Learning Outcomes
The course aims to familiarise students with the critical theory of Cultural Mobility, has been recently introduced by Stephen Greenblatt. Students will be exposed to Historicism, old and new, on which CM draws. Then, they will practice the techniquies of presenting (in writing and orally) a number of essays, in which they will apply the theory to a range of European novels. For the current semester, these novels are Dostoyevksi, The Idiot; Greene, The Power and the Glory; and Boell, Group portrait with a lady.
Course Content (Syllabus)
The course focuses on the reception of Baudelaire’s poetry, prose poems and aesthetic writings (mainly, Les Fleurs du mal, Le spleen de Paris and the Salons) in modern greek literature and criticism from mid19th century to the modernist and avant- guarde movements till 1940's. It discusses Benjiamin’s emblematic approach το his work, with special emphasis to Baudelaire’s double bind towards the ‘bourgoisie’, and also to the different faces of modernity that recognize Baudelaire as their predecessor.
Keywords
modernity, fugitivemess, spleen et ideal, flanerie, double bind, symbol, allegory, bourgeois art, influnce / reception