C LIT 30B Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Adalbert Stifter, Old-Growth Forest, Whipps Cross
Document Summary
Skim the last three class texts; email prof. to put lectures on gauchospace. Moving from english literature to austria and czech. Adalbert stifter: high forest (ch 1 - 3) hochwald 1862. Questions: how are nature and landscape described in the text. Story is set around oberplan, the bohemian forest village of sifter"s childhood -- stretches back to the 30 years war. The theme is the tragic downfall of a family and the genesis of tradition. These two components are intertwined in a manner which is contradictory in substance, but coherent in its aesthetics. Somehow contradictory but combined well in the text. The title alone reveals sifter"s intention: the evocation of a high forest (hochwald) or primeval forest (urwald) untouched by human hands. Profuse use of ekphrasis of the landscape presents the reader with a painting of a phenomenal natural wonder, whose theme is emphasized by. Sifter in his repetition of the lexeme wald (forest) in the title of each section.
