31031 - English Literature 1 (A-CE)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course students will be acquainted with the lineaments of English literary history, will be able to read, understand and translate texts from English into Italian, and will be also acquainted with some basic critical methods and tools, with the aim to enable them to interpret the works of major Renaissance authors, contextualising them against the background of early-modern culture and society.

Course contents

The Shadow of Desire: identity and power in Shakespearean comedies

Characterised by the conflict and hybridisation between love and friendship, Shakespeare's comedies often include a journey into a forest. This pastoral Eden is thus contrasted with the court and the city, which are both associated with tyrannical and corrupt forms of power. After going through a series of ordeals, the young protagonists are rewarded with a happy ending that channels the freedom of desire into marriage, i.e. a union that is sanctioned by society. Shakespeare's comedies provide us not only with genuine entertainment, as is shown by the wealth of Shakespearean films that were produced in the last two decades, but also with a fascinating viewpoint to observe Renaissance society in its ideological aspects and social practices, with particular reference to the identity of genre, as well as to primogeniture and the legitimacy of power. What these plays repeatedly enact is the ambivalence between social criticism and the status quo, between transgression and its ‘containment' (Foucault), as is shown by the current lively critical debate concerning the politics of Shakespeare. By focussing on six comedies – The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like It and Twelfth Night – the course will touch upon various aspects of the comic tradition between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including the figure of the fool and the characteristics of Shakespeare's poetical language. A study of the material aspects of Renaissance theatre will also enable us to get a better understanding of the theme of cross-dressing, whose prodigious development in Renaissance drama was strongly linked to the presence of boy actors onstage.

Readings/Bibliography

Primary sources:

Students are expected to read five plays by William Shakespeare out of this list: The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like It and Twelfth Night. They are all available in various English and Italian editions, also with parallel text.

Critical sources:

Bassnett, Susan, “Love and Disillusionment: As You Like It and Twelfth Night”, in Shakespeare. The Elizabethan Plays, London, Macmillan, 1993, pp. 120-135

Bloom, Harold, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Shakespeare. The Invention of the Human, New York, Riverhead Books, 1998, pp. 36-40; il testo è reperibile anche in traduzione italiana.

Harrison, Robert Pogue, Foreste. L'ombra della civiltà, Milano, Garzanti, 1992, pp. 76-98

Howard, Jean E., “Power and Eros: crossdressing in dramatic representation and theatrical practice”, in The Stage and Social Struggle in Early Modern England, London and New York, Routledge, 1994, pp. 93-128

Krieger, Elliot, “Social Relations and the Social Order in ‘Much Ado about Nothing'”, in Shakespeare Survey, Vol. 32 (1979), pp. 49-61

McEvoy, Sean, Shakespeare. The Basics, London, Routledge, 2000, pp. 1-15, 22-53, 59-96, 119-142

Montaigne, Michel de, estratto dal saggio “Dell'amicizia”, in Saggi, a cura di Fausta Garavini, Milano, Mondadori, 1970, Vol. I, pp. 244-55

Montrose, Louis Adrian, “‘Fantasie creatrici': rappresentazioni di genere e potere nella cultura elisabettiana, in Il Sogno di Shakespeare: Spettacolo, potere, politiche di genere, a cura di Adriana Ruggero, Napoli, Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 2007, pp. 37-85

Newman, Karen, “Renaissance Family Politics and Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew”, in Fashioning Femininity and English Renaissance Drama, Chicago and London, The U of Chicago P, 1991, pp. 35-50

Traub, Valerie, “Gender and sexuality in Shakespeare”, in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare, Margreta De Grazia and Stanley Wells (eds), Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 2001, pp. 129-146

Literary history:

Students are also required to know the lineaments of English literary history from its origins to the end of the seventeenth century.

Manuale di letteratura e cultura inglese, a cura di Lilla Maria Crisafulli e Keir Elam, Bologna, Bononia University Press, 2009, pp. 1-138

Teaching methods

Since the course is addressed to first year students, it will consist mainly of frontal lessons, aiming to provide students with some basic tools to approach literary texts, both in terms of linguistic analysis and of historical/cultural contexts. To facilitate the understanding of theatrical texts in their performative dimension, therefore avoiding the risk that individual reading might obscure their originary nature of plays intended for staging, we will utilise films based on Shakespeare's works. This will also enable us to meditate on the problems involved in the film adaptation of Shakespeare's texts.

Assessment methods

The exam will be oral and lasting an average of 20/25 minutes.

Teaching tools

The Powerpoint files that will be used during the course will be available for students on the AMS Campus website.

Office hours

See the website of Maurizio Ascari