31031 - English Literature 1 (A-L)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course students are aware of the main lines of literary history. They are able to read, understand and translate texts in foreign language, and they are acquainted with the fundamental methods and analytical tools that are needed to interpret the works of the major authors, contextualising them against the cultural and historical period of reference.

Course contents

“This thing of Darkness I Acknowledge mine”: identity, otherness and gender issues in Early modern literature and theatre.

The course intends to investigate the fashioning of the ‘subject’ and the English identity as well as the construction of different forms otherness during the early modern age. Moving from the historical and cultural background, it will focus on the analysis of some emblematic texts that belong to different literary and theatrical genres (travel report, utopia. experimental prose writing tragedy, historical play texts and tragicomedy or romance). These texts will be studied in dialogue with the emergent English political discourses and speculations, colonial politics, the visual culture, the body politics, the gender politics and the representation of the body (male and female) in the religious, scientific and medical knowledge of the age. The course will also explore the “drama”, its language and its performative dimension as well as its interaction and negotiation with the treatises and pamphlets against the theatre, the actors, the theatre owners, the City, the monarchical power and the spectators that were present during the performance. Lessons will be also devoted to the introduction and analysis of English literature and culture from the Medieval age to the Restoration through the reading of some extracts from emblematic texts:

Everyman; G. Chaucer, “Generale Prologue” (The Canterbury Tales); Francis Bacon, New Atlantis; W. Shakespeare, selected sonnets, E. Spenser, The Faery Queen and A view of the Present State of Ireland, J. Donne, selected songs and sonnets, J. Milton, Paradise Lost.

Readings/Bibliography

Primary Sources:

Theatre: Students should reads at least 3 texts from the following reading list

C. Marlowe, Edward II, 1589.

W. Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, 1594.

W. Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, 1606.

W. Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1610-11.

Prose: Students should reads at least 1 texts from the following reading list

Thomas More, Utopia, 1515-16.

A. Behn, Oroonoko or the Royal Slave, 1688

 

Secondary Sources-

(N.B. The final Syllabus and Reading List will be available on the first day of class)

Boose L. E., “The Father and the Bride in Shakespeare”, PMLA, vol. 97, n. 3 (1982) pp. 325-347. (obbligatorio)

Brown Paul, “‘This thing of Darkness I acknowledge mine': The Tempest and the discourse of colonialism”, in j. Dollimore and Alan Sinfield, Political Shakespeare. New essays in Cultural Materialism, Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York, 1985, pp. 48-71.

Doran Susan, “Virginity, Divinity and Power: The Portraits of Elizabeth I”, in Doran S., Freeman T. S (eds) The Myth of Elizabeth, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2003. (online: http://www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Focus/Elizabeth/Doran_Chapter_7.pdf (obbligatorio)

Ferguson, Margaret W., “Juggling the categories of race, class, and gender: Aphra Behn's Oroonoko”, pp. 209-224, in Hendricks Margo and Patricia Parker (eds.) Women, Race and Writing in the Early Modern Period, London, New York, Routledge, 1994.

Golinelli Gilberta, “Introduzione”, in Il testo shakespeariano dialoga con i nuovi storicismi, il materialismo culturale e gli studi di genere, Bologna, I libri di Emil, 2012 pp. 9-34.

Hall S., Ethnicity: Identity and Difference. Speech delivered at Hampshire College. (obbligatorio)

Kahn Coppélia, Roman Shakespeare. Warriors, Wounds, and Women, Routledge, London and New York. (selected chapters)

Loomba A. “Outsiders in Shakespeare's England”, in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare, eds by M. de Grazia and S. Wells, Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 147-166. (obbligatorio)

Sestito Marisa, “The Tempest: fluttuanti geografie, mitici approdi”, in Clara Mucci, Chiara Magni, Laura Tommaso (a cura di), Le ultime opere di Shakespeare. Da Paricles al caso Cardenio, Liguori, Napoli, pp. 209-223.

Thompson A., 2000, “The Racial Body and Revenge: Titus Andronicus”, Textus, Vol. 2, No. XIII, 2000, pp. 325-346.

G. Claeys, (ed. by), The Cambridge Companion to Utopian Literature, Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 2010. (selected chapters)

Traub Valery, “Gender and sexuality in Shakespeare’s England”, in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare, eds. Margareta de Grazia, Stanley Wells, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 129-146. (obbligatorio)

Vaughan V. M., Vaughan A. T., 1997, “Before Othello: Elizabethan Representations of Sub-Saharan Africans”, The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, Vol. LIV, n. 1, pp. 19-44. (obbligatorio)

Teaching methods

Frontal lessons aiming to provide students with some critical tools to approach literary texts, both in terms of linguistic analysis and of historical and cultural contextualization. Remediations and adaptations based on Shakespeare’s works.

Assessment methods

Two different options are possible:

1) A written test followed by an oral exam suggested to those students who attended classes regularly.

The written test will take place only once, at the end of the course, and will assess the students' knowledge of the main lines of English literature from the Medieval age to late XVII century. After this part, if the student passes the written text, there will be an oral interview on the primary reading list analysed during the course. The written text will take place only one time at the end of the course.

2) Oral examination: for those students who do not attend classes or do not take the written text there will be an oral examination on the history of English literature from the Medieval age to the Seventeenth century (Restoration) and on the primary reading list analysed during the course.

NB: Those students, who are able to demonstrate a wide and systematic understanding of the issues covered during the 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.

Students with SLD or temporary or permanent disabilities. It is suggested that they get in touch as soon as possible with the relevant University office (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en) and with the lecturer in order to seek together the most effective strategies for following the lessons and/or preparing for the examination.

Teaching tools

Power point presentations. The Powerpoint files that will be used during the course will be available for students on the Insegnamenti Online website: https://iol.unibo.it/ .

Office hours

See the website of Gilberta Golinelli