30125 - Comparative Literatures (LM) (M-Z)

Learning outcomes

The course addresses to graduate (MA) students who have already taken courses in Italian and foreign literatures. Students, on completing the course, will be accustomed to observe literary phenomena within a broader context than that of single national literatures, paying particular attention to the methodological issues facing comparative research.

Course contents

Phenomenology of obsession from Balzac to Conrad

The course aims to highlight that intertwining of the affirmation of the ego and its constant erosion emphasized by Susan Sontag, with extraordinary incisiveness, in a passage from Illness as Metaphor: "In the nineteenth century there is a heroicity of illness, of the negative, of evil, an affirmation of the ego through its destruction." More precisely, it is a matter of showing how "the fixed idea" (the genesis of which goes back to early nineteenth-century psychiatric treatises that isolate its contours within the broader and more varied phenomenology of obsession) coincides with a crystallization of the negative imagination: the matrix of those psycho-physical disturbances that range, above all, from manic forms to hallucinations and perversions of various kinds.
In close dialogue with nineteenth- and twentieth-century psychiatry and anthropology, the course unfolds through a sampling of texts by some of the great authors of nineteenth-century fiction such as especially Balzac, Maupassant, Henry James and Conrad.


Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Readings/Bibliography

Honoré de Balzac:choose a text in addition to those indicated as mandatory

- I martiri ignorati, trad.it Mariolina Bertini, Introduzione di Alessandra Ginzburg, Clichy, Firenze, 2022. (mandatory)

- La pelle di Zigrigno,[1831] a cura di Cosimo Oresta, trad.it. Lanfranco Binni, Grazanti, Milano, 2021.

- Il capolavoro sconosciuto,[1831] trad.it. Carlo Montella e Luca Merlini,Passigli, Firenze, 1995.

- Louis Lambert,[1832] trad.it. Paola Dècina Lombardi, L’orma, Roma, 2017.

- La ricerca dell'assoluto, [1834]trad.it. Andrea Zanzotto, Introduzione di Ferdinando Camon, Garzanti, Milano, 1999.

Edgar Allan Poe:choose a text in addition to those indicated as mandatory 

- Berenice, in ID, Racconti del terrore, Mondadori, Milano, 2004 (mandatory).

- Ligeia, in ID, Racconti del terrore, Mondadori, Milano, 2004

- Morella, in ID,Racconti del terrore, Mondadori, Milano, 2004

Henri-René-Albert-Guy de Maupassant: choose a text in addition to those indicated as mandatory

- Sull’acqua [1881], in ID., Tutte le novelle, a cura di Mario Picchi, vol. I, Mondadori, Milano, cit., pp. 60- 66.

Lettera di un pazzo, [1885] in ID., Tutte le novelle, vol. II, cit., pp.517-523.

La piccola Roque, [1885]in ID, Tutte le novelle, vol.II, cit., pp. 690-726. (mandatory)

- Prefazione a Pierre e Jean [1887], in ID., Romanzi,a cura di A. Colasanti, Mondadori, Milano 1993, pp. 519-532. (mandatory)

-  Le Horla [1886/1887], prima e seconda versione, a cura di Rita Stajano, trad.it. Sara Arena, Rizzoli, Miano, 2013.

- Forte come la morte,[1889] in ID., Romanzi, cit., pp. 655-860.

Henry, James:choose a text in addition to those indicated as mandatory.

Il giro di vite,[1898], a cura di Giovanna Mochi, Marsilio, Venezia, 2007.

La fonte sacra,[1901], trad. it Sergio Perosa, Prefazione di Giorgio Agamben, Neri Pozza, Vicenza, 2016.

La Bestia nella giungla,[1903], in Id, Racconti di fantasmi, Einaudi, Torino, 1992, pp. 552-594.(mandatory)

Joseph Conrad: choose a text from those indicated

- La follia di Almayer, [1895], trad.it. Maria Teresa Carbone, introduzione di Francesco Binni, Garzanti, Milano, 2022.

- Lord Jim, [1900] trad.it. Giovanni Baldi, Introduzione di Francesco Binni,Garzanti, Milano 2021.

- Il caso, [1913], trad.it. Richard Ambrosini, Adelphi, Milano, 2015.

Bibliografia:

From the compulsory Theoretical Texts choose two essays

P. Janet, Diverse forme della disaggregazione psicologica, in Id, L'automatismo psicologico, Raffaello Cortina, Milano 2013, pp.377-451.

P. Janet, Trauma, coscienza, personalità, a cura di Francesca Ortu e Giuseppe Craparo, Raffaello Cortina, Milano, pp. 119-181.

S. Freud, La Gradiva. Il delirio e i sogni nella ‘Gradiva’ Di Wilhelm Jensen”, a cura di Cesare Musatti, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 1977.

S. Freud, Ossessione, paranoia, perversione, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 1978.

V. Pietrantonio, L'idea fissa, Bompiani, Milano 2023, (in corso di pubblicazione).

In addition, choose a critical interpretation text for each author in the programme 

Balzac:

Ernest Curtius, Balzac, Bompiani, Milano, 1998.

Peter Brooks, L'immaginazione melodrammatica, Pratiche, Parma, 1985.

Maupassant:

Alberto Savinio, Maupassant e l'altro, Adelphi, Milano, 1975.

André Green, Il lavoro del negativo, Borla, Roma 1996, pp. 221-288.

Henry, James, Guy de Maupassant, in ID., La lezione dei maestri. Il romanzo francese dell’Ottocento, a cura di G. Mochi, Einaudi, Torino 1993.

Choose between Donata Meneghelli's monograph or the two essays on James by Blanchot and Wilson:

Maurice Blanchot, Il libro a venire, il Saggiatore, Milano, 2019; Edmund Wilson, L’ambiguità di Henry James, in Il pensiero multiplo, Garzanti, Milano 1976.

Donata Meneghelli, Una forma che include tutto, Henry James e la teoria del romanzo.

Conrad: select a text

Richard Ambrosini, Le storie di Conrad, Carocci, Roma, 2019.

Edward Said, Joseph Conrad e la finzione autobiografica, il Saggiatore, Milano, 2008.

Other bibliographical suggestions will be pointed out during the course. 

Non-attending students must choose three essays from the compulsory theoretical texts

Teaching methods

he course is based upon around 60 hours of lectures: students are invited to take part in the lectures and debate the subjects put forward.

Assessment methods

The final exam, consisting of face to face interviews, aims at verifying knowledge acquired through the reading of the works proposed and assess students’ critical skills. The students’ capacity to navigate literary and critical texts, contextualising them appropriately, shall be evaluated positively. An assessment of excellence will indicate an hermeneutical capacity on the part of the student to create connections between literary and critical texts, together with ascertained expository skills. Possible gaps in knowledge on matters discussed during the course and inappropriate, or confused language will entail low marks.

Teaching tools

Lectures will make use of PPTs, as well as film viewings. Any additional teaching material shall be made available to students on the site (link ‘Teaching tools – Materiale didattico)

Office hours

See the website of Vanessa Pietrantonio