31031 - English Literature 1 (M-Z)

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

Wizards, witches and fairies in the English Renaissance theatre: a critical journey through knowledge, power, nature and gender identity

Magic played a key role in early-modern society and culture. Suffice it to think of figures such as Cornelius Agrippa or John Dee, who was astrologer and mathematician at the court of Queen Elizabeth. King James's obsession with witches is also well-known. The persecution of 'witches' commenced in Scotland around 1590, under the reign of James VI (later James I of England), and was followed by the publication of his famous treatise Daemonologie (1597).

The cultural representation of magic enables us to deal with subjects of great interest, such as the way in which knowledge was articulated between the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, when new experimental disciplines developed, marking the transition towards modern science. Moreover, this theme also enables us to assess some of the forms of control to which knowledge was subject, notably on the part of ecclesiastical authorities, for knowledge and power – as philosopher Francis Bacon reminded us already in the seventeenth century – are closely connected.

Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus (ca 1588-92) is a case in point, since in this play faith and knowledge are contrasted according to the Biblical archetype of the tree of knowledge, whose fruit caused the exile of Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden. The protagonist of this tragedy is a theologian from the University of Wittemberg, the city where Luther lived and where the Protestant reformation started. Faustus’ decision to make a deal with the devil in order to gain access to unbound knowledge results however only in damnation. This seemingly straightforward story of hybris and damnation acquires a new complexity of meaning once it is compared with what we may surmise from documents about Marlowe’s own ambivalent attitude to religion.

The next play we shall analyse – A Midsummer Night's Dream (ca. 1595-96) – allows us to examine the comic treatment of magic through its reference to the popular belief in fairies. This story, pivoting on the power of eros, exemplifies the magical vision of natural forces that was prevalent in popular culture at the time. According to an animistic and hierarchical conception of creation, the cosmos was presented as structured – according to a logic of correspondences – into a number of interrelated planes. We will study this drama also through the category of gender, which will prove central to our journey. Gender is here declined in the couple of Oberon and Titania, king and queen of the fairies, whose harmony determines natural balance, and whose conflicts are instead presented as the cause of catastrophes and environmental upheavals.

In the following classes we will discuss Shakespeare’s As You Like It (ca 1599), which shows yet another facet of the relationship between magic and comedy. Focusing on the antithetical relationship between city and forest, or more generally between civilisation and nature, this play can be regarded as a critical commentary on the impact modernity had on English society. Modernity is associated here with the circulation of information (the early modern burgeoning interest for news) and people (the new custom of travelling abroad, which is stigmatised through the character of Jaques), and is contrasted with life in the forest. Against this background, the theme of magic is grafted into the final scenes. The magic the play evokes is a benevolent form of illusionism rather than a supernatural ritual. What matters, however, is that this magic is performed by the play’s heroine, who thus reaffirms her role as goddess ex machina, in conformity with the pattern of cross-dressing through which she had previously overcome prevailing genre conventions, recovering forbidden forms of agency.

Our critical itinerary will then touch upon plays that contrast a masculine and a feminine approach to esoteric knowledge, whose treatment in Renaissance drama differs considerably. In Macbeth (ca 1603-6) and The Masque of Queens (1609) witches are depicted as repugnant and abominable beings. The importance witches acquired in the British imagination of those years is proved by Ben Jonson's choice to include these figures precisely in a masque, that is to say in an allegorical spectacle that was staged at court to celebrate royal power. Here witches embody disorder and are vanquished by the harmonious authority of the sovereigns – James I and his wife Anne of Denmark.

On the other hand, in The Tempest (ca 1610-11) Prospero is portrayed as a benevolent patriarch. Thanks to his magic powers, Prospero has imposed his authority on the island which had been previously governed by the evil witch Sycorax, Caliban's mother, and he will also ultimately shape the destinies of all the other characters in the play. In the epilogue, Prospero is even presented as an alter ego of the dramatist, strengthening that analogy between magic and theatre which was a recurring theme in Renaissance drama.

