Gastvortrag – Peter Hühn: „A Narratological Approach to the Analysis of Lyric Poems“

The DFG Center for Advanced Studies “Russian-Language Poetry in Transition” (FOR 2603) cordially invites you to a lecture with Peter Hühn streamed live via Zoom. Please register by e-mail with Anna Fees (anna.fees@uni-trier.de) no later than October 26th, 2021, to receive the stream’s access data.

Abstract: Although the genre of lyric poetry is not defined by narrativity, poems do use narrative devices pervasively in organizing both their overall sequential structure as well as subordinate sections. This is due to the function of narration as a privileged instrument for ordering perception, consciousness, imagination, communication and experience, ultimately based on the fact that human conditions of life and communication are determined by change, by being subject to time. Because of the pervasive use of narrative elements in lyric poetry, it is fruitful to apply categories and methods originally designed for the study of narrative prose fiction to analyse how lyric poems create an aesthetic expression of experience and make sense of it. This transgeneric application of narratological categories and principles has to be adapted to the genre of lyrical poetry by taking into account the distinctly poetic manner in which poems render narrative elements (such as speakers, characters, settings, actions) as well as by tracing the effect of prosodic and poetic devices (such as rhyming, metre, segmentation). This approach will be demonstrated by the detailed analysis of two recent British poems, “Homecoming” by Simon Armitage and “Love Made Yeah” by Glyn Maxwell.

Peter Hühn (geb. 1939) war Professor für Englische Literatur an der Uni­versität Hamburg (seit 2005 im Ruhestand): Er war Mitglied der Forschergruppe Narratologie (2001-2007) und war Mitglied des ICN (Interdisciplinary Center for Narratology, 2007-2019). Er hat Bücher und Artikel veröffentlicht unter anderem über die Theorie der Lyrik und die Geschichte der englischen Lyrik, über Narratologie, die Anwendung der Narratologie auf die Lyrikanalyse sowie Detektiv- und Verbrechensliteratur. Er ist Autor der Geschichte der englischen Lyrik, 2 Bände (1995), Mitautor von Der Entwicklungsroman in Europa und Übersee (2001), Die europäische Lyrik seit der Antike (2005) und Lyrik und Narratologie: Textanalysen zu deutschsprachigen Gedichten vom 16. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert (2007) sowie Hauptautor von The Narratological Analysis of Lyric Poetry: Studies in English Poetry from the 16^th to the 20^th Century (2005), Eventfulness in British Fiction (2010), Facing Loss and Death: Narrative and Eventfulness in Lyric Poetry (2016) und Mit-Herausgeber und Beiträger des Handbook of Narratology (2009, 2014).