Tobias Smollett’s epistolary novel The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771) relates the exciting journey of a Welsh gentry family through England and Scotland. The events are reported from various perspectives, since each member of the family writes to friends in their own, idiosyncratic way. Visits to such centres of eighteenth-century life as the spa towns Bath and Scarborough or the pleasure garden Ranelagh in London give rise to extensive comments about contemporary manners and social conditions. In our discussions we will explore the narrative techniques in Smollett’s comic masterpiece and prominent aspects of eighteenth-century culture which are thematized in the novel.
Participants should acquire the following edition:
Tobias Smollett. The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (Oxford World’s Classics), edited by Lewis M. Knapp and Paul-Gabriel Boucé. Oxford UP, 2009, ISBN-13: 978-0199538980.
Assessment/requirements:
Übung: test at the end of term
Seminar: 12-page term paper
- Kursleiter/in: Uwe Klawitter