Rilke and Woolf, Prose or Poetry

Undergraduate

Prose or poetry? The course discusses the literary and political question by juxtaposing two transformative writers of modernism: the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke – who authored one significant novel – and the British novelist Virginia Woolf – who wrote a few idiosyncratic poems and whose novels are often marked by lyrical composition. Both writers’ works are closely read and discussed against the backdrop of debates about prose-versus- poetry in literature, and about the "prose" of modern times versus the "poetic" old world, respectively. Readings include: Rilke, ‘object poems’ (Ding-Gedichte), prose poems, Duino Elegies, and the novel Malte Laurids Brigge; Woolf, the novels Mrs. Dalloway and The Waves, and occasional poems; debates on prose and poetry in Hegel, Heine, Baudelaire, Merleau-Ponty, Agamben and others. The Course offers an optional German section, 1 hr a week, time to be determined, which counts toward the certificate of advanced language proficiency in German. WR , HU M 1:30pm-3:25pm