Topics in Prose Fiction: Small Forms: Speed writing, condensing, and mnemonics

Short literary prose forms have always been around, but not always been fully appreciated. Aphorisms, fables, fragments, short stories, maxims or vignettes we find in the oeuvre of most, if not all major writers. But we tend to see them only as minor works. This seminar will read these small prose forms in their own right, as poetological and technical inventions. Our readings range from the 18th century to the present, from G. E. Lessing or the Romantics to Franz Kafka, Bertolt Brecht and to Alexander Kluge.