31146 - English Literature 2 (M-Z)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course students will be acquainted with the lineaments of English literary history. They will be able to read, understand and translate texts from English into Italian, and to deal with some basic critical methods and tools, in order to elaborate comments and critical opinions on the literary texts read during the course.

Course contents

Romantic and Victorian literature in context: Monsters, Empire, Slavery and Science from the text to the screen.

Introduction:

The Romantic age witnessed a remarkable growth in Britain's imperial power and confidence. Despite the loss of the thirteen American colonies as a result of the War of Independence, Britain had strengthened its control of its other colonies in India, Canada, and the Caribbean, and the defeat prompted a restructuring of colonial policy. By 1820's, 200 millions people, 26 per cent of the world's population, lived under British rule, and Britain no longer saw itself as simply a trading or colonial nation but as an Empire with a mission to spread its own political, religious and moral values across the globe. The most fiercely debated aspect of Britain's imperial role during the Romantic period was its involvement in the slave trade, which was central to the nation's trading system. The campaign for the abolition of the slave trade became a major movement in the 1780s and early 1790s. The slave trade was a major literary topic of the period. Another important element of the relationship between literature and empire in the period is the development of what is termed "orientalism", the cultural and scholarly representation of the Middle East and Asia that became highly fashionable at the time. The Romantic period was also an age of discovery and exploration, exemplified by the three journeys to the South See undertaken by James Cook between 1768 and his death in 1779.

The course will investigate how Empire, Slavery, Orientalism and Exploration were central issues in many British writers from the Eighteenth to the Nineteenth century. Moreover, different literary genres will be analysed such as: poetry, prose, novel, and drama together with Film and TV Series adapted from the literary texts.

The course includes an introductory part dedicated to the history of English literature from the Eighteenth century, the Romantic to the Victorian Period.

Readings/Bibliography

A) English Literary History

The module will give students a clear sense of how the Romantic and the Victorian periods fit into the longer history of English literature, attending both to the most well-known writers of the time and also to some who are less familiar. It will focus on the historical period from the French Revolution (1789), the Great Reform Act (1832) to the Vicotiran Age (1832-1901), drawing out themes that are relevant to the literature, but will also look back to the long eighteenth century and forward to the late Victorian period. Attention will be paid to the idea of Romanticism as a movement, and this will be differentiated from the period as a whole. Literature from a wide variety of genres will be introduced including some or all of the following: poetry e poetics, the Gothic tradition, the novel of manners, and the lyrical drama.

L. M. Crisafulli e K. Elam (a cura di), Manuale di letteratura e cultura inglese, Bologna, BUP, 2009.

Antologia delle poetesse romantiche (a cura di L.M. Crisafulli) 2 vols. Carocci, 2003. [schede bio-bibliografiche poetesse incluse in programma]

English Editions (Reference only - Erasmus Students):

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. II or The Oxford Anthology (sala consultazione - Biblioteca LLSM)

Romanticism. A Literary and Cultural History, eds. Carmen Casaliggi and Porscha Fermanis, 2016, Routledge.

The Broadview Anthology of British Literature, "The Age of Romanticism", second ed., Broadview Press 2010.

B) Primary Texts:

All the extracts will be uploaded on-line

Slavery and Empire:

D. Defoe, Robison Crusoe (extracts) 

Poesie di A.Opie; H.M.Williams; A.L. Barbauld (poems on-line)

W. Blake, "Visions of the Daugthers of Albion"

Jane Austen, Mansfiled Park (all novel)

G.M. Lewis, "The Castle Spectre" (extracts)

Orientalism:

Lord Byron, "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" e "Turkish Tales" (extracts)

E. Inchbald "The Mogul Tale" (extracts)

Exploration:

M. Shelley, Frankenstein (extracts)

J. Polidori, "The Vampyre" (short story)

S. T. Coleridge "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

C. Brontë, "Jane Eyre" (extracts)

Film e TV Series:

Amazing Grace (2007, directed by Michael Apted)