Another aim of the course is to approach a variety of theatrical genres, ranging from tragedy (Dr. Faustus and Macbeth) to comedy (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), romance (The Tempest), the masque (The Masque of Queens) and the domestic tragedy (The Witch of Edmonton), with its combination of crime and the supernatural. These plays will also enable us to investigate the phenomenon of metatheatre – that is to say, all those devices that break theatrical illusion conversely calling the attention of the public to the performative dimension. In the Renaissance period, this questioning of the immaterial and yet immersive nature of drama conveys an ontological question on the very nature of reality and human experience that rests on the revealing analogy between theatre, dreams and magic.

Readings/Bibliography

Primary sources

Students are expected to study in view of the exam four of these texts, which will be discussed in class:

Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus (ca 1592)

William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (ca 1595-96)

William Shakespeare, As You Like It (ca 1599)

William Shakespeare, Macbeth (ca 1603-6)

William Shakespeare, The Tempest (ca 1610-11)

William Rowley, Thomas Dekker e John Ford, The Witch of Edmonton (1621)

Critical sources

Compulsory:

Yates, Frances A., Cabbala e occultismo nell’età elisabettiana, Torino, Einaudi, 1982, pp. 3-118.

Students will also have to read five of these essays:

Cioni, Fernando, introduzione a William Shakespeare, Sogno di una notte di mezza estate, con testo a fronte, a cura di Fernando Cioni, traduzione di Gabriele Baldini, Milano, Rizzoli, 2013.

Clements, Elisa, “Forming the ‘Chain of Chains’: Rosalind and the Magic of Love in As You Like It, Inscape, Vol. 23, N. 3, Article 4, pp. 11-17 <https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/inscape/vol23/iss3/4?utm_source=scholarsarchive.byu.edu%2Finscape%2Fvol23%2Fiss3%2F4&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages>

Coronato, Rocco, introduzione a William Shakespeare, Macbeth, con testo a fronte, introduzione, note e nuova traduzione di Rocco Coronato, Milano, Rizzoli, 2022.

Coronato, Rocco, introduzione a William Shakespeare, La tempesta, con testo a fronte, cura, introduzione e note di Rocco Coronato, trad. di Gabriele Baldini, Milano, Rizzoli, 2008.

Lucking, David, “Our Devils Now Are Ended: A Comparative Analysis of The Tempest and Doctor Faustus”, The Dalhousie Review, Vol. 15, 2000, pp. 151-167.

Lucking, David, “Translation and Metamorphosis in A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, Essays in Criticism, Vol. 61, N. 2, 2011, pp. 137-154.

Nicol, David, “Interrogating the Devil: Social and Demonic Pressure in The Witch of Edmonton”, Comparative Drama, Vol. 38, N. 4, Winter 2004-5, pp. 425-445.

Thompson, Edward H., “Macbeth, King James and the Witches”, <https://faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/Courses/Phil%20281b/Philosophy%20of%20Magic/Arcana/Witchcraft%20and%20Grimoires/macbeth.htm>.

Lucking’s and Nicol’s essays can be freely accessed through Google Scholars provided one utilises UNIBO credentials.

Literary history

Students are expected to show a basic knowledge of the history of English literature between its origins and the end of the seventeenth century. Our reference text is Manuale di letteratura e cultura inglese, a cura di Lilla Maria Crisafulli e Keir Elam, Bologna, Bononia University Press, 2009, pp. 1-138.

Teaching methods

The course will include

1) face to face classes, aiming to provide participants with the critical tools they need to interrogate and understand literary texts, both in terms of linguistic analysis and of historical/cultural contexts;

2) the viewing and discussion of films.

Assessment methods

The exam will consist of an oral interview in Italian lasting approximately 20/25 minutes. The first part will focus on the history of literature (text edited by Lilla Crisafulli and Keir Elam); the second part will pivot on the literary and critical texts on our reading list. The exam will aim to assess the critical and methodological skills acquired by students together with their ability to contextualise literary works against the historical, literary and cultural background of the Renaissance period.

Teaching tools

The Powerpoint slides that will be shown during the course will be made available for students on the Unibo Virtuale platform: https://virtuale.unibo.it/my/

Office hours

See the website of Maurizio Ascari