30030 - English Literature 1 (LM) (A)

Course contents

Interpreting Utopia: Ideology, Form and Gender in Utopian Literature

The course intends to focus on the following points:

1-Utopia as a hybrid genre and its contamination with the great tradition of classical and Hebrew thought.

2-The characteristics of Utopia as a literary genre, the utopian structural paradigm.

3-Utopia/ Dystopia

4- The interplay between utopia and other literary genres(utopia and travel literature, utopia and satire, utopia and fantasy, utopia and science-fiction)

5-Utopia and its mythical roots.

6-Utopia and the myth of voyage

7-The semantic themes of utopia

8-Female Forms of Utopia: the Revision of Male Utopian Paradigm

.9-Utopia and its Geography

10-Utopia and the Arts

11-The Metamorphosis of Utopia in the Twentieth Century and the New Millenium

During the course will be analysed the following utopias (primary sources) 

Thomas More, Utopia (1516)

Francis Bacon, New Atlantis (1627)

 J. Hall, Mundus, Alter et idem (1643)

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels,(1737)

William Morris News from Nowhere (1891)

George Orwell, 1984 ( 1948)

Ursula LeGuin , The Dispossed (1984)

Ursula Le Guin, The Telling( 2000)

Readings/Bibliography

Bibliography :

 

Critical sources

 

Tom Moylan, Demand the Impossible, New York and London, Methuen, 1986 V. Fortunati , Fictional Strategies and Political Message in Utopia.”

Per una definizione dell'Utopia. A cura di V. Fortunati e N.Minerva,Longo, Ravenna, 1992.

V. Fortunati. “Il mito dell'eterna giovinezza e il tema della vecchiaia nell'opera di William Morris.” Pellegrini della speranza. A cura di A. Corrado. Napoli , 1998,

Dictionary of Literary Utopias , eds Vita Fortunati and Raymond Trousson, Paris, Champion, 2000.

 Dall'utopia all'utopismo. Percorsi tematici , a cura di Vita Fortunati, Raymond Trousson, Adriana Corrado, introduzione di Francesco de Sanctis, collana dell'Istituto Universitario Suor Orsola Benincasa, Napoli, cuen, 2003 .

Tom Moylan, Dark Horizons: Science Fiction and the Dystopian Imagination, New York - London, Routledge, 2003

Histoire transnationale  de l'utopie littéraire et de l'utopisme , coordonnée par V.Fortunati et R.Trousson, avec la collaboration de Paola Spinozzi , Paris Champion, 2008.

Teaching methods

 

Assessment methods

Students will have to read at least 5 books of the Primary Sources list and two

critical Monographs or essays ( at least 1000 pages)

Teaching tools