English Literature 2
A.Y. 2021/2022
Learning objectives
The course is the second step for English Literature major and is devoted to second year undergraduate students. The course analyses the development of English literature, focussing on Augustan , Romantic and High Victorian writers, covering authors active between the 1710s and the 1870s. Students will be taught how to critically read and assess complex literary works. The syllabus includes poetry, novels and dramas.
Expected learning outcomes
Knowledge: the course aims at familiarizing students with the major works and the literary history of the XVIII and XIX centuries, through the literary genres of poetry, novel, and drama. Competence: Students will develop different reading techniques such as close reading (textual analysis) and distant reading (historical and genre assessment). The course also aims at strengthening linguistic competence with particular reference to the critical idiom and the literary language. Students attending the classes will be stimulated to develop their critical and analytical abilities with complex literary texts in order to help them become autonomous readers in English.
Lesson period: First semester
Assessment methods: Esame
Assessment result: voto verbalizzato in trentesimi
Single course
This course cannot be attended as a single course. Please check our list of single courses to find the ones available for enrolment.
Course syllabus and organization
(A-K)
Responsible
Lesson period
First semester
Unita' didattica A
L-LIN/10 - ENGLISH LITERATURE - University credits: 3
Lessons: 20 hours
Unita' didattica B
L-LIN/10 - ENGLISH LITERATURE - University credits: 3
Lessons: 20 hours
Unita' didattica C
L-LIN/10 - ENGLISH LITERATURE - University credits: 3
Lessons: 20 hours
(L-Z)
Responsible
Lesson period
First semester
More specific information on the delivery modes of training activities for academic year 2021/22 will be provided over the coming months, based on theevolution of the public health situation
Course syllabus
Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-century English Literature
The course will focus on the literary representations of social, economic, political, and cultural transformation between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Units A and C will focus on the genre novel, from its "rise" in the eighteenth century to its Victorian forms. Unit B will focus on poetry, with specific attention to Romantic poetry.
The course is intended for second-year students whose surnames begin with a letter ranging from L to Z. The course comprises 9 credit points and cannot be taken for 6.
The syllabus is valid until February 2023.
Attendance is highly recommended. Some classes will be devoted to interactive close reading.
The course will focus on the literary representations of social, economic, political, and cultural transformation between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Units A and C will focus on the genre novel, from its "rise" in the eighteenth century to its Victorian forms. Unit B will focus on poetry, with specific attention to Romantic poetry.
The course is intended for second-year students whose surnames begin with a letter ranging from L to Z. The course comprises 9 credit points and cannot be taken for 6.
The syllabus is valid until February 2023.
Attendance is highly recommended. Some classes will be devoted to interactive close reading.
Prerequisites for admission
The course is held in English and requires knowledge and skills (linguistic and analytical) acquired during the first year.
Teaching methods
- Lectures on historical and cultural context
- Interactive lectures with a focus on textual analysis and close reading
- Screening of relevant movies
- Attendance of theatrical performances relevant for the course
- Interactive lectures with a focus on textual analysis and close reading
- Screening of relevant movies
- Attendance of theatrical performances relevant for the course
Teaching Resources
General references:
Students are expected to know the main lines of development of English literature between 1700 and 1870. They shall also possess basic notions of narratology and metrics. The following handbooks (in English or Italian at the student's choice) are intended as "tools" for the preparation of the exam.
Literary history:
- Paul Poplawski, English Literature in Context, Cambridge University Press (chapters 3-4-5).
Narratology and metrics:
- Marco Canani, Francesca Chiappini, Sara Sullam, Introduzione allo studio della letteratura inglese, Carocci.
Part 1: The novel, from its rise to the Romantic period
Primary literature:
Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders, Oxford World Classics
Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Norton Critical Editions
Secondary literature (all texts will be available in the University Library, possibly in digital form, unless otherwise indicated):
Sara Sullam, Moll Flanders. Matrici, Mimesis (available in the Department Library and, hopefully, on the Torrossa digital platform, chapters 1, 2, 3)
For Mansfield Park: "Criticism" section in the Norton Critical Edition (all texts)
Part 2: Poetry, Politics and Romanticism
Primary literature:
William Blake, from Songs of Innocence "The Chimney Sweeper"; da Songs of Experience "The Chimney Sweeper", "The Little Vagabond" "London" (available on the course e-learning space)
William Wordsworth, "Preface to the Lyrical Ballads" (available on the course e-learning space) and selected parts from The Prelude (available on the course e-learning space)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "1798 France" (available on the course e-learning space)
Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Mask of Anarchy", "England in 1819" (available on the course e-learning space)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "Napoleon III in Italy" (available on the course e-learning space)
Secondary literature (all texts will be available in the University Library, possibly in digital form, unless otherwise indicated):
Stuart Curran, Romantic Poetry: Why and Wherefore?, in Id. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism, Cambridge University Press, pp. 209-228
P.M.S. Dawson, Poetry in an Age of Revolution, in S. Curran. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism, Cambridge University Press, pp. 56-81.
Part 3: Two Victorian Novelists, Dickens and Thackeray
Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Oxford World Classics
William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Oxford World Classics
Secondary literature (all texts will be available in the University Library, possibly in digital form, unless otherwise indicated):
Ina Ferris, Thackeray and the Ideology of the Gentleman, in J. Richetti (ed.), The Columbia History of the British Novel e Id. "The Sentiment of Reality: Vanity Fair", in William Makepeace Thackeray, Twayne, Boston (available on the course e-learning space)
Ilsu Sohn, An Impossible Bildung and the Bounds of Realism and Britishness in Vanity Fair, CEA Critic, 80.1, 2018 (available on the digital university library)
Maria Teresa Chialant, Bleak House. Ragnatele, Mimesis, Milano 2021 (capp. 2-7)
Additional readings for non-attending students:
Non-attending students shall read all the texts indicated above and Riccardo Capoferro, Novel: la genesi del romanzo moderno nell'Inghilterra del Settecento (capp. 1 e 2).
