30129 - History of Literary Criticism (LM)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, the students have a good knowledge about modern critical movements and figures, with a special focus on methodologies developed in the twentieth century - especially in the field of the theory of literature - and their influence on text analysis. They can also master critical problems and interpretative models about literary history.

Course contents

Militant criticism and literary theory: Roland Barthes

“A mind that sees things where others had not seen them”: this is how his friend Umberto Eco sketches the originality and multifaceted intelligence of Roland Barthes (1915-1980), a controversial personality during his lifetime, an undisputed classic of essayistic writing, semiology and literary criticism after his death. The course focuses on the way Barthes was able to combine militant criticism and theoretical reflection, never locking himself, in a professorial and dogmatic way, into a single method of interpretation, but leaving his reading open to the solicitations coming from society, culture, and thought, always in rapid and continuous change in the second half of the twentieth century. We will analyze some of his essays on central writers of this period: in the postwar years dominated by Jean-Paul Sartre’s perspective of commitment and Marxist theory, Albert Camus and Bertolt Brecht; in the 1960s, a time of conflict between institutional knowledge and literary experimentation, Alain Robbe-Grillet; up to the theoretical proposal, tested on a novella by Honoré de Balzac, of a new system of reading texts, which proves capable of absorbing the instances of freedom and plurality claimed, on the more purely social front, by 1968.

Precisely by pursuing the most subversive thrusts of his thought, concretized in a writing that – as Barthes himself explains – serves to “cheat things, deflect them, take them to a different place from where they are expected,” we will finally try to reflect on the current crisis of literary criticism and theory, whose undisputed prestige in the 1950s and 1960s has left a void that new reading tools and digital sharing platforms have failed to fill. Embodying the role of an intellectual who “must be an analyst and at the same time a utopian, depicting at the same time the difficulties and foolish desires of the world,” Barthes can in fact still offer us many insights into grasping the senses and counter-senses of our present.

Readings/Bibliography

All texts listed below constitute exam materials. Foreign students can use original editions or English translations while studying, but a good reading knowledge of Italian is required in order to follow classes and understanding teaching materials. Foreign students can also ask for a general reduction from this list.

The course comprises four sections. Each section contains Barthes’s essays and literary texts that he commented on, which are both mandatory.

Barthes and Camus: the Utopia of Writing

• Roland Barthes, Il grado zero della scrittura (1953), in Il grado zero della scrittura seguito da Nuovi saggi critici, Einaudi, 2003, pp. 3-64.
• Roland Barthes, Annali di un’epidemia o romanzo della solitudine? (1955), in Scritti. Società, testo, comunicazione, a cura di G. Marrone, Einaudi, 1998, pp. 324-30 (available in PDF on Virtuale).
• Albert Camus, Lo straniero (1942), trad. di S.G. Perroni, Bompiani, 2015.
• Albert Camus, La peste (1947), trad. di B. Dal Fabbro, Bompiani, 2017.

Barthes and Brecht: Theatre and Signs

• Roland Barthes, Madre coraggio cieca (1955), Le malattie del costume teatrale (1955), I compiti della critica brechtiana (1956) e Su La Madre di Brecht (1960), in Saggi critici, Einaudi, 2002, pp. 35-7, 40-9, 71-6, 135-8 (all available in PDF on Virtuale).
• Roland Barthes, Testimonianza sul teatro (1965), Perché Brecht? (1955), Brecht, Marx e la Storia (1957), Brecht e il nostro tempo (1958) e Sette fotografie-modello di Madre Courage (1959) in Sul teatro, a cura di M. Consolini, Meltemi, 2002, pp. 33-6, 126-8, 205-11, 225-39 (all available in PDF on Virtuale).
• Roland Barthes, La folgorazione (1971) e Brecht e il discorso: contributo allo studio della discorsività (1975) in Il brusio della lingua, Einaudi, 1988, pp. 169-70, 225-35 (all available in PDF on Virtuale).
• Roland Barthes, Diderot, Brecht, Ejzenstejn (1973) in L’ovvio e l’ottuso, Einaudi, 2001, pp. 89-97 (available in PDF on Virtuale).
• Bertolt Brecht, Madre Courage e i suoi figli (1941), trad. di R. Leiser e F. Fortini con testo a fronte, Einaudi, 2016.

