31031 - English Literature 1 (A-L)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course students are aware of the main lines of literary history. They are able to read, understand and translate texts in foreign language, and they are acquainted with the fundamental methods and analytical tools that are needed to interpret the works of the major authors, contextualising them against the cultural and historical period of reference.

Course contents

“Our Revels Now Are Ended”: Staging Identity, Desire, and Power in Early Modern Culture, Literature, and the Colonial Imagination

The course will examine the ways in which individual and collective identities are constructed, represented, and negotiated in the early modern period through the analysis of texts belonging to different genres, including utopia, drama, and prose fiction. The selected works will be studied as spaces of representation in which social roles, power hierarchies, and forms of belonging are staged, with particular attention to the relationships between authority, desire, and the construction of identities.

Through the study of texts such as Utopia, The Jew of Malta, Edward II, The Merchant of Venice, Othello, The Tempest, and Oroonoko, the course will explore the historical and cultural processes that shaped the formation of English identity, the revival of classical antiquity, the political, religious, and scientific discourses of the period, and the gradual development of English colonial imagination. Particular attention will be devoted to the ways in which these texts construct categories of belonging and difference through representations of gender, class, religion, nationality, and race.

The course will investigate the concept of “staging” as a cultural practice through which individuals and communities are called upon to perform roles shaped by social, religious, and political norms. It will examine relationships of love, marriage, friendship, kinship, and authority, showing how the private sphere is deeply interconnected with the social and political structures of early modernity and how interpersonal relationships become sites where power is negotiated.

The course will also explore the politics of desire and the processes through which certain forms of relationship, identity, and belonging are recognized, regulated, or marginalized. Particular attention will be paid to representations of the human body, both male and female, and to its cultural meanings within the religious, legal, and medical-scientific discourses of the period, considering the body as a site upon which differences, hierarchies, and forms of social control are inscribed.

A specific section will focus on the performative dimension of dramatic texts, considering theatre not only as a literary form but also as a cultural and social practice. The plays will be examined in relation to the material conditions of their production and reception, including the role of theatre companies, censorship, controversies surrounding the theatre, the relationship between drama and monarchical power, and the heterogeneous audiences of the early modern period.

Finally, the course will analyse how these texts contribute to the construction, reproduction, and contestation of ideas related to identity, difference, and belonging. Literature and theatre will be considered as spaces in which dominant social models are represented and negotiated, but also transformed through new forms of cultural imagination and production.

Lessons will be also devoted to the introduction and analysis of English literature and culture from the Medieval age to the Restoration through the reading of some extracts from emblematic texts:

Everyman; G. Chaucer, “Generale Prologue” (The Canterbury Tales); W. Shakespeare, selected sonnets, E. Spenser, The Faery Queen and A view of the Present State of Ireland, J. Donne, selected songs and sonnets, J. Milton, Paradise Lost.

Readings/Bibliography

Primary Sources:

Theatre: Students should reads at least 3 texts from the following reading list

C. Marlowe, Edward II, 1591-92

C. Marlowe, The Jew of Malta, 1592

W. Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, 1596/98

W. Shakespeare, Othello, 1604.

W. Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1610-11.

Prose: Students should reads at least 1 texts from the following reading list

Thomas More, Utopia, 1515-16.

A. Behn, Oroonoko or the Royal Slave, 1688

Secondary Sources

(N.B. The final Syllabus and Reading List will be available on the first day of class)

Boose L. E., “The Father and the Bride in Shakespeare”, PMLA, vol. 97, n. 3 (1982) pp. 325-347. (obbligatorio)

Doran Susan, “Virginity, Divinity and Power: The Portraits of Elizabeth I”, in Doran S., Freeman T. S (eds) The Myth of Elizabeth, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2003. (online: http://www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Focus/Elizabeth/Doran_Chapter_7.pdf (obbligatorio)

Ferguson, Margaret W., “Juggling the categories of race, class, and gender: Aphra Behn's Oroonoko”, pp. 209-224, in Hendricks Margo and Patricia Parker (eds.) Women, Race and Writing in the Early Modern Period, London, New York, Routledge, 1994.

