31031 - English Literature 1 (A-L)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course students should know the general outline of literary history. They should be able to read, understand and translate texts from English into Italian and they should also be acquainted with the methods and analytical tools they need to interpret the works of the main authors, contextualising them within their cultural and historical period.

Course contents

“What a thrice-double ass / Was I, to take this drunkard for a god / And worship this dull fool!”. “them/us” dichotomy in XVI and XVII century English Literature.

The course will provide students with an overview on the representation of subaltern subjects and on the concepts of Englishness, Otherness, and Blackness in the English Literature between '500 and '600. Starting from an introduction to the English social and cultural context from the XVI to the XVII century, the course will focus on the complex interrelationship between the primary works, the colonial enterprise, and the construction of the first identity forms of colonizers and colonized people. We will consider how stereotypes and racism characterised the complex interrelationship between “them” and “us”. Particular emphasis will be laid on the relationship between literary texts and their historical and socio-cultural contexts in order to understand how literature has been vehicle of a whole nation devoted to the colonial empire.

Moreover, some representative authors of the literary history from Late Middle Age to the XVII century and their works will be illustrated, such as Chaucer's "General Prologue" of Canterbury Tales, and some extracts from: Le Morte Darthur by Thomas Malory, Utopia by Thomas More, The Faerie Queen by Edmund Spenser, Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare (the whole play), Paradise Lost by John Milton.

Readings/Bibliography

PRIMARY TEXTS (Students must choose at least 3 texts from the following reading list):

W. Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (1597)

W. Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Othello (1603)

W. Shakespeare, The Tempest (1611)

A. Behn, Oroonoko (1688)

ANTHOLOGY AND LITERARY HISTORY:

L. M. Crisafulli e K. Elam (a cura di), Manuale di letteratura e cultura inglese, Bologna, BUP, 2009 (from the Middle Age to the XVII century included)

For Erasmus students:

John Peck, Martin Coyle, A brief history of English literature, Basingstoke ; New York : Palgrave, 2002 (the first 6 chapters)

CRITICAL REFERENCE (Students must choose at least 3 texts from the following reading list according to the primary texts they had selected):

Susan Oldrieve, Marginalised Voices in The Merchant of Venice, in Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature Vol. 5, No. 1, Taylor & Francis, 1993, p. 87-105.

Thorell Porter Tsomondo, Stage-Managing "Otherness": The Function of Narrative in "Othello", in Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, Vol. 32, No. 2 (June 1999), pp. 1-25

John Wylie, New and Old Worlds: The Tempest and early colonial discourse, Taylor & Francis, 2000, p. 45-63

Banani Biswas, “Oroonoko: A ‘Royal Slave’ and/or a Master of Dignity”, in Advances in Language and Literary Studies, Vol 6, No 4 (2015), pp. 208-215.

MORE CRITICAL REFERNCE COULD BE PROVIDED DURING THE COURSE

Teaching methods

Reading and analysis of the primary works; slides; possible participation of Italian or foreign scholars.

Assessment methods

The final exam can be taken in two different ways:

1) Written text on literary history at the end of the course (on May) for those students who attended classes regularly + oral interview (on June or July): multiple choice and short answers on the history of English literature from the late Medieval time to XVII century; after this part, if the student pass the written text, there will be an oral interview on the primary works analysed during the course. The written text will take place only one time at the end of the course.

2) Oral examination (on June or July): for those students who do not attend classes or do not pass the written text there will be an oral examination on the history of English literature from the late Medieval time to XVII century and on the primary works analysed during the course.

The exams will assess the knowledge of the texts on the syllabus and the capacity to critically discuss the problematic issues they deal with. In particular students will have to demonstrate knowledge of the historical and literary period; knowledge of texts and contexts (being able to read primary texts within their historical, geographical and political framework); capacity to critically comment literary texts (being able to discuss and analyse literary texts in a thoughtful manner and with the aid of critical works); ability to use theoretical tools; ability to express the critical interpretations of texts in clear and effective manners.

Teaching tools

Frontal lectures with power point projections and extracts from dvd movies.

Office hours

See the website of Alessia Polatti