Barthes and Robbe-Grillet: the New Novel, the New Criticism

• Roland Barthes, Letteratura oggettiva (1954), Letteratura letterale (1955), Scrittori e scriventi (1960) e Il punto su Robbe-Grillet? (1963), in Saggi critici, Einaudi, 2002, pp. 14-26, 50-7, 139-47, 195-203 (all available in PDF on Virtuale).
• Roland Barthes, Nuovi problemi del realismo (1956), in Scritti. Società, testo, comunicazione, a cura di G. Marrone, Einaudi, 1998, pp. 345-8 (available in PDF on Virtuale).
• Roland Barthes, Critica e verità (1966), Einaudi, 2002.
• Alain Robbe-Grillet, Il voyeur (1955), trad. di S. Ricciardi, Nonostante Edizioni, 2013 (alternatively, one can refer to the previous Einaudi’s edition, trans. by L. Aurigemma).

Barthes and Balzac: the Transgressive Text

• Roland Barthes, La morte dell’autore (1968), L’effetto di reale (1968) e Dall’opera al testo (1971), in Il brusio della lingua, Einaudi, 1988, pp. 51-64, 151-9 (all available in PDF on Virtuale).
• Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970), Einaudi, 1973.
• Roland Barthes, Lezione (1977), in Sade, Fourier, Loyola, seguito da Lezione, Einaudi, 2011, pp. 173-95.
• Honoré de Balzac, Sarrasine (1830): is reproduced at the end of S/Z.

Mandatory is equally the study of:

Guido Mattia Gallerani, Roland Barthes. Dalla vita al testo, Carocci, 2024.

Not attending students:

In addition to the listed readings, non-attending students can find orientation and support material on Virtual.

Students with SLD or temporary or permanent disabilities. Please, 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 professor in order to seek together the most effective strategies for following the lessons and/or preparing for the examination.

Teaching methods

This course is based on the reading, analysis and discussion of literary and non-literary texts, with appropriate references to their relationship with history, society and the various artistic representations. Students will be invited to take an active part during frontal lessons, with questions and insights. The course is specially designed to allow students to share autonomous reflections and present their thoughts about the connections between study materials and current and past society and history.

Assessment methods

Oral exam

The exam consists of an oral interview (20 minutes) that aims to assess the critical and methodological skills gained by the student, who will be invited to discuss the readings listed in the program.

The interview will be structured in two parts: 1) A few specific questions, in order to check accurate reading and knowledge of the poetic texts in their fundamental aspects (plot, characters, main themes, setting, narrative situation, etc.); 2) Two open questions of a more general and interpretative nature on critical and literary texts, also from a comparative point of view, for an overall discussion on the course topic.

Top marks will be awarded to students showing a wide and systematic understanding of the issues covered in class, but also capable of using these notions critically to elaborate clear and relevant analyses through an appropriate vocabulary (28-30L).

Average marks will be awarded to students showing a mostly mnemonic knowledge of the subject matter, a moderate ability to summarize and elaborate on key topics and using a correct vocabulary, though not always relevant (24-27).

A superficial knowledge and understanding of the primary sources and related bibliography, accompanied by scarce analytical and expressive competences, will be rewarded with a pass mark or just above (18-23).

Students showing significant gaps in their knowledge of the subject and related bibliography and/or expressing themselves in a confused and inappropriate way will not be given a pass mark.

Teaching tools

Students are requested to register on the course on Virtuale platform, which is the official tool used by the professor for communications, notices and to provide additional teaching material. Students will find there PowerPoint presentations in PDF format, downloadable materials in support of the lessons, audio materials, precise indications in order to prepare themselves for the exam.

Office hours

See the website of Guido Mattia Gallerani