Eng­lish Li­te­ra­tu­re & Trans­la­ti­on Cour­se

The pur­po­se of this uni­que discussion-​based cour­se is two­fold: One, it pro­vi­des you with re­gu­lar prac­tice in the skill of trans­la­ting cul­tu­ral texts from Ger­man into Eng­lish, thus ac­ti­vating and im­pro­ving your com­mand and un­der­stan­ding of the Eng­lish lan­guage and cul­tu­re; and two, it in­tro­du­ces you to, and en­ables you to dis­cuss no­vels by six out­stan­ding, so­me­times ne­g­lec­ted wri­ters.

Were a mas­tery of Eng­lish gram­mar and lexis the key to un­der­stan­ding, the com­pu­ter would be king, while the world of Eng­lish li­te­ra­tu­re, a world of emo­ti­ons: hu­mour, sad­ness, pas­si­on, stri­ving, see­king and fin­ding, would be re­du­ced to an aca­de­mic, eso­te­ric lu­xu­ry.

In the same vein, li­te­r­a­ry trans­la­ti­on, so much more than a me­cha­ni­cal ex­er­cise, is, above all, a ques­ti­on of in­ter­pre­ta­ti­on, ap­pro­pria­te re­gis­ter, cor­rect de­gree of for­ma­li­ty, and per­haps the most dif­fi­cult thing of all, the ap­pro­pria­te use of Eng­lish idiom. Were this not so, a dic­tio­n­a­ry would suf­fice.

The Eng­lish trans­la­ti­on and li­te­ra­tu­re cour­se gives us the op­por­tu­ni­ty both to dis­cuss and trans­la­te, into Eng­lish, cul­tu­ral texts; and read and dis­cuss no­vels and short sto­ries by 20th and 21st Cen­tu­ry wri­ters. Each aca­de­mic year, the cour­se has a dif­fe­rent li­te­r­a­ry theme.

Cour­se de­tails
‘Peace for our Time’ – Domestic Drama between two World Wars

‘Peace for our Time’ – Do­me­stic Drama bet­ween two World Wars

Eng­lish li­te­ra­tu­re cour­se 2023/24

This year’s cour­se of Eng­lish li­te­ra­tu­re ex­plo­res the two de­ca­des after the First World War, the 1920s and 1930s, an era cha­rac­te­ri­sed by do­me­sti­ci­ty, where one’s home was one’s cast­le and one’s own small gar­den was su­pe­ri­or to any for­eign field. The five no­vels, plus a coll­ec­tion of short sto­ries cho­sen for this cour­se of rea­ding and dis­cus­sion are pu­blished by Per­se­pho­ne Books - uni­que in that it re­prints ne­g­lec­ted fic­tion and non-​fiction, most­ly be women wri­ters and most­ly da­ting from the mid-​twentieth cen­tu­ry.

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The Edwardians – Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

The Ed­war­di­ans – Bet­ween the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Eng­lish li­te­ra­tu­re cour­se 2022/23

"The past is a for­eign coun­try: they do things dif­fer­ent­ly there." This quote from L.P. Hart­ley's "The Go-​Between" cap­tu­res the es­sence of a by­go­ne era, high­ligh­ting its uni­que­ness. It spe­ci­fi­cal­ly re­flects the Ed­war­di­an pe­ri­od, the final era in Bri­tish his­to­ry named after a mon­arch. Span­ning just over a de­ca­de from the early 20th Cen­tu­ry, it began after Queen Vic­to­ria's reign. This lei­su­re­ly time fea­tured women with large hats but no vo­ting rights, along­si­de the spraw­ling Bri­tish Em­pi­re. Ed­ward VII con­tras­ted shar­ply with his mo­ral­ly strict mo­ther, Queen Vic­to­ria, em­bra­cing lu­xu­ry. The era ended dra­ma­ti­cal­ly with the cat­a­clysm of The Great War.

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20th Century English Romantic Fiction

20th Cen­tu­ry Eng­lish Ro­man­tic Fic­tion

Eng­lish li­te­ra­tu­re cour­se 2021/22

Du­ring the aca­de­mic year 2021/2022, the cen­tral topic of the cour­se re­vol­ved around "Eng­lish Ro­man­tic Fic­tion of the 20th Cen­tu­ry." Within this cur­ri­cu­lum, the coll­ec­tion of no­vels and short sto­ries de­pic­ted tales about the human ex­pe­ri­ence and the va­rious ge­nui­ne re­ac­tions that arise from it. These nar­ra­ti­ves were deep, poi­gnant, open-​minded, and often in­fu­sed with humor. The voices that re­so­na­ted were em­ble­ma­tic of hu­ma­nism – in­di­vi­du­als who, in the words of E.M. Fors­ter from the Ed­war­di­an era, who­le­he­ar­ted­ly em­bra­ced human prin­ci­ples while main­tai­ning a sense of light­ness about them­sel­ves.

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