31146 - English Literature 2 (A-L)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course students will be acquainted with the lineaments of English literary history. They will be able to read, understand and translate texts from English into Italian, and to deal with some basic critical methods and tools, in order to elaborate comments and critical opinions on the literary texts read during the course.

Course contents

The Poetics of Otherness: diversity, alterity and subordination in English Literature from XVIII to XIX century.

The Enlightenment gave birth to concepts of freedom and equality - of human rights wihch, as they were thought through, were widly recognized to apply to all humans, regardless of gender, regardless of religion, of social class and of race.

The course will consider major and less known authors who discussed issues of social equality, slavery and abolition, gender subordination, diversity and alterity as forms of resistance to conservative and colonial politics.

In particular, works by Mary Wollstonecraft, Anna Barbauld, Amelia Opie, Jane Austen, Ann Radcliffe, Mary Shelley, and Charlotte Brontë -- alongside with male authors such as William Blake, S. T. Coleridge, M.G. Lewis, e P.B. Shelley -- will be read and discussed.

The course will consider major literary genres, including poetry, fiction, drama, and political writing, as well as topics such as globalization, colonialism, feminism, economics, families, and sexualities. The aim of this course is to show how gender intersected with other aspects of identity and with cultural concerns that then shaped the work of authors, critics, and readers.

The course includes an introductory part dedicated to the history of English literature from the Eighteenth century, the Romantic to the Victorian Period.

Readings/Bibliography

Primary Sources available online

Womens's Rights and Gender subordiation: Mary Wollstonecraft, "A Vindication to the Rights of Woman" (extracts); Jane Austen, "Northanger Abbey" (all the novel).

Slavery Poems: William Blake, "Visions of the Daughters of Albion" (extracts); Amelia Opie, "The Negro Boy's Tale" and "The Black Man's Lament"; Anna Laetitia Barbauld, "Epistle to William Wilberforce" (extracts) and "The Mouse's Petition".

Gothic Novel: Ann Radcliffe, "The Mysteries of Udolpho" (extracts); and Mary Shelley, "Frankesntein" (extracts).

Romantic theater: M.G. Lewis, "The Castle Spectre" (extracts); P.B. Shelley, "The Cenci" (all the play);

Victorian Novels: Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (extracts); Bram Stoker, Dracula (extracts).

Secondary Works:

Literary History (XVIII century; Romantic period; Victorian Age)

English Literature in Contex, ed. P. Poplawski (Cambridge UP 2008) Ch. 3 "Restoration and eighteenth Century"; Ch. 4 "The Romantic Period"; Ch. 5 "The Victorian Age".

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. II or The Oxford Anthology (sala consultazione - Biblioteca LLSM)

The Broadview Anthology of British Literature, "The Age of Romanticism", second ed., Broadview Press 2010.

The Cambridge History of English Literature, ed. J. Chandler, Cambridge UP 2009.

Saggi critici:

section 1)

n. 3 Essays at your choice  from the list (2 essays for those students who do not attend lectures):

Serena Baiesi, ‘It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda’: Meta-Discourses and Female Genealogies in Late Eighteenth-Century English Novels in: Women’s Voices and Genealogies in Literary Studies in English, Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019, pp. 70-88.

Serena Baiesi, "Intersections and Metamorphoses of the ‘Female Gothic’" in Gothic Metamorphoses across the Centuries: Contexts, Legacies, Media, eds. M. Ascari, S. Baiesi, D. Levente Palatinus, Bern, Peter Lang, 2020, pp. 35-51.

Janet Todd, The Cambridge Introduction to Jane Austen, Cambridge UP 2006. (Introduction and the chapter on Northanger Abbey).

Susan L. Meyers, "Colonialism and the Figurative Strategy of Jane Eyre" in Victorian Studies 33.2 (1990)

Devoney Looser (ed.),The Cambridge Companion to Women's Writing in the Romantic Period, CUP 2015 (Chapter 4: "Essays and political writing"; Chapter 5 " The Gothic")

Section 2)

 One essay from this list (two essays for those students who do not attend lectures)

Anne K. Mellor, "Gender Boundaries" in The Oxford Handbook of British Romanticism, Edited by David Duff, OUP 2013, (Ch. 13).

Stuart Curran, "Women Readers, Women Writers" in The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism, CUP 2006. (CH.8 - pp. 177-195)

Nancy Armstrong, "What Feminist did to the Novel studies" in The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Literary Theory, CUP 2006 (chapter 4, pp. 99-118)

Devoney Looser (ed.),The Cambridge Companion to Women's Writing in the Romantic Period, CUP 2015 (introduzione);

Teaching methods

Frontal lectures in English: introduction of the literary periods from the eighteenth century to the Victorian age; reading and comment of the primary sources; videos and film adaptations from literary works.

Assessment methods

The evaluation of the students' competencies and abilities acquired during the course consists in a written work at the end of the course for those students who attended classes regularly as well as for those who do not attend classes.

The written test is divided into two parts: the first will be made of open questions concerning the literary history of the period from the Eighteenth century to the Victorian period; the second part will require a critical comments on the topics and text listed in the syllabus.

Those students,who are able to demonstrate a wide and systematic understanding of the issues covered during classes, are able to use these critically and who master the field-specific language of the discipline will be given a mark of excellence. Those students who demonstrate a mnemonic knowledge of the subject with a more superficial analytical ability and ability to synthesize, a correct command of the language but not always appropriate, will be given a satisfactory mark. A superficial knowledge and understanding of the material, a scarce analytical and expressive ability that is not always appropriate will be rewarded with a ‘pass' mark. Students who demonstrate gaps in their knowledge of the subject matter, inappropriate language use, lack of familiarity with the literature in the program bibliography will not be given a pass mark.

Teaching tools

Online resourses available for student online; film and videos show during lectures.

Office hours

See the website of Serena Baiesi