Greenblatt, S., "Introduction", Renaissance Self-Fashioning. From More to Shakespeare, The University of Chicago Press, 1980, pp. 1-9

Irving Ribner, “Marlowe's Edward II and the Tudor History Play”, ELH, Dec., 1955, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Dec., 1955), pp. 243-253

Loomba A. “Outsiders in Shakespeare's England”, in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare, eds by M. de Grazia and S. Wells, Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 147-166. (obbligatorio)

Perry, Curtis, "The Politics of Access and Representations of the Sodomite King in Early Modern England", Renaissance Quarterly , Winter, 2000, Vol. 53, No. 4 (Winter, 2000), pp. 1054-1083

Alessandro Serpieri, “Contratti d’amore e di morte in The merchant of Venice”, in The Merchant of Venice. Dal testo alla scena, a cura di Mariangela Tempera, Bologna, CLUEB, 1994, pp.9-21.

Silvani Giovanna, “Barabas, Shylock e i linguaggi dell'odio”, in Mariangela Tempera, (a cura di) The Merchant of Venice. Dal testo alla scena, Bologna, Clueb, 1994, pp. 23-36

G. Claeys, (ed. by), The Cambridge Companion to Utopian Literature, Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 2010. (selected chapters)

Traub Valery, “Gender and sexuality in Shakespeare’s England”, in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare, eds. Margareta de Grazia, Stanley Wells, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 129-146. (obbligatorio)

Vaughan V. M., Vaughan A. T., 1997, “Before Othello: Elizabethan Representations of Sub-Saharan Africans”, The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, Vol. LIV, n. 1, pp. 19-44. (obbligatorio)

  Students are expected to know English Literary History from the origin to the Restoration using Manuale di letteratura e cultura inglese, a cura di Lilla Maria Crisafulli e Keir Elam, Bologna, Bononia University Press.

Teaching methods

Frontal lessons aiming to provide students with some critical tools to approach literary texts, both in terms of linguistic analysis and of historical and cultural contextualization. Remediations and adaptations based on Shakespeare’s works.

Assessment methods

Two different options are possible:

1) A written test followed by an oral exam suggested to those students who attended classes regularly.

The written test will take place only once, at the end of the course, and will assess the students' knowledge of the main lines of English literature from the Medieval age to late XVII century. After this part, if the student passes the written text, there will be an oral interview on the primary reading list analysed during the course. The written text will take place only one time at the end of the course.

2) Oral examination: for those students who do not attend classes or do not take the written text there will be an oral examination on the history of English literature from the Medieval age to the Seventeenth century (Restoration) and on the primary reading list analysed during the course.

NB: Those students, who are able to demonstrate a wide and systematic understanding of the issues covered during the classes, are able to use these critically and who master the field-specific language of the discipline will be given a mark of excellence. Those students who demonstrate a mnemonic knowledge of the subject with a more superficial analytical ability and ability to synthesize, a correct command of the language but not always appropriate, will be given a satisfactory mark. A superficial knowledge and understanding of the material, a scarce analytical and expressive ability that is not always appropriate will be rewarded with a ‘pass’ mark. Students who demonstrate gaps in their knowledge of the subject matter, inappropriate language use, lack of familiarity with the literature in the program bibliography will not be given a pass mark.

Students with SLD or temporary or permanent disabilities. It is suggested that they get in touch as soon as possible with the relevant University office (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en) and with the lecturer in order to seek together the most effective strategies for following the lessons and/or preparing for the examination.

Teaching tools

Students with SLDs or temporary or permanent disabilities: we suggest that you contact the relevant university office ( https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en ) and your teacher immediately to work together to find the most effective strategies for attending classes and/or preparing for exams.
Any requests for exam accommodations must be made at least 15 days before the date of the exam, by sending an email to the teacher and copying (Cc) the email address disabilita@unibo.it (in case of disability) or dsa@unibo.it (for students with Specific Learning Difficulties).

Power point presentations. The Powerpoint files that will be used during the course will be available for students on Virtuale:

https://virtuale.unibo.it/my/

 

Office hours

See the website of Gilberta Golinelli