120043 AR Literature Course (Interactive ) 325 = Literature 1/2 (MA) (British/Irish/New English Literatures) (2009S)

Ever since its publication in 1847 Jane Eyre has held readers spellbound. Today, it is not only revered as a Victorian classic but has become a common property within British culture, acquiring not only the status of a myth but also its ability to be constantly re-written and re-invented. Evidently, the text still adresses psychological needs and romantic ideals in our modern culture. It has received interpretations from all critical schools but has exerted a challenge to successive generations of creative writers as well. Few literary works have been so often re-assembled, re-imagined, re-written as Charlotte Bronte's masterpiece. The new adaptations and revisions in turn variously interact with one another, interveave the hypotext with later rewritings and take up suggestions from Bronte scholarship. In the class we will discuss and compare some of these novels, dramas and films and relate these new versions to the time of their production and to suggestions made by various critical interpretations of the novel.