History of Finnish literature

This course introduces basic themes and knowledge of history of Finnish literature from neoromantic period (symbolism) from the end of 19th century through finnish-swedish modernistic poetry, realism and naturalism, psychological roman and finnish-language lyric poetry until II World War.

a) to acquaint the students with the leadings trends in the Finnish literature of the period 1885-1939 through the analysis of selected works. To trace the development of the novel in the 20th century (neoromantic, realistic, naturalistic, psychologic, working class novel) and the Finnish poetry of the period 1895-1940 (romanticism and traditionalism in the poetry, poetry in connection with history and mythology), swedish-language poetry (finnish-swedish modernism): b) to acquaint the students with: the place of literary studies in the humanities (literature, culture); relationships between literary studies and other humanistic disciplines (linguistics, philosophy, sociology, psychology, cultural studies etc.); basic literary notions (period, movement, convention, author, literary work, the reader etc.); the difference between professional and colloquial approaches to literature; c) gain the skills necessary to: comprehend and summarize scholarly articles in finnish literature and literature scholarship, as well as comment upon them; prepare in class oral presentations; contextualize acquired knowledge; summarize discussions and draw conclusions; ability to work with others students.

K.Laitinen, Suuomen kirjallisuuden historia, Helsinki 1996;

K.Laitinen, Historia literatury fińskiej, Wrocław 1987;

K.Laitinen, Finnlands Literatur, Hamburg 1967;

Jaakko Ahokas, A History of Finnish Literature, Bloomington 1973;

A History of Finnland's Literature, hrsg. von George C. Schoolfield, University of Nebraska 1998;

Kulturlexikon Finnland, hrsg. von Olli Aho, Helsinki 1998;

Suomen kirjallisuushistoria, SKS Helsinki 1999.