English Literature

The course aims at providing a basic preparation in English and other Anglophone literatures. Specific attention will be given to the interdisciplinary connections with the fields of geography, history, cultural and literary studies. Students will acquire the basic methodological tools of literary criticism, and they will be provided hints on the most suitable critical strategies to approach the issues proposed by each syllabus. Primary texts will be proposed in English. Texts in translation are allowed but not encouraged.

Knowledge: Within the cultural and critical horizon of English Literature, openly referring to the chosen historical period focussed on each year, students will prove able to read and understand the chosen texts, locating them in their context. They are expected to frame the text with reference to its author (biography and works), its genre (analogies and divergences), its publishing context (culture and history). They are also required to be able to compare the given text with other texts belonging to the English and/or the international context.

Competence: Students are expected to understand a literary text in English (novel, poem or play) and to be able to identify its main thematic guidelines, though they are not required to translate it. Moreover the students are expected to develop the basic skills of textual analysis and show the ability to select and point out the texts' stylistic guidelines in terms of rhetorical choices and analogies/deviations in comparison with the genre they belong to.