30125 - Comparative Literatures (LM)

Learning outcomes

Students must attain a high awareness of the specific nature of literary language both as a way through which the imaginary finds expression and as an instrument to interpret reality. Students must master interpretive tools and methodologies for text analysis. They are capable to explore and investigate literary forms and themes in a comparative perspective, with a special focus on the relationships between different national tradition and different cultural/historical contexts, as well as the relationships between literary texts and other semiotic systems of expression (music, cinema, performance, theatre and so on). Students attain the capacity for autonomous reflection and they are invited to formulate autonomous judgments on theoretical and methodological issues.

Course contents

TOPIC

Things. The Presence of Objects in the Nineteenth century novel

Classes will be held in the first semester (November-December 2020) and will start on November 9.

Readings/Bibliography

1. Literary texts:

► Honoré de Balzac, Illusions perdues

► Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

► Henry James, The Princess Casamassima

► Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

2. Critical texts:

► Francesco Orlando, Gli oggetti desueti nelle immagini della letteratura, Torino, Einaudi, nuova edizione riveduta e ampliata (solo i capitoli I-II-II-IV, pp. 1-242).

► Jacques Rancière, “La mise à mort d'Emma Bovary", in Politique de la littérature.

►Erich Auerbach, “All’Hôtel de La Mole”, in Id., Mimesis. Il realismo nella letteratura occidentale, Torino, Einaudi, pp. 220-268.

►Simone Francescato, “The Princess Casamassima”, ch. IV (solo le pp. 80-113), in Id., Collecting and Appreciating. Henry James and the Transformation of Aesthetics in the Age of Consumption, Peter Lang.

(a couple of further essays on the authors/texts listed in the section "Literary Texts", for an amount of no more than 50 pages, might be added to the "Critical texts" section before the starting of classes)

Assessment methods

The assessment methods will be an oral exam. Students who prefer a written examination (writing a paper), are invited to contact prof. Meneghelli at the beginning of the course.

Office hours

See the website of Donata Meneghelli