German
104-6-20: Freshman Seminar : ALL FOR LOVE - GERMAN STYLE

Instructor: Kristine A Thorsen
Office address: 2-535 Kresge Hall Evanston Campus 2203
Phone: 847-491-7489
E-mail: kat162@northwestern.edu
Office Hours:

Expected Enrollment: 15

COURSE DESCRIPTION: In this course, we shall read four classic German love stories, which have stood the test of time and profoundly influenced not only German, but world literature and culture. Beginning with a narrative poem of the Middle Ages, we shall encounter the realm of courtly love in Gottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan. By the latter eighteenth century, Germany’s greatest writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe had penned his path breaking saga of unrequited love, The Sorrows of Young Werther and generated a cult following. The preoccupations of the late nineteenth-century Prussian aristocracy and bourgeoise with rank, propriety, and adultery haunt the pages of Theodore Fontane’s best novel Effi Briest (1891). Obsession with youth and beauty are masterfully realized in Thomas Mann’s immortal novella, Death in Venice (1912). In addition to the literary works, we shall screen and discuss excerpts from two operas, Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and Massenet’s Werther as well as two films, Fassbinder’s “Effi Briest” and Visconti’s “Death in Venice” to assess the manner in which these classic love stories are enshrined in the literary canon and popular culture.

TEACHING METHOD: Discussions with active student participation; short, student-led oral presentations; screenings of opera and film adaptations. Class and texts in English.

EVALUATION METHOD: Discussion (20%);
Writing Assignments (40%);
Oral Presentation (20%);
Final Essay (20%)
4 short essays (4pp. each); Final take-home essay (4 pp.)

READING: Von Strassburg, Gottfried. Tristan.
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. The Sufferings of Young Werther.
Fontane, Theodor. Effi Briest.
Mann, Thomas. Death in Venice.

[Course Descriptions for Spring 2009] [Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences] [GERMAN German]