Mansfield Park (directed by P. Rozima, Miramax 1999; and 2007 film directed by Iain B. MacDonald, ITV)

Jane Eyre (directed by F. Zeffirelli in 1996; and 2011 film directed by Cary Fukunaga)

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (directed by Kenneth Branagh, 1994)

Penny Dreadful (TV Series 2004-2016 Netflix)

Frankenstein's Chronicles (TV Series 2015 Netflix)

C) Critical essays:

One essay on Jane Austen from this list:

B.Battaglia, La Zitella Illiterata.Parodia e ironia nei romanzi di Jane Austen, seconda edizione, Napoli: Liguori 2008 ( cap. Introduzione e il cap. relativo al romanzo Mansfield Park).

Janet Todd, The Cambridge Introduction to Jane Austen, Cambridge UP 2006. (Introduzione e capitoli relativi al romanzo MP)

E.Copeland and J. McMster, The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1997.

Diego Saglia, Leggere Jane Austen, Carocci 2016. (testo di riferimento per una introduzione generale dell'autrice e i romanzi)

One essay on Slavery and Abolition from this list:

Serena Baiesi, “Romantic Women Writers and the Abolitionist Movement: The Economics of Freedom” in La Questione Romantica “Imperialismo/Colonialismo” n. 18/19, Liguori, Napoli 2008 (pp. 33-49).

T. Fulford and P.J. Kitson, "Romanticism and colonialism: texts, contexts, issues" in Romanticism and Colonialism. Writing and Empire, 1780-1830 (eds. T. Fulford and P.J. Kiston) Cambridge UP (1998).

Eric Williams, "The Goldern Age of the Slave System in Britain" in The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Jan., 1940), pp. 60-106

M. Ferguson, "British Women Writers and an Emerging Abolitionist Discourse" in The Eighteenth Century, vol. 33, n. 1, 1992.

One essay on the novel / play read in class:

Ian Watt, "Robinson Crusoe, individualism and the novel", in The Rise of the Novel, University of California Press (1971) pp. 60-92.

“Aesthetics, gender, and empire in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein” in Women Travel Writers and the Language of Aesthetics, 1716-1818, E. A. Bohls, Cambridge UP 1999.

“Making a ‘monster': an introduction to Frankenstein” in Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters by Anne K. Mellor, Methuen, 1988.

G. Silvani, "Il teatro di Matthew G. Lewis: è di scena il terrore" in Il teatro della paura: scenari gotici del romanticismo europeo, a cura di D. Saglia e G. Silvani, Bulzoni 2005 (pp. 77-90).

C. Farese, Elizabeth Inchbald: Scandalo e Convenzione, Pensa 2012 (Cap. 3).

Susan L. Meyers, "Colonialism and the Figurative Strategy of Jane Eyre" in Victorian Studies 33.2 (1990)

Joyce Zonana, "The Sultan and the Slave: Feminist Orientalism and the Structure of Jane Eyere", in Revising the Word and the World: Essays in Feminist Literary Criticism, ed. V. A. Clark, R.E.B. Joeres, and M. Sprengnether (Chicago UP) 1993.

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "Three Women's Texts and a Critique of Imperialism" Critical Inquiry 12.1 (1985).

Teaching methods

Frontal lessons in English: introduction of the literary period from the eighteenth century to the Victorian age; reading and analysis of the primary sources by English writers.

Assessment methods

The evaluation of the students' competencies and abilities acquired during the course consists in a written work at the end of the course for those students who attended classes regularly as well as for those who do not attend classes.

The written test is divided into two parts: the first will be made of multiple choice and short open questions concerning the literary history of the period from the Eighteenth century to the Victorian period; the second part will require a critical comments on the topics and text listed in the syllabus.

Those students,who are able to demonstrate a wide and systematic understanding of the issues covered during 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.

Teaching tools

Frontal lectures with power point projections and dvd.

Links to further information

http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/campaignforabolition/abolition.html

Office hours

See the website of Serena Baiesi