The course will focus on the major authors, periods and genres in English
literary culture in their historical contexts. Relevant analytical and
interpretative strategies are introduced to enable students to develop a
clear critical thinking and an understanding of a wide range of literary
writing in English, from the end of the 16th century to the end of 19th
century.
Course Content - Last names M-Z
This course surveys English literature from the end of the seventeenth century to the end of the nineteenth century, encompassing a number of major writers and important genres and themes. The course aims to provide a basic context for understanding literature written during two centuries of English literary history by focusing on textual analysis, the historical and cultural contexts in which the texts were written, and the changing conventions they employ.
Keir Elam e Lilla Maria Crisafulli Manuale di letteratura e cultura inglese,
Bologna, Bononia University Press. Marenco, a cura di, Storia della civiltà letteraria inglese, vol. 1 e vol 2.
Torino, UTET, 1996.
Lilla Maria Crisafulli e Keir Elam (eds), Manuale di letteratura e cultura inglese (Bononia University Press)
Franco Marenco (ed) Storia della civiltà letteraria inglese, vol. 1 e vol 2 (UTET)
Learning Objectives - Last names A-L
The course (72 hours) will focus on the study of late 16th- and 19thcentury
literature in English. Aims of the course:
a. to introduce students to the different literary genres;
b. to familiarize students with the critical instruments required for the
analysis of literary texts;
c. to enable students to develop a critical consciousness and an
awareness of critical and culture theory through detailed analyses of
some the most representative texts of literatures in English from the late
16th century to the late 19th century.
Knowledge and understanding: Students will become familiar with historical and cultural contexts of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England and will acquire the critical tools to cope with the formal and substantive components of the literary texts analysed during the lessons.
Applying knowledge and understanding: Students learn how to apply processes, models, questions, and theories that result in enhanced clarity in the comprehension of literary texts, which will be appreciated in both their formal and their contentual features.
Making judgements: Students are able to discuss the literary questions considered during the course, proposing critical perspectives and well-grounded judgements on the texts included in the programme.
Communication skills: Ability to convey meaning orally effectively, with particular reference to themes and questions considered during the lessons.
Learning skills: Students acquire the methodological tools needed to read, analyse and understand literary texts in their various generic structures.
Learning Objectives - Last names M-Z
This 72-hour course provides an overview of the development of literature in English from the end of the Seventeenth century to the end of the Nineteenth. Its main objectives are: a. introducing students to literary genres; b. familiarizing with the basic historical, cultural, and methodological instruments needed to read and understand literary texts; c. providing tools to interpret critically and analytically some of the most representative texts of the English Literature in the period 1700-1800.
Knowledge and understanding: Students will become familiar with historical and cultural contexts of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England and will acquire the critical tools to cope with the formal and substantive components of the literary texts analysed during the lessons.
Applying knowledge and understanding: Students learn how to apply processes, models, questions, and theories that result in enhanced clarity in the comprehension of literary texts, which will be appreciated in both their formal and their contentual features.
Making judgements: Students are able to discuss the literary questions considered during the course, proposing critical perspectives and well-grounded judgements on the texts included in the programme.
Communication skills: Ability to convey meaning orally effectively, with particular reference to themes and questions considered during the lessons.
Learning skills: Students acquire the methodological tools needed to read, analyse and understand literary texts in their various generic structures.
Prerequisites - Last names A-L
the prerequisites are those provided for the course of study
Prerequisites - Last names M-Z
The prerequisites are those indicated by the course of studies.
Teaching Methods - Last names A-L
lectures and seminars
Teaching Methods - Last names M-Z
lectures and seminars
Further information - Last names A-L
The course takes place in the second semester.
Further information will be given at the beginning of the course.
Further information - Last names M-Z
The course starts in the second semester.
All information regarding hours, additional materials, texts, themes and authors considered during the lessons are available on Moodle:
https://e-l.unifi.it/course/view.php?id=5407
syllabuses are the same for attending and not attending students
Type of Assessment - Last names A-L
Type of Assessment
Oral and/or written exam. The exam will test students knowledge of:
1. The history of English literature and culture from origins to the Victorian Age.
2. Specific issues and themes in 16th- and 19th- century British literature;
3. The key texts and critical literature included in the reading list.
Students will demonstrate the ability to analyze and critically evaluate the key texts included in the reading list, and to place them within their contexts of production and reception.
The test will be considered passed if the candidates demonstrate adequate knowledge in 1,2,3.
The exam aims to assess:
- The knowledge of key concepts in the history of English literature from the origins to the Victorian Age.
- The ability to describe and place literary phenomena within their contexts of production and reception;
- The ability of close reading and appreciation of all the texts included in the reading list as well as a thorough command of methodological and theoretical tools;
- The ability to use formal and critical terminology.
activities and tests on e-learning Platform moodle
Students will demonstrate that they can discuss the subjects treated during the course, propose connections between different authors and works, and express themselves clearly.
