30135 - Theory and History of Literary Genres (LM) (A)

Course contents

Objective and subjective time in the novel

The classical novel is characterised by a unitary, coherent and somehow objective time, a time we can measure by clocks and calendars, a time to which every narrated event belongs. In the Twentieth century, a completely different sense of time breaks into the novel's fabric, which is made up of multiple, fragmented, patchy and incompatible temporalities. Time is no more an objective phenomenon, but it becomes a function of the characters' perceptions. Moreover, on the historical plan as well, a series of scientific, technological and social transformations dramatically change the very experience of time and the traditional ways of perceiving and measure it. Starting from some key texts of Modernism, the course will investigate these changes that simultaneously hit reality and literary structures.

Readings/Bibliography

Literary texts

► J. Conrad, L'agente segreto, nell'edizione Firenze, Giunti (a cura di A. Serpieri) o in Romanzi occidentali, Milano, Mursia (a cura di U. Mursia)

► V. Woolf, La signora Dalloway, a cura di N. Fusini, Milano, Feltrinelli

► W. Faulkner, L'urlo e il furore, trad. di A. Mantovani, Torino, Einaudi

► M. Lowry, Sotto il vulcano, trad. di G. Monicelli, Milano, Feltrinelli

Critical texts

ٕ► Kern, Il tempo e lo spazio. La percezione del mondo tra Otto e Novecento, Bologna, Il mulino

► G. Genette, "Ordine", "Durata", "Frequenza" (pp. 81-207), in Id., Figure III, Torino, Einaudi

► P. Ricoeur, ”Tra tempo mortale e tempo monumentale: Mrs. Dalloway” (pp. 169-186), in Id., Tempo e racconto, vol. II, La configurazione nel racconto di finzione, Milano Jaca Book

► O. De Zordo, "Malcolm Lowry e la ri-scrittura del modernismo" (pp. 544-558), in G. Cianci (a cura di) Modernismo/Modernismi, Milano, Principato

► J.P. Sartre, “A proposito di L'urlo e il furore. La temporalità in Faulkner” (pp. 6-12), in Id., Che cos'è la letteratura?, Milano, Il Saggiatore

Assessment methods

Oral examination based on the list of recommended readings

Office hours

See the website of Donata Meneghelli