ENGLISH LITERATURE AND CULTURE II

This course intends to 1) present students with the historical-literary trends, as well as the most significant authors of XIX-XX century Britain; 2) critically work on the peculiar aspects of literary genres; 3) consolidate the students’ use of text analysis and appreciation tools.

Divided into two modules, both the course and the syllabus will be in Italian and English.

Module A, (7 ECTS), is centred both on the evolutionary phases and the most representative figures of Romantic, Modern and contemporary literature. The texts that will be analyzed in class will reinforce the students’ use of stylistic and critical appreciation tools.

The materials that will be used in class, including the chosen extracts and bibliographical references, will be immediately made available through STUDIUM, for those students who will not attend classes.

Module B, (2 ECTS), is centred on the Importance of Irish Culture and Identity before and after the Easter Rising which finally led to the independence of Ireland. Following this route through the significant literary work of leading Irish authors, who paved the way to 'Being Irish'.

Modulo A – Foundations: English Literature of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century (7 ECTS)

The course based on thematic nuclei, that will help students to arrange the contents of the historical-cultural backdrop, will analyse the evolution of the main literary genres through the critical-stylistic reading of representative texts.

Study Material for this module will be the PPT prepared to support the didactic activity with QR, links, video-clips, interviews, images of artistic elements necessary as frames for enhancing textual interpretations, the selected literary or critical texts and the Literary Handbook chosen from the pointed out ones:

1. The XIX Century and Romanticism

1. Nature, Gothic and Science

William Wordsworth, “The Preface” to The Lyrical Ballads (1801)

William Wordsworth, Daffodils (1804)

Dorothy Wordsworth, The Grasmere’s Journal (1933)

S.T. Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798)

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818)

b. The XIX Century, Second Part: The Women’s Novel

Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1847)

Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847)

George Eliot, Daniel Deronda, (1876)

2 – From Modernism to the Contemporary Age

Time and Duration: Stream of Consciousness

James Joyce, ‘Eveline’, Dubliners (1914)

James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)

Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway, (1925)

Virginia Woolf, Moments of Being, (1972)

1. Utopia vs Dystopia

George Orwell, Animal Farm, (1945)

George Orwell, 1984, (1949)

J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, (2003)

1. Post-Colonial narrative: Gender and Identity

Doris Lessing The Grass Is Singing, (1950)

Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea, (1966)

Arundhaty Roy, The God of Small Things, (1997)

Students will read the whole text, Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea, Penguin 2006 and will have to study:

Nushrat Azam, “Madwoman in the Post-Colonial Era” A Study of the Female Voice in Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea, International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature, IJALEL 6(7), 2017, pp. 236-242.

Recommended Handbooks (one to choose from the ones listed below):

Bertinetti Paolo, Storia della letteratura inglese, vol. II, Torino, Einaudi, 2000 (Dal Romanticismo all’età contemporanea. Le letterature in inglese).

Cattaneo Arturo, A Short History of English Literature. From the Middle Ages to the Romantics, Second Edition, Milano, Mondadori, 2019, pages. 239-303.

ID., A Short History of English Literature. From the Victorians to the Present, Second Edition, Milano, Mondadori, 2019, pages. 3-443.

Sanders Andrew, The Short Oxford History of English Literature, London, OUP, 2004 (chapters. 6-10) [It. translation A. Sanders, Storia della letteratura inglese, Milano, Mondadori, 2001, vol.II.Dal secolo XIX al Postmoderno, pages. 338-620.]

Anthologies

The Oxford Anthology of English Literature, Oxford, vol. II, OUP, 1973.

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. II, N. York and London, W.W. Norton, 2013.

During the exam students will present all the texts without notes or signs. They will have to do an accurate formal-stylistic analysis, beyond its setting within the historical-literary framework and the canon of the authors. No further anthology texts will be required.

Module B - The Importance of Being Irish (2 CFU)

Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

J.M. Synge, Aran Islands (1906)

J.M. Synge, The Playboy of the Western World (1907)

James Connolly, Easter Rising – Proclamation (1916)

P.V. Glob, The Bog People (1975)

Seamus Heaney, Punishment (1975)

Seamus Heaney, Station Island (XII sequence) (1989)

Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, For James Connolly (2016)

Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, She Was at The Haymaking (2016

Study Material for this module will be the PPT prepared to support the didactic activity with QR, links, video-clips, interviews, images of artistic elements necessary as frames for enhancing textual interpretations, the selected literary or critical texts and the Literary Handbook chosen from the pointed out ones.

Students will read the whole play by Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, London, Penguin Student Edition [latest ed.].

Welch Robert Anthony , The Cold of May Day Monday, Oxford, OUP, (2014), pages. 120-166; 231-267.

Critical Studies

Kiberd Declan, Irish Classics, London, Granta Books, 2000, pages. 325-339; 420-482.

Ní Chuilleanáin Eiléan (ed.), The Wilde Legacy, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2003, pages. 9-34;35-50.

O’Brien Eugene, Seamus Heaney: Creating Irelands of the Mind, Dublin, The Liffey Press, 2002, pages. 1-7; 38-45; 60-71

Please remember that in compliance with art 171 L22.04.1941, n. 633 and its amendments, it is illegal to copy entire books or journals, only 15% of their content can be copied.

For further information on sanctions and regulations concerning photocopying please refer to the regulations on copyright (Linee Guida sulla Gestione dei Diritti d’Autore) provided by AIDRO - Associazione Italiana per i Diritti di Riproduzione delle opere dell’ingegno (the Italian Association on Copyright).

All the books listed in the program can be consulted in the Library.