LETTERATURA INGLESE COMPARATA

L-LIN/10 - 6 CFU - 1° Semester

Teaching Staff

MANUELA FORTUNATA D'AMORE


Learning Objectives

Starting from Romanticism and the Victorian Age, this course is mostly centred on British women’s significant pieces of contemporary writing. It aims to 1) present non-specialist students with the main English cultural and literary trends; 2) critically work on gender, national identity, and the “other” in Anglo-Italian contexts; 3) enable students to use text analysis and literary appreciation tools.



Detailed Course Content

Both the course and the syllabus are divided into 3 modules.

Module A, British Women Writing Italy: Poetry, Fiction, and Travel (2 ECTS), is centred on significant XIX-XXI century English women writers. The textual analysis and critical appreciation of pieces taken from Mary Shelley’s, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s, Muriel Spark’s, and Jan Morris’s literary production are meant to draw the students’ attention to the way the Italian “other” has been represented.

Module B, Writing Italian Migrant Communities in Contemporary Britain: Perceptions and Self-Perceptions (2 ECTS), focuses on Anita Arcari and Mary Contini, second and third-generation British contemporary writers, who have written about Italy in the past, and their lives in the Italian communities in Scotland and Wales. The texts that have been included in the methodology section will throw light on the history of Italian migration to Britain in post-war years, as well as on the concepts of “perception” and “self-perception” in Anglo-Italian contexts.

Module C, London through Sicilian Eyes: Simonetta Agnello Hornby (2 ECTS), finally considers the Sicilian writer’s special case. Naturalized British, she has written for the Italian reading public since 2002. The novels that have been chosen, Vento scomposto, La camera oscura, and La mia Londra, all published between 2009 and 2014, discuss the main issues in British culture and society, as well as show Hornsby’s peculiar relation with the city of London and the English literary tradition.

Both the course activities and the syllabus will be in English. They consider the different educational purposes of the post-graduate courses in Comparative Languages and Literatures and Modern Philology. The materials that will be used in class, complete with both selected extracts from the literary works mentioned in the three modules and bibliographical references, are officially part of the syllabus. They will be immediately made available, even in electronic form, for those students who will not attend classes.



Textbook Information

  1. British Women Writing Italy: Poetry, Fiction, and Travel (2 CFU)

 

All students will study both the class materials and 1 of the the listed works.

International students who have no or little knowledge of XIX-XX century English Literature will also consult

 

Methodology: the core books are

 

Those who are already familiar with English Literature, and who do not need to consult Blamires’ coursebook, will also read:

 

B. Writing on Italian Migrant Communities in Contemporary Britain: Perceptions and Self-Perceptions (2 CFU)

 

Apart from the class materials, international students will choose 1 of the listed works. As for methodology, they will study

 

Those international students who are familiar with English Literature will also read

 

C. London through Sicilian Eyes: Simonetta Agnello Hornby (2 CFU)

Apart from class materials, international students will choose 1 of the listed novels. Those who are not familiar with the Italian language will read

Simonetta Agnello Hornby, The Almond Picker (2002).




Open in PDF format Versione in italiano