420003 SE Traps (in) literature: Cunning, deception and dissimulation as plot and stylistic moves (2024S)

The course examines literature as an art of disguise: on the one hand, intrigue, deception and delusion as a motif and core element of the plot. on the other hand, there are also traps at the level of discourse, from the Baroque obsession with the motif of disillusion to the "unreliable narrator" of the modern novel and the labyrinthic textual strategies of the literary avant-garde.
Students familiarise themselves with theories of disguise and masquerade from three epochs: Antiquity, Early Modernity and Modernity. Continuities are fleshed out, but also diverse functional hypotheses are analysed in relation to the pitfalls of literature. Special attention is paid to rhetorical figures. The theories, which are negotiated in rhetoric, poetics, but also in philosophical and psychological texts, are tested on concrete literary examples. Students will have a sound knowledge of the functional and formal conditions of literary deceptions and their theoretical foundations.
The lecturer first fives an introduction into the variety of possible literary traps that prepares students for an interactive close reading of selected theoretical texts. Subsequently, literary examples from the students' specific PhD projects will be analysed in plenary sessions.