ENGLISH LITERATURE 1

The course, as part of the LCSL degree course, introduces students to the knowledge of the literary and cultural heritage of English-speaking countries, and will provide the students with skills in the thematic and stylistic analysis of selected literary texts.

The course will introduce students to the main literary artistic and cultural movements in England of second half of the Twentieth century. Students will enhance their skills in cultural and literary analysis as well as reading and translation skills. They will be able to relate texts to their historical and cultural contexts and communicate their comments and critical reflections on them with appropriate language.

B2 level in The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

Title: “Footnotes of History. Voices and strategies of the contemporary English novel”.

All the books listed below are compulsory reading:

A) Primary Sources

John Fowles, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, London, Jonathan Cape, 1969.
Julian Barnes, A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters, London, Jonathan Cape, 1989.
Lo studente è inoltre tenuto a leggere La Tempesta di William Shakespeare (edizione consigliata quella con introduzione e traduzione di Alessandro Serpieri, note di Clara Mucci, Venezia, Marsilio, 2006).

B) Context and criticism

Paola Splendore, Il secondo Novecento – Il romanzo, in Paolo Bertinetti (a cura di), Storia della letteratura inglese. Dal Romanticismo all’età contemporanea. Le letterature in inglese, Torino, Einaudi, 2000, pp. 249-286.
Donatella Montini, The Language of Fiction. Pratiche di lettura del testo narrativo, Roma, Carocci, 2007.
Brian McHale, The Cambridge Introduction to Postmodernism, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Additional texts will be available in Moodle (http://moodle.unive.it ) – students will have to download them in advance and bring them to class.

Students will be tested with six questions on the issues discussed in assigned reading and lectures. As part of the exam, they will be asked to translate, analyze and evaluate an excerpt from one of the primary texts. In the exam they will have to prove that they have acquired a good knowledge of the cultural and historical contexts of English postmodern literature, and that they have developed a basic ability to analyze, evaluate, and form autonomous judgments on the texts discussed.

EDIT MAY 2020: DUE TO THE CORONA-VIRUS PANDEMIC, IN JUNE THE EXAMS WILL BE ORAL AND STUDENTS WILL BE TESTED WITH QUESTIONS ON THE ISSUES OF THE COURSE PROGRAM.

Class lectures, with power point presentations and materials on Moodle.

Italian

Students unable to attend classes are required to contact Prof. Baratta in his office hours at least 2 months before the exam, in order to discuss an additional reading list.

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