The relationship between literary writing and memory has been complex and varied since antiquity. Literary texts have represented memory – its working mechanisms, potentials (e.g., as a source of literary inspiration, a means of revisiting one’s childhood), as well as failures (e.g., memory loss or false memories) – in a multitude of different ways. Certain genres, such as most notably autobiography, seem to be perfect vessels for human memory. Literary texts have also been closely tied to strategies for coping with trauma. But literature, understood as a medium, can itself be regarded as a form of (intertextual) memory preserving voices from the past. Hence, considering theories of memory, literature plays a prominent role in approaches to collective or cultural memory. In this seminar we will explore selected examples from English literature, ranging from early 19th century to the present day, which engage with various kinds of memory. In addition to theoretical texts and philosophical writings, we will, read primary texts belonging to different genres. We will read poems by authors such as William Wordsworth, Christina Rossetti and T. S. Eliot, three novels (Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, Ian McEwan’s Atonement and Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending), and shorter fictional pieces.
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