31353 - Anglo-American Literature 3

Learning outcomes

The course American Hardboiled Fictionwill introduce the students to a peculiar literary genre and a wafting cultural sensibility that have strongly permeated American narrative since the 1920s and American film since the 1940s.

Course contents

This year's program is a composite one, made of two components: A. one main course (40 hrs.) and B. one module (20 hrs.) that will be taught by Dr. Giuliana Gardellini.Integrated into this program, you will find the moduleoutline, a selected bibliography and the details of its final examination.

A.American Hardboiled Fiction(course) [Minganti]

This course is an introduction to that specifically American genre – or, better, sensibility – that has come to be known as “hardboiled”. It is a peculiar form of detective fiction that's been disseminated through various media (radio, cinema, television, comics, advertising) becoming a striking sylistic and cultural feature.

The course tackles relations that are established between literary imagination and the genre's narrative strategies.

Americanhardboiled fictionbecomes an effectivecase study: while rooted in American literary history – beginning with some 19th centuryur-models, like E.A. Poe'sdetection– through story papers, dime novels and pulp magazines, it gets to the Golden Age of theBlack Mask Schooland the Chandlers, Hammetts, McDonalds and beyond, to its postmodern revisitations and deconstructions.

The genre's consistency, mythologies, serial conventions, hybridizing practices and multimedia layering will be examined, with a particular attention for its film modulations, from the most classic 1940sfilm noirto 1970s revisitations and parodies.

B.The "Great" American Theater after World War II: Arthur Miller and Tennesse Williams(module) [Gardellini]

The aim of this module is to introduce the dramatic work produced by Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller contextualized in the changing American society and culture from World War II to the so-called “tranquillized Fifties” and the progressive, accelerated transformations connected to the second half of the 20th century. For each author, three among the main plays will be analyzed: Williams,The Glass Menagerie, 1944-45;A Streetcar Named Desire, 1947;Suddenly, Last Summer, 1958; Miller,All My Sons, 1947;Death of a Salesman, 1949;After the Fall, 1964. Where possible, some of the film versions will be viewed and discussed.

Bibliography

Introductory text:C.W.E. Bigsby,A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-Century American Drama. Vol. 2 Williams, Miller, Albee, CUP, 1984 (to be read entirely, with the exception of the chapter concerning Albee).

Primary texts:Tennessee Williams:The Glass Menagerie(1944-45),A Streetcar Named Desire(1947),Suddenly, Last Summer(1958);Arthur Miller:All My Sons(1947),Death of a Salesman(1949),After the Fall(1964).

Readings/Bibliography

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

N.B.: What follows herewith is a preliminary, conciselist of sources that will be examined during the course. At the beginning of the course, the ultimate syllabus will be distributed, along with a course schedule.

Primary sources.

Apart from short stories fromBlack Mask's early days (by authors like Carrol John Daly), a close attention will be devoted to thehardboiledclassics. A set of novels will be analyzed, namely works by Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon,The Glass Key, the Continental Op stories), Raymond Chandler (with Philip Marlowe as the protagonist:The Big Sleep,Farewell My Lovely,The Long Good-Bye), Ross MacDonald (with Lew Archer as the protagonist:The Moving Target), Jonathan Latimer (The Lady in the Morgue), Mickey Spillane (with Mike Hammer as the protagonist:Kiss Me, Deadly;I, the Jury) and other writers.

Also classical films adapted from such novels will be analyzed, includingThe Maltese Falcon(John Huston, 1941),Farewell, My Lovely(Dick Richards, 1975),The Big Sleep(Howard Hawks, 1944),Kiss Me Deadly(Robert Aldrich, 1955),The Long Good-bye(Robert Altman, 1973).

Critical sources.

Guido Carboni, “Un matrimonio ben riuscito? Note sul giallo d'azione negli USA”, inCalibano, n.7

John Cawelti,Adventure, Mystery, Romance, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1976

Brian Docherty, ed.,American Crime Fiction. Studies in the Genre, London: Macmillan, 1988

Marina Fabbri e Elisa Resegotti, eds.,I colori del nero: cinema, letteratura, noir, Milano: Ubulibri, 1989

Guido Fink, “La materia dei sogni. Hammett, Huston e i misteri del falco”, inQuaderni di cinema, n. 2-3, 1981

Miriam Gross, ed.,The World of Raymond Chandler, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1977

Richard Jameson, “Son of Noir”, inFilm Comment, November 1974

Paul Kerr, “Guardare i detectives”, inHollywood in Progress, Venezia: Marsilio, 1984

Richard Layman,Shadow Man. The Life of Dashiell Hammett, New York: Manly, 1981

David Madden,Tough Guy Writers of the Thirties, Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1979

Steven Marcus, “Introduction”, in Dashiell Hammett,The Continental Op, 1974

William Marling,The American Roman Noir: Hammett, Cain, and Chandler, Athens/New York: University of Georgia Press, 1995

