30125 - Comparative Literatures (LM)

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

 Oneiric writing on the stage: folly, hallucinations, dreams.

Literary writing has always crisscrossed the oneiric dimension, but nightmares, deliria and hallucinations seemed to be in constant overflow during the eighteenth century, haunting not only literary works, but also the corpus of scientific work by alienists. The twentieth century opened with Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, his huge attempt at outlining a mapping of dreams, upsetting preceding interpretative paradigms. Removed from the domain of asylums, dreams seem not have lost any of their capacity to disturb the sleep of writers and readers throughout the XX century.

Readings/Bibliography

Readings/Bibliography

First Part

The Dreaming Body

Ch. Nodier: Smarra

E. A. Poe: Berenice, Ligeia, The Pit and the Pendulum

Th. Gautier: Le club des Hashischins, Hascisc, La pipe d'opium

Ch. Baudelaire: Les Paradis artificiels

G. de Nerval: Aurélia

R. L. Stevenson: Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and A Chapter on Dreams

G. de Maupassant: L'Horla (first and second version)

Theory

V. Pietrantonio (a cura di): Archetipi del sootosuolo, FrancoAngeli, Milano 2012 (i saggi di J.-J. Moreau de Tours, e L.-F.A. Maury

Second Part

The dreamt-of Ghost

F. Kafka: Dreams; The Metamorphosis

I. Svevo: Vino generoso (Generous Wine”), La novella del buon vecchio e della bella fanciulla (The Story of the Nice Old Man and the Beautiful Girl)

T. Landolfi, La pietra lunare; La morte del Re di Francia (in Il dialogo dei massimi sistemi)

J.L. Borges: a corpus on oneiric texts that will be defined during the course

V. Nabokov: Transparent Things (Cose trasparenti)

G. Perec: Un homme qui dort (A Man Asleep) and La boutique obscure

Theory

S. Freud: Delusion and Dream in Jensen's Gradiva

S. Freud: the lessons on dream in the Introduction to Psychoanalysis

F. Amigoni, V. Pietrantonio (a cura di), Crocevia dei sogni. Dalla «Nouvelle Revue de Psychanalyse», Le Monnier, Firenze.

Students are expected to closely read the texts of four of the authors amongst those listed in the first part and of four of authors listed in the second part.

 

Teaching methods

The 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 Ferdinando Amigoni