This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
The notion of autobiography as a documentary genre, in which the writer unproblematically records the facts of his or her life, has been called into question by modern critical studies of the genre, many of the most important theorists of autobiographical writing insisting upon its central place in the literary canon, alongside plays, novels, and poems, with which it would share a certain ‘literariness’. Focusing on a wide range of modern autobiographical texts from different national and linguistic cultures, this module will treat questions of generic definition, form, motivation, and rhetorical strategy. Among the specific questions to be considered are: Can autobiography be strictly defined? How does autobiography relate to other literary genres such as the diary or the first-person novel? Is autobiography a particular kind of narrative? Is there an identifiable rhetoric of autobiography? Is sincerity a meaningful criterion when considering autobiography? What kinds of relationship do autobiographers attempt to establish with their readers? We shall also consider some of the recurring themes in autobiographical writing since the Romantic period, including the representation of childhood, the family, sexuality, gender, ethics, mortality, and politics.
2 hours per week
Essay - 100%
Indicative reading list:
• R BARTHES (trans. R Howard) - 'Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes', Papermac, 1995
• B WALTER - 'A Berlin Chronicle', in E JEPHCOTT (trans.), P DEMETZ (ed.) - 'Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings', Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978, pp. 3-60
• B WALTER (trans. H Eiland) - 'Berlin Childhood around 1900', Belknap Press, 2006
• M DURAS - 'The Lover', Random House, 1985
• M PROUST - 'In Swann's World', in L DAVIS (trans.), C PRENDERGAST (ed.) - 'In Search of Lost Time', Vol. 1, Allen Lane, 2002
• J-J ROUSSEAU (trans. J Cohen) - 'The Confessions', Penguin, 2012
• W G SEBALD (trans. A Bell) - 'Austerlitz', Random House, 2001
• V WOOLF - (ed. J Schulkind) - 'Moments of Being: Autobiographical Writings', Random House, 1976
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
The module will familiarise students with both the theory and the practice of autobiographical writing in the modern period;
The module will help students to develop the ability to undertake a comparative analysis of autobiographical texts from different national and linguistic cultures;
The module will introduce students to relevant historical, cultural, political, and philosophical material, and to encourage the locating of individual literary works within a broader context;
The module will enhance students' literary-critical powers and communicative skills (both oral and written);
The module will enable students to assess in a critical manner the value of other scholars' work on the primary texts included in the module
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