Learning outcomes

The module, taught in English, is meant to guide the students through a critical approach to the English Literature of the period going from the Restoration to late Romanticism, especially in relation to a representative range of texts of the canon. Besides, it aims at getting the students familiar with fundamental tools necessary for text analysis and genre criticism. Its overall gaol is to provide the students with a good knowledge of the British literature of the set literary period (its historical context, its texts, genres, movements/authors) and of helping them develop skills for analysis, argumentation and exposition in English, in relation to various typologies of literary texts in their historical-cultural context.

At the end of the module, students will be able to:
-analyze the literary texts set in the syllabus in their historical-cultural contexts;
-argumentatively discuss them by taking into account literary conventions and by applying an informed critical approach that is aware of the literary nature of the text;
-demonstrate the acquired knowledge and skills, in English and in a clear and consistent way.

Program

MILTON'S SATAN'S HEIRS
The aim of the module is