German 947 Bild und Text

947 Advanced Seminar in German Literature

Emblem, Allegory, Symbol

Sabine Mödersheim

In this course we will examine various printed emblem books from the 16th through 21st centuries. We will look at the impact of the genre on literature, art, architecture, and visual culture in general.
Emblem books first emerged as a specific type of illustrated book comprising moral epigrams illustrated by allegorical picturae. The beginning of the sixteenth century saw the invention of this new "multimedia" genre emerge following the development of the printing press and new techniques of reproductions of images such as woodcuts and copperplate engraving. This allowed for easier reproduction and circulation of printed texts as well as images. Emblem books with their specific allegorical and often enigmatic combination of image and text grew very popular in the 16th and 17th centuries and waned with the paradigmatic epistomenological shift from analogy to representation towards the end of the 18th century. With several thousand emblem books issued from printing presses throughout Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this new genre had an indelible impact on the media landscape of the Reformation period and has to be considered as a significant expression of the cultural life of the European Renaissance and Baroque. Drawing upon a specific referential and representational mode that helps to visualize abstract concepts the emblem genre with its self-referential intermediality provides quite a unique insight into Denkfiguren of the Early Modern period.

TAUGHT IN ENGLISH - Students from English, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch, Scandinavian, Russian, Comparative Literature are encourage to enroll. There will be options to write a final paper about emblem books and authors from various countries and languages. Final papers are accepted in English or German. German Department students are strongly encouraged to select a German-speaking author/ German emblem book and write their final papers in German.

Readings:
John Manning. The Emblem. London: Reaktion Books, 2002.
Excerpts from Peter Daly, ed. Companion to Emblem Studies. New York: AMS Press, 2008.
Reader and Electronic Editions of Emblem Books

Professor Sabine Mödersheim
German Department UW Madison
838 Van Hise (phone 262-3758)
email: smoedersheim@wisc.edu
http://german.lss.wisc.edu/~smoedersheim/

947 Advanced Seminar in German Literature Emblem, Allegory, Symbol Sabine Mödersheim
In this course we will examine various printed emblem books from the 16th through 21st centuries. We will look at the impact of the genre on literature, art, architecture, and visual culture in general. Emblem books first emerged as a specific type of illustrated book comprising moral epigrams illustrated by allegorical picturae. The beginning of the sixteenth century saw the invention of this new "multimedia" genre emerge following the development of the printing press and new techniques of reproductions of images such as woodcuts and copperplate engraving. This allowed for easier reproduction and circulation of printed texts as well as images. Emblem books with their specific allegorical and often enigmatic combination of image and text grew very popular in the 16th and 17th centuries and waned with the paradigmatic epistomenological shift from analogy to representation towards the end of the 18th century. With several thousand emblem books issued from printing presses throughout Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this new genre had an indelible impact on the media landscape of the Reformation period and has to be considered as a significant expression of the cultural life of the European Renaissance and Baroque. Drawing upon a specific referential and representational mode that helps to visualize abstract concepts the emblem genre with its self-referential intermediality provides quite a unique insight into Denkfiguren of the Early Modern period. TAUGHT IN ENGLISH - Students from English, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch, Scandinavian, Russian, Comparative Literature are encourage to enroll. There will be options to write a final paper about emblem books and authors from various countries and languages. Final papers are accepted in English or German. German Department students are strongly encouraged to select a German-speaking author/ German emblem book and write their final papers in German. Readings: John Manning. The Emblem. London: Reaktion Books, 2002. Excerpts from Peter Daly, ed. Companion to Emblem Studies. New York: AMS Press, 2008. Reader and Electronic Editions of Emblem Books
Professor Sabine Mödersheim German Department UW Madison 838 Van Hise (phone 262-3758) email: smoedersheim@wisc.edu http://german.lss.wisc.edu/~smoedersheim/