Urbanisation seems to be one of the defining developments of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Large cities are becoming a part of daily life for increasing numbers of people across the globe, and in turn affect these people’s perceptions of the world, and their lives in this world. Urbanisation, it has been argued, is a quintessential condition of our modernity.
Yet if this is so, we also need to ask what may have come before. What were cities like before the twentieth century, and what place did they take in relation to other parts of the country, or to cities in other countries? How did city dwellers perceive their “early modern” urban environments, how did they think of themselves in relation to “their” cities, or of the part the city played in their lives?
This course focuses on one possible “pre-history” of modern cities, by looking at the writings of inhabitants of British cities between about 1500 and 1900. During these four centuries, British cities, and most prominently London, were amongst the fastest growing cities in Western Europe, producing and responding to rapidly changing ways and views of life. We are going to encounter a variety of reactions to and views of early modern British cities in the form of “literary” documents, from sixteenth-century poetic representations of London’s streets and shops, to Victorian studies of the corruption or destruction of human lives and the environment by the social and industrial pollution of large cities. The purpose is to analyse these documents for their representations of city life, and for the implications those representations may have for an understanding of early modern views of the world and of the individuals and groups that inhabit it. In the process, we are also going to question the meaning and content of Literature as a cultural category and object, as a form that influences its readers’ perceptions and ideas, and is in turn influenced by them.
As this is an introductory course to literary study, another emphasis is going to be on the acquisition of skills and techniques central to the study of literature. We are going to practice how to produce detailed textual analyses to allow for more intricate understandings of the course readings, and we will also work on our abilities to bring those analyses and insights across in writing. For that purpose, students enrolled in this course will write a number of close reading assignments and two short term papers.
Area
Fulfillment Information
Satisfies second half of GE requirement for area A
Instructor Sören Hammerschmidt
Office and Office Hours
Location/Time
HSSB 1210
TR, 9:00 AM - 10:40 AM
Required Texts Rowlandson, Mary. The Sovereignty and Goodness of God. Ed. Neal Salisbury. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1997. Three texts on electronic reserve (ERes)
(course-specific password to be found on syllabus) Shakespeare, William. Henry V. Ed. John Russell Brown. New York: Signet, 1998. Course Reader (available at Associated Students from week 3)
Assignments (more)
25% Paper Assignment 1, Paper Topics 10% Close Reading Assignment 3 10% Close-Reading Assignments 25% Paper Assignments 20% Participation and Attendance
Sören Hammerschmidt 