Franco Minganti, “L'universo sonoro dell'Hard-Boiled” (inAltre X-roads, Imola: Bacchilega, 2009)

Franco Minganti, “B.H. (Before Humphrey). Le vicissitudini dell'Hard-Boiled Hero negli anni Venti e Trenta”, inLetterature d'America

Gene D. Phillips,Creatures of Darkness: Raymond Chandler,Detective Fiction, and Film Noir, Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2000

William Ruehlmann, “The Clergy of the Damned”, inSaint with a Gun. The Unlawful American Private Eye, New York: New York University Press, 1984

J.P. Telotte, “Talk and Trouble.Kiss Me Deadly's Apocalyptic Discourse”, inJournal of Popular Film & Television, 13:2, Summer 1985

Gregory A. Waller, “Mike Hammer and the Detective Film of the 1980s”, inJournal of Popular Film & Television, 13:3, Fall 1985

Ralph Willett,The Naked City. Urban Crime Fiction in the U.S.A., Manchester/New York: Manchester University Press, 1996

Peter Wolfe,Beams Falling: The Art of Dashiell Hammett, Bowling Green, Ohio: Popular Press, 1980

John Zorn,Spillane(CD/text)

TheMeridiani Mondadoridedicated to Dashiell Hammett (editor Franco Minganti) and Raymond Chandler (two volumes edited by Stefano Tani)

As an indication, we'll envision clips from these films:

The Thin Man(V.S. Van Dyke, 1934),The Maltese Falcon(John Huston, 1941),The Big Sleep(Howard Hawks, 1944),Murder, My Sweet(Edward Dmytryk, 1944),Time to Kill(Herbert Leeds, 1946),The Brasher Dobloon(Brahm, 1946),The Lady in the Lake(Robert Montgomery, 1947),The Band Wagon(Vincente Minnelli, 1953/“Girl Hunt” number),Kiss Me Deadly(Robert Aldrich, 1955), Mum deodorant (commercial, c1957),The Girl Hunters(Roy Rowland, 1963),Harper(Jack Smight, 1965),Lemmy Caution: Missione Alphaville(J.L. Godard, 1965),Tony Rome(Gordon Douglas, 1967),Peter Gunn(Blake Edwards, 1967),Marlowe(Paul Bogart, 1969),Shaft(Gordon Parks, Sr, 1971),Goodnight My Love(Peter Hyams, 1972),The Long Good-Bye(Robert Altman, 1973),Chinatown(Roman Polanski, 1974),The Drowning Pool(Stuart Rosenberg, 1974),The Conversation(Francis F. Coppola, 1974),Night Moves(Arthur Penn, 1975),Farewell, My Lovely(Dick Richards, 1975),The Black Bird(David Giler, 1975), Winston cigarettes (commercial, c1975),Hammett(Wim Wenders, 1976),The Big Sleep(Michael Winner, 1977),The Late Show(Robert Benton, 1977),The Cheap Detective(Robert Moore, 1978),The Big Fix(Jeremy Paul Kagan, 1978),The Man with Bogart's Face(Robert Day, 1979),Blade Runner(Ridley Scott, 1982),This Girl for Hire(Jerry Jameson, 1983),Mike Hammer(tv serial, 1984),I, the Jury(Richard T. Heffron, 1987),Angel Heart(Alan Parker, 1987),Hollywood Shuffle(Robert Townshend, 1987/“Sam Ace” sequence),Invisible Man(computergraphics, c1988),The Two Jakes(Jack Nicholson, 1990), and many more...

Teaching methods

Substantially a lecture course [in English] with part lecture, part class discussion. Attendance is strongly recommended (some film, sonic, literary materials we'll review in class won't be too easy to find later on).

Assessment methods

Three different moments will constitute the final exam:

1. Students will be required to write a paper (in English) after discussing its topic & outline with the instructor. The paper will be 8-10 pages long (*) and an oral exam will take place about the paper, its correction, and the course syllabus.

2. The oral exam will include a colloquium on the "institutional" syllabus (programma istituzionale). This mandatoryliterary survey is different for students of the 2nd and the 3rd years: in fact, their temporal spans cover American literature 1915-1945 and 1945-to date respectively (see "materiale didattico" on the pages ofLetterature anglo-americaneon the Facoltà's website: the definitive readings lists will be presented at the beginning of the course).

3. In order to complete the final, the students will have to (positively) pass Dr. Gardellini's examination on the program of the American Theater module. For this, they should refer to her website and AlmaEsami lists. It is required that students take the module exam before the course exam.

(*) by “page” we mean 2000 characters, spaces included.

Teaching tools

For this course we will resort to audiovisual materials of various kinds, some of which are rare or not particularly easy to find.That is why attendance is strongly recommended.

Office hours

See the website of Franco Minganti

See the website of Giuliana Gardellini