28923 - Theory of Literature (1) (LM)

Academic Year 2022/2023

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

The Enchanters. Artifices, frame games, hyper-novels

The novelist, according to Henry James, betrays a “sacred office” when he admits that the events he narrates have not really happened, that he has renounced to “compete with life”. Yet, from Cervantes, Sterne, Diderot, to the most sophisticated postmodern texts, an anti-mimetic, self-conscious vein runs across the Western narrative tradition, recovering the genuine vocation of the novel as a revolutionary and parodic form. In this sense, as Viktor Shklovskij stated, Sterne’s Tristram Shandy is the most typical novel of world literature. We can think to the famous “hole in a paper sky” described by Luigi Pirandello: when the text plays with itself, crosses the frames, uncovers the artifice and forces the borders between the fictional world and the so called “reality”. In so doing, it questions the conventionality of language and our own position in the world. In this kind of works we can find authors writing, readers reading, characters jumping out of books, texts taking shape under our eyes, while different worlds interfere with each other in the forms described by rhetorical figures and theoretical categories as metafiction, metalepsis, mise en abyme, antinovel, hyper-novel… From this point of view, literature is conceived as an art, even as fun and game, against the dictatorship of useful that rules our economies and our way of life.

Period: Second semester (February-March 2023)

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

Readings/Bibliography

I. Apologues
• Luigi Pirandello, La tragedia d’un personaggio (1911), in Luigi Pirandello, Novelle per un anno, ed. by Mario Costanzo, Meridiani Mondadori, vol. I, t. I, pp. 816-24 (https://www.pirandelloweb.com/la-tragedia-d-un-personaggio/)
• Jorge Luis Borges, Il giardino dei sentieri che si biforcano (1941), in Jorge Luis Borges, Finzioni, Einaudi
• Italo Calvino, Il conte di Montecristo (1967), in Italo Calvino, Ti con zero, Mondadori

II. Novels
• Vladimir Nabokov, La vera vita di Sebastian Knight (1941), Adelphi
• John Barth, L’opera galleggiante (1956 and 1967), minimum fax
• Raymond Queneau, Icaro involato (1968), Einaudi
• John Fowles, La donna del tenente francese (1969), Mondadori
• Italo Calvino, Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore (1979), Einaudi

III. Critical texts

Students must read the reference book in section A and three text in section B. Among texts listed in group B, choice can be made in every subsection (metafiction, possible words, authors). It's only mandatory to read at least three texts.

A. Reference book (mandatory)
• Laura Neri, Giuseppe Carrara (eds.), Teoria della letteratura, Carocci

B. Three texts to choose
About metafiction:
• Robert Alter, Partial Magic. The Novel as a Self-Conscious Genre, University of California Press
• Federico Bertoni, Una faccenda pirandelliana. Avventure del personaggio, in “Pirandelliana”, 13, 2019, pp. 63-76
• Lucien Dällenbach, Il racconto speculare. Saggio sulla “mise en abyme”, Pratiche
• Patricia Waugh, Metafiction. The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction, Routledge
• Gérard Genette, Métalepse. De la figure à la fiction, Seuil
• Brian Stonehill, The Self-Conscious Novel, University of Pennsylvania Press

About possible worlds and theory of fiction:
• Lubomír Doležel, Heterocosmica. Fiction e mondi possibili, Bompiani
• Umberto Eco, I boschi possibili, in Umberto Eco, Sei passeggiate nei boschi narrativi, Bompiani, pp. 91-117
• Mario Lavagetto, Bugia/Storia/Finzione/Verità, in Mario Lavagetto, Lavorare con piccoli indizi, Bollati Boringhieri, pp. 70-88
• Thomas Pavel, Mondi di invenzione, Einaudi
• Marie-Laure Ryan, Possible Worlds, in The Living Handbook of Narratology (https://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/node/54.html)
• Marie-Laure Ryan, Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, and Narrative Theory, Indiana University Press
• Kendall W. Walton, Mimesi come far finta. Sui fondamenti delle arti rappresentazionali, Mimesis

About authors studied:
• John Barth, La letteratura dell’esaurimento, in John Barth, L’algebra e il fuoco. Saggi sulla scrittura, minimum fax, pp. 49-71
• Jorge Luis Borges, Magie parziali del Chisciotte, in Jorge Luis Borges, Altre inquisizioni, Feltrinelli, pp. 49-52
• Italo Calvino, Cibernetica e fantasmi (Appunti sulla narrativa come processo combinatorio), in Italo Calvino, Una pietra sopra. Discorsi di letteratura e società, Mondadori, pp. 199-219 (or in Saggi, “Meridiani” Mondadori, vol. I, pp. 205-225)
• Vladimir Nabokov, Interviews 1 e 2 in Vladimir Nabokov, Intransigenze, Adelphi, pp. 19-24 e 25-36
• Raymond Queneau, Letteratura potenziale, in Raymond Queneau, Segni, cifre e lettere, Einaudi, pp. 45-76

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