Grades are given on the basis of 30 points. Points are awarded if students are able to 1) describe form and contents of the texts studied, 2) understand, summarize and propose critical readings of those texts, 3) elaborate personal judgements that are solidly grounded on the text and/or secondary literature, 4) use appropriate terms. Nos. 1 and 4 are essential in order to obtain the minimum passing grade (18/30); higher evaluations depends on how students have developed their skills in all four points listed above.
Type of Assessment - Last names M-Z
Final examination: oral exam
The questions will cope with at least two main aspects of the course: 1) knowledge of the literary texts analysed during the lessons, 2) knowledge of the historical, social, and cultural contexts of their production. Students will demonstrate that they can discuss the subjects treated during the course, propose connections between different authors and works, and express themselves clearly.
Grades are given on the basis of 30 points. Points are awarded if students are able to 1) describe form and contents of the texts studied, 2) understand, summarize and propose critical readings of those texts, 3) elaborate personal judgements that are solidly grounded on the text and/or secondary literature, 4) use appropriate terms. Nos. 1 and 4 are essential in order to obtain the minimum passing grade (18/30); higher evaluations depends on how students have developed their skills in all four points listed above.
Course program - Last names A-L
The course is divided into three parts: theater, novel, and poetry from 17th century to 19th century. The first part of the course will move from Shakespearean comedy to study first seventeenth century drama, then eighteenth and nineteenth century drama. The rise of the novel and its development will be studied in the second part of the course, to move then to gothic novel and its nineteenth century revival. The third part of the course will be devoted to poetry, eighteenth century and Romantic in particular.
Key texts
William Shakespeare excerpts from the comedies
Daniel Defoe Robinson Crusoe
The comedy of manners (excerpts)
Mary Shelley Frankenstein
Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights
William Wordsworth “selected poems”
S.T. Coleridge The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner
John Keats “selected poems”
Robert Luis Stevenson Dr. Jeckill and Mr Hyde and The Master of Ballantrae
Joseph Conrad The Secret Sharer and The Shadowline
Oscar Wilde “selected works”
READING LIST
Giorgio Melchiori Shakespeare e il mestiere del teatro
Fernando Cioni “Introduzioni” in Shakespeare Le commedie romantiche
Ian Watt The Rise of the Novel
A booklet with keytexts and critical texts will be available on moodle
Course program - Last names M-Z
This course is subdivided into three parts. The first part considers theatrical texts. The second part deals with English poetry written between the 17th and the 19th century; particular focus will be devoted to the Romantic period. The novel and its eighteenth- and nineteenth-century declinations is at the centre of the third part of the course; we will look into texts by Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Mary Shelley and Charlotte Brontë.
1. Primary texts
- Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Norton Critical Edition 2001, ed Richard J. Dunn.
- Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein: 1818 text. Oxford U.P. (Oxford World’s Classics) 1993, with an introduction by Marilyn Butler
- Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels. Oxford U.P. (Oxford World’s Classics) 2005, ed Claude Rawson e Ian Higgins: Part I, “A Voyage to Lilliput” and Part IV, “A Voyage to the Country of The Houyhnhnms”
- A course booklet including:
A) Extracts from theatrical texts, including The School for Scandal by Richard Sheridan and The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde;
B) Poems or extracts from poetic texts, including works by William Wordsworth, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning;
C) Extracts from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novels (includes: Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Fielding's Joseph Andrews, Austen's Emma)
2. Secondary texts
A course booklet including:
A) Fest, Kerstin. “Dramas of Idleness: The Comedy of Manners in the Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Oscar Wilde”, in Idleness, Indolence and Leisure in English Literature, ed Monika Fludernik e Miriam Nandi (Palgrave 2014);
B) Abrams, Meyer H. “Varietà della teoria romantica: Wordsworth e Coleridge”, cap. V of Lo specchio e la lampada: la teoria romantica e la tradizione critica (Il Mulino 1988);
C) Christ, Carol T. “Victorian Poetics”, in A Companion to Victorian Poetry, ed Richard Cronin et al. (Palgrave 2002);
D) Mullan, John. “Swift, Defoe and Narrative Forms”, in The Cambridge Companion to English Literature 1650-1740, ed Steven N. Zwicker (Cambridge 2004);
E) Frank, Judith. “The Comic Novel and the Poor: Fielding's Preface to Joseph Andrews.” Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 27, No. 2 (1993-1994);
F) Butler, Marilyn. “Introduction [to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein]”, introduction to Frankenstein (Oxford U.P. - Oxford World’s Classics 1993);
G) Gilbert, Sandra M. “A Dialogue of Self and Soul: Plain Jane's Progress”, from the section “Criticism” in Jane Eyre (Norton Critical Edition 2001).