CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH LITERATURE

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

Though not compulsory, attendance to the lessons is strongly recommended.

This 54-hour course will be divided into two modules. Both Module A, Literary Currents and Voices in Contemporary Times (5 ECTS), and Module B, Gender and Genre in Utopian/Dystopian Fiction: Burdekin, Carter and Morris (4 ECTS), will be held in English.

Module A – Literary Currents and Voices in Contemporary Times (5 ECTS)

This module will mostly be based on text-analysis activities. Every author and extract will be connected to four distinctive topics. In this way, it will be easier to value their contribution to the development of the main literary genres and trends:

1. After Queen Victoria: Social Unrest, Feminism and WWI

John Galsworthy, Strife. A Drama in Three Acts (1908)

Mina Loy, Feminist Manifesto (1914)

Sigfried Sasson, Glory of Women (1917-1918)

2. Modernist Representations of the City

Katherine Mansfield, The Garden Party (1922)

Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (1925)

3. Winds of War: Melancholy and Sorrow

Stephen Spender, I Think Continually of Those Who Were Truly Great (1933)

Edith Sitwell, Still Falls the Rain (1942)

Keith Douglas, Aristocrats (1943-1946)

4. After 1945: Depicting a Bleak World

William Golding, Lord of the Flies (1954)

Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (1962)

Harold Pinter, Betrayal (1978)

C.A. Duffy, Translating the English (1989)

Ian McEwan, Black Dogs (1992)

Sarah Kane, Crave (1998)

Module B – Gender and Genre in Utopian/Dystopian Fiction: Burdekin, Carter and Morris (4 CFU)

This module is based on the relation between gender and genre in Katharine Burdekin’s, Angela Carter’s and Morris’s utopian/dystopian narratives.

In this case too, all the study materials will be given in electronic form during the course and uploaded on Studium.

Students will read two of the following works in full:

1. Katharine Burdekin, Swastika Night (1937)

2. Angela Carter, Heroes and Villains (1969)

3. Jan Morris, Last Letters from Hav. A Novel (1985)

Module A – Literary Currents and Voices in Contemporary Times (5 ECTS)

1. History of English Literature: Contemporary Times

Recommended Handbook

Sanders Andrew, The Short Oxford History of English Literature, London, O.U.P., 2004, pp. 505-640.

2. Primary Texts

The above-mentioned extracts and texts will be given in PPT/PDF form and uploaded on Studium.

3. Methodology and Literary Terms

Cuddon John Anthony, The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, London, Penguin (Latest ed. – The complete list of relevant terms will be available on Studium).

Or

Fowler Roger, A Dictionary of Modern Critical Terms, London, Routledge, (Latest ed. – The complete list of relevant terms will be available on Studium).

Module B – Gender and Genre in Utopian/Dystopian Fiction: Burdekin, Carter and Morris (4 ECTS)

1. Primary Texts

Students will read George Orwell, 1984 (latest edition) and two of the following works:

Katharine Burdekin, Swastika Night [Feminist Press, 1985 or Kindle Ed.].

Angela Carter, Heroes and Villains [Penguin Classics 2011].

Jan Morris, Last Letters from Hav. A Novel [Random House, 1985 o edizione 2006].

2. Methodology

Claeys Gregory, Dystopia, A Natural History, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2018, pp. 3-18; 447-490.

Lehnen Christine, Defining Dystopia: A Genre Between the Circle and The Hunger Games, Tectum Verlag, pp. 11-19; 25-44.

3. Critical Essays

Adams Tim, “Jan Morris: ‘You’re talking to someone at the very end of things’”, «The Guardian», 1 March 2020

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/mar/01/jan-morris-thinking-again-interview-youre-talking-to-someone-at-the-very-end-of-things

Fenwick Gillian, Traveling Genius: The Writing Life of Jan Morris, Columbia, The University of South Carolina Press, 2008, pp. 1-31; 113-121.

Karpinski Eva, “Signifying Passion: Angela Carter's Heroes and Villains as a Dystopian Romance”, «Utopian Studies», vol. 11, n. 2, 2000, pp. 137-151. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20718179.

Pagetti Carlo, “In the Year of Our Lord Hitler 720: Katharine Burdekin's Swastika Night”, «Science Fiction Studies», vol. 17, n. 3, 1990, pp. 360–369. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4240012.

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 programs can be consulted in the Library.