Suggested movies:
Tony Richardson, Tom Jones (1963)
Stanley Kubrick, Barry Lyndon (1975)
Ang Lee, Sense and Sensibility (1995)
Mira Nair, Vanity Fair (2004)
Yorgos Lanthimos, La favorita (2018)
Mike Leigh, Peterloo (2019)
All students shall read one novel chosen from each of the three following groups:
1. 'Condition of England' Novel
· Charles Dickens, Hard Times
· Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South
2. Women's Voices
· Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
· Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
· Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles
3. Children's Literature
· Edith Nesbit, The Railway Children
· Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
· Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book
Students are expected to know the main lines of development of English literature between 1700 and 1870. They shall also possess basic notions of narratology and metrics. The following handbooks (in English or Italian at the student's choice) are intended as "tools" for the preparation of the exam.
Literary history:
- Paul Poplawski, English Literature in Context, Cambridge University Press (chapters 3-4-5).
Narratology and metrics:
- Marco Canani, Francesca Chiappini, Sara Sullam, Introduzione allo studio della letteratura inglese, Carocci.
Part 1: The novel, from its rise to the Romantic period
Primary literature:
Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders, Oxford World Classics
Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Norton Critical Editions
Secondary literature (all texts will be available in the University Library, possibly in digital form, unless otherwise indicated):
Sara Sullam, Moll Flanders. Matrici, Mimesis (available in the Department Library and, hopefully, on the Torrossa digital platform, chapters 1, 2, 3)
For Mansfield Park: "Criticism" section in the Norton Critical Edition (all texts)
Part 2: Poetry, Politics and Romanticism
Primary literature:
William Blake, from Songs of Innocence "The Chimney Sweeper"; da Songs of Experience "The Chimney Sweeper", "The Little Vagabond" "London" (available on the course e-learning space)
William Wordsworth, "Preface to the Lyrical Ballads" (available on the course e-learning space) and selected parts from The Prelude (available on the course e-learning space)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "1798 France" (available on the course e-learning space)
Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Mask of Anarchy", "England in 1819" (available on the course e-learning space)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "Napoleon III in Italy" (available on the course e-learning space)
Secondary literature (all texts will be available in the University Library, possibly in digital form, unless otherwise indicated):
Stuart Curran, Romantic Poetry: Why and Wherefore?, in Id. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism, Cambridge University Press, pp. 209-228
P.M.S. Dawson, Poetry in an Age of Revolution, in S. Curran. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism, Cambridge University Press, pp. 56-81.
Part 3: Two Victorian Novelists, Dickens and Thackeray
Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Oxford World Classics
William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Oxford World Classics
Secondary literature (all texts will be available in the University Library, possibly in digital form, unless otherwise indicated):
Ina Ferris, Thackeray and the Ideology of the Gentleman, in J. Richetti (ed.), The Columbia History of the British Novel e Id. "The Sentiment of Reality: Vanity Fair", in William Makepeace Thackeray, Twayne, Boston (available on the course e-learning space)
Ilsu Sohn, An Impossible Bildung and the Bounds of Realism and Britishness in Vanity Fair, CEA Critic, 80.1, 2018 (available on the digital university library)
Maria Teresa Chialant, Bleak House. Ragnatele, Mimesis, Milano 2021 (capp. 2-7)
Additional readings for non-attending students:
Non-attending students shall read all the texts indicated above and Riccardo Capoferro, Novel: la genesi del romanzo moderno nell'Inghilterra del Settecento (capp. 1 e 2).
Suggested movies:
Tony Richardson, Tom Jones (1963)
Stanley Kubrick, Barry Lyndon (1975)
Ang Lee, Sense and Sensibility (1995)
Mira Nair, Vanity Fair (2004)
Yorgos Lanthimos, La favorita (2018)
Mike Leigh, Peterloo (2019)
All students shall read one novel chosen from each of the three following groups:
1. 'Condition of England' Novel
· Charles Dickens, Hard Times
· Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South
2. Women's Voices
· Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
· Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
· Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles
3. Children's Literature
· Edith Nesbit, The Railway Children
· Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
· Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book
Assessment methods and Criteria
The final oral exam (in both Italian and English) will focus on the syllabus topics. Students will be tested on their linguistic skills (reading and comprehension of set texts), on literary history (with particular reference to works and authors in context), on literary analysis. Presentation skills (with specific reference to the use of literary terms) will also be tested, and the student's ability to connect different literary works and provide adequate context information.
Students have the right to decline the final mark, in which case the exam will be registered as "R" (ritirato"). International and Erasmus students shall contact the course convenor.
Arrangements for students with disabilities will be made with the relevant office.
Students have the right to decline the final mark, in which case the exam will be registered as "R" (ritirato"). International and Erasmus students shall contact the course convenor.
Arrangements for students with disabilities will be made with the relevant office.
Unita' didattica A
L-LIN/10 - ENGLISH LITERATURE - University credits: 3
Lessons: 20 hours
Unita' didattica B
L-LIN/10 - ENGLISH LITERATURE - University credits: 3
Lessons: 20 hours
Unita' didattica C
L-LIN/10 - ENGLISH LITERATURE - University credits: 3
Lessons: 20 hours
Professor(s)