22210 - English Literature C - First Module (E-O)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course students will be acquainted with the lineaments of XX century English literary history, will be able to read and understand English texts, and will be also acquainted with some basic critical methods and tools, with the aim to enable them to interpret the works of major authors, contextualising them against the background of XX century culture and society.

Course contents

The Double in XIX and XX century

The theme of the Double is a crucial one in European and American literature of the XIX century. At the turn of the century, the theme can be found in some texts with a new approach, which suggests the imminent Freudian discoveries and foreshadows the idea of the complexities and contradictions of the human soul, peculiar of  XX century literature. Therefore the encounter with the Double, an uncanny experience in XIX century works, will have more subtle and elaborate meanings in some English works in the first decades of the XX century.

Readings/Bibliography

I PART

The Theme of the Double in XIX and XX century

Primary sources:

Students are expected to read the following works:

R. L. Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

O. Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

James Joyce,  “The Dead”, in Dubliners
Virginia Woolf,  Mrs Dalloway

Critical sources:

In generale sul tema del doppio:

John Herdman, The Double in nineteenth-century fiction, London, Macmillan, 1990, chapters 2 (“The Emergence and Development of the Double Theme”, pp. 11-20) and 8 (“The Double in Decline” for the sections concerning Stevenson and Wilde, pp. 127-143) (F)

Otto Rank, Il doppio, Milan, Sugarco Edizioni, s.i.d. (F)

 

Stevenson (two critical essays or group of essays from the following list):

1) Alessandra Calanchi, “«Lurking in His Victim's Room»: Il laboratorio del dottor Jekyll”, in Quattro studi in rosso, Cesena, Il Ponte Vecchio, 1997, pp. 113-149 (F)

2) Guido Fink, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Lo strano caso del dottor Jekyll e del signor Hyde”, Torino Lindau, 1990, pp. 9-74; 83-115 (F)

3) Saggi di G.K. Chesterton, V. Nabokov, Katherine Linehan e Peter K. Garrett tratti da R.L. Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, ed. by k. Linehan, New York, Norton, 2001 (F)

 

Wilde (two critical essays from the following list):

Alessandra Calanchi, “«The Secrets of his Upstairs Room»: La soffitta di Dorian Gray”, in Quattro studi in rosso, Cesena, Il Ponte Vecchio, 1997, pp. 150-188 (F)

Camille Paglia, “Il bel ragazzo come guastatore. Il ritratto di Dorian Gray di Wilde” in Sexual Personae, Torino, Einaudi, 1993, pp. 678-703 (F)

Reviews and Reactions, in Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, ed. by M.P. Gillespie, New York, Norton,  2006, pp. 347-375 (F)

John Paul Riquelme, “Oscar Wilde's Aesthetic Gothic”, in Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, New York, Norton,  2006, pp. 490-509 (F)

 

Joyce (two critical essays from the following list):

Terence Brown, “Introduction”, in James Joyce, Dubliners, ed. by Terence Brown, London, Penguin, 1992, pp. vii-xlix (F)

Richard Ellmann, “Il retroscena di ‘The Dead'” in R. Ellmann, James Joyce, Milano, Feltrinelli, 1982, pp. 292-304 (F)

Margot Norris, “Not the Girl She Was at All: Women in ‘The Dead'”, in James Joyce, The Dead, Boston and New York, Bedford/St. Martin's Press, 1994, pp. 190-205 (F)

Daniel R. Schwarz, “Gabriel Conroy's Psyche: Character as Concept in Joyce's ‘The Dead'”, in in James Joyce, The Dead, Boston and New York, Bedford/St. Martin's Press, 1994, pp. 102-124 (F)

 

Woolf

David Lodge, “Il flusso di coscienza” in L'arte della narrativa, Milano, Bompiani, 2001 (1992), pp. 56-61 (F)

Virginia Woolf, “Modern Fiction” (1925), in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, VII edition, volume 2, pp. 2148-2153 (BDL)

Two critical essays from the following list:

Nadia Fusini, “Introduzione”, in V. Woolf, La signora Dalloway, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2005, pp. v-xxix (F)

M. Mancioli Billi, “4: Mrs Dalloway e la tecnica del flusso di coscienza”, in Virginia Woolf, Firenze, Nuova Italia, 1975, pp. 39-51 (F)

Sergio Perosa, “Saggio introduttivo e Appendice”, in Virginia Woolf, La signora Dalloway, Milano, Mondadori, 1979, pp. ix-xlii (F)

Elaine Showalter, “Introduction”, in Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway, London, Penguin, 1992, pp. xi-xlviii (F)

II PART

Literary history:

Students are also required to know the lineaments of the English literary history of the XX century.

Teaching methods

Frontal lessons.
Reading and analysis of literary texts.

Assessment methods

Office hours

See the website of Gino Scatasta