly) looking at the essentials of the Greek and Biblical heritage, which have influenced both Europe and Britain fundamentally, we shall proceed in a chronological order not to demonstrate either “growth” or “decay” but to lend some logic to changing times and attitudes. The course gives a chance to read and re-read canonical authors and works (the choice also heavily reflecting the personal taste of the lecturer) both in literature and philosophy. The ultimate aim of the course is to help students develop a way of reading they can call their own, a way of reading that may give them joy.

Requirements and assessment:

There will be an oral examination at the end of the term, mostly on the basis of the lectures themselves, so regular attendance is very much advised. The exam will not so much be an item-by-item cross-examination of students but rather a (hopefully) pleasant conversation during which candidates may talk about the period and the work they are attracted to most and the author with whom they think they have developed a personal relationship. Students should bring a text (a philosophical text, and/or a poem, and/or a drama, a novel, a short-story, a ballad, whatever) to demonstrate that they have found their genuine respective voices when talking about ways of representing what it means to be human. The topics at the examination coincide with the themes covered by the lecturer (please see below).

September 14

  1. Introduction +

Storytelling: Greek and Old Testament

– Erich Auerbach: “Odysseus’s Scar” in: Auerbach: Mimesis. The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (henceforth: MMS)[1], trans. by Willard R. Trask, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2003, pp. 3-23

–Homer: The Odyssey, Book 19,

–Genesis 22 (Abraham and Isaac) (Old Testament)

September 21

  1. Platonic Metaphysics,Plato on Mimesis, Aristotle on Mimesis

– Plato: “The Allegory of the Cave”, from The Republic e.g. In John Cottingham (ed.): Western Philosophy. An Anthology (henceforth: WPhA) Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1996, pp. 61-70.

– “Eidos”: Plato: The Republic, Book III 392c-398c (against personification) and Book X, 595a-608b (against the arts) (any of the standard editions)

– “Mythos”: Aristotle: The Poetics, 1447a-1458 (on tragedy and some passages on language, including metaphor) (any of the standard editions)

September 28

  1. Medieval times: Dante: Divine Comedy, Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales

–Auerbach: “Farinata and Cavalcante” in MMS, pp. 174-202

–“The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale” in M. H. Abrams (gen. ed.), The Norton Anthology of English Literature Volume I, (henceforth NAELI), 6th edition, London and New York: W. W. N

–“The Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale”, in NAELI, pp. 164-179

October 5

  1. Renaissance theology, philosophy and Shakespeare

– Martin Luther: “On the Bondage of the Will”, trans. by P. S. Watson and B. Drewery, In (1978) Renaissance Views of Man. Literature in Context. (henceforth: RVM), ed. by Stevie Davies, Manchester: Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 107-123.

—Desiderius Erasmus: “On the Freedom of the Will”, trans. by E. Gordon Rupp and A. N. Marlow, In RVM, pp. 83-107

—Michel de Montaigne: “Apology for RaimondSebonde”, transl. by Charles Cotton, in Michel de (1952) The Essays. Transl. by Charles Cotton, ed. by W. Carew Hazlitt. Chicago: William Benton., pp. 213-215.

–William Shakespeare: The Tempest (any of the standard editions)

October 12

  1. Rationalism and enlightenment: Descartes, Locke and the 18th century novel

–René Descartes: “First Meditation: What can be called into doubt?”,

–René Descartes: “Second Meditation: The nature of the human mind, and how it is better known than the body”

–René Descartes: “Third Meditation: The existence of God”,

fromMeditations on First Philosophy, in John Cottingham (ed.), Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 76-98

–John Locke: “Qualities and Ideas” from Essay Concerning Human Understanding in WPhA, pp. 80-85

–Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe (any of the standard editions)

October 19

  1. Immanuel Kant, Colerdige and Wordsworth

–Andrew Bowie: The Kantian Revolution” in Bowie: Introduction to German Philosophy, (henceforth IGPH) Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003, pp. 13-40.

–Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, any of the standard editions (also in NAELI)

–William Wordsworth: “We are Seven”, any of the standard editions

November 9

  1. The 19thcentury novel and the woman in the late 19th century: Ibsen

–Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights (any of the standard editions)

–Henrik Ibsen: A Doll’s House (Nora)(Dodo Press, 1923)

November 16

  1. The well-made play: Wilde; and the burden of everyday existence: Chekov

–Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest (any of the standard editions)

–Anton P. Chekhov: The Cherry Orchard (any of the standard editions)

November 23

  1. The two Wittgensteins

–Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Trans. by D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuiness (1961), with the Introduction of Bertrand Russell F. R. S., London and New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul and The Humanities Press, (1921, 1967, sections 1, 5, 6 and 7.

–Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, (1954, 1958), 1984, §§ 1-38

November 30

  1. The uncanny of the ordinary

–Franz Kafka: The Metamorphosis, transl. by Stanley Corngold, New York: Bantam Dell, 2004. Beckett Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot, (any of the standard editions)

December 7

  1. The Theatre of the Absurd

–Beckett Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot (any of the standard editions)

December 14

  1. Summary and Conclusion

Basic Bibliography

Peter Conrad: Cassell’s History of English Literature, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2006.

Erich Auerbach: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (MMS), trans. by Willard R. Trask, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2003

Jacques Barzun: From Darwin to Decadence: 500 Years of Wester Cultural Life, New York: HarperCollins/Perennial, 2000.

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[1] In Hungarian: Erich Auerbach: Mimézis, ford. KardosPéter, Budapest: Gondolat, 1985.