30133 - Theory of Literature (LM)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, the students have a good insight in the specificity of literary language, a depth knowledge about the general concepts of literature, the literary institutions, the relationships between text and context, the dynamics of literary communication, as well as stylistic traditions, genres, modes and forms of representation. They can master the interpretative tools for the analysis of literary texts.

Course contents

On the use and abuse of literature for life

The theoretical framework of the course is the complex relationship between narrative fiction and lived experience, in the light of Oscar Wilde’s famous paradox: maybe it is not art that imitates life, but life that imitates art. The main issue will be thematic, dealing with some novels of bourgeois modernity and their ways of representing one of the basic experiences of human life, as well as literary theme par excellence: the passion of love. In particular, the course will focus on a specific type of narcissistic and literary love in which the beloved woman is not regarded as an autonomous subject, but as an abstract ideality, a mirror, an image of the self largely nourished by literature itself. Moreover, as Western tradition teaches us, this representation of love is largely based on the desires and ideological patterns of the male subject. It is not by chance that this particular thematisation of the passion of love implies formal and rhetorical devices that reduce the woman to a passive object, deprived of a voice and a point of view, while the reader himself is caught in a linguistic and emotional trap.

Period: Second semester (February-March 2024)

Timetable of lessons, classrooms etc: Please visit the professor's website.

Readings/Bibliography

I. Novels

• Gustave Flaubert, L’educazione sentimentale (1869), Einaudi
• Thomas Hardy, L’amata (1897), Edizioni Clichy
• Italo Svevo, Senilità (1898), recommended edition in Italo Svevo, Romanzi e “continuazioni”, edited by Nunzia Palmieri and Fabio Vittorini, “Meridiani” Mondadori
• Marcel Proust, Un amore di Swann (1913), Mondadori
• Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955), Adelphi

II. Critical texts

Students must read the reference book in section A and three text in section B. When possible, the texts will be uploaded on the platform Virtuale.

A. Reference book (mandatory)

• Laura Neri, Giuseppe Carrara (eds.), Teoria della letteratura, Carocci

B. Three texts to choose

• Roland Barthes, Frammenti di un discorso amoroso, Einaudi
• Federico Bertoni, Sull’utilità e il danno della letteratura per la vita, in “Between”, vol. III, n. 5, 2013 (http://ojs.unica.it/index.php/between/article/view/954 )
• Federico Bertoni, La donna moltiplicata. Frammento di un discorso amoroso, in “P.R.I.S.M.I. Pour une Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur le Monde Italien”, Nouvelle Série, n. 1, 2020, pp. 69-81.
• Sigmund Freud, Introduzione al narcisismo, in La teoria psicanalitica, Bollati Boringhieri
• Jules De Gaultier, Il bovarismo, SE
• René Girard, Menzogna romantica e verità romanzesca, Bompiani
• Niklas Luhman, Amore come passione, Laterza
• Denis de Rougemont, L’amore e l’Occidente, Rizzoli
• Jean Rousset, Leurs yeux se rencontrèrent. La scène de première vue dans le roman, Corti
• Stendhal, Dell’amore (only the First Book), Garzanti
• Victor Stoichita, L’effetto Pigmalione. Breve storia dei simulacri da Ovidio a Hitchcock, Il Saggiatore

Teaching methods

Traditional lectures

Assessment methods

The exam consists of an oral test (20-30 minutes) that will assess the knowledge of the texts and the student’s critical and interpretative skills.

It is mandatory to read and carefully study all the texts listed in the bibliography, including the manual of Teoria della letteratura: specific questions may relate to general and theoretical categories, beyond the monographic topic of the course.

The exam will be divided in two parts:

1) Textual identification and analysis. As a first step, a short textual fragment (10-15 lines) taken from the narrative texts listed in bibliography (sections I and II) will be submitted to the student, who must identify the text, the author, the date of publication, and must contextualize it with regard to the plot, the characters and the narrative situation. The positive outcome of this first step allows the student to access the next one. A partial of defective identification of the text allows to proceed anyway (but with a pass or “fair” mark), while a complete misunderstanding leads to the failure of the exam.

2) Critical questions. In the following step, the student must answer to some questions: a) About the critical texts (see bibliography, section III, groups A and B); b) About the narrative texts (sections I and II), questioned both in a notional and in a critical-interpretative way.

The exam will also assess the student's methodological awareness, the ability to master the bibliography in the course programme and the the field-specific language of the discipline. The ability to establish links between the theoretical framework and the texts will be especially appreciated. A wide and systematic knowledge of the texts, interpretative insight, critical understanding, and rhetorical effectiveness will be evaluated with a mark of excellence (27-30), while 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 evaluated with a “fair” mark (24-26). A superficial knowledge and understanding of the material, a scarce analytical and expressive ability will be evaluated with a pass mark (18-23) or a negative mark.

Teaching tools

Projection of PowerPoint slides. For further teaching material, please visit the Professor's website and "Virtuale".

Links to further information

http://www.unibo.it/SitoWebDocente/default.htm?UPN=federico.bertoni@unibo.it

Office hours

See the website of Federico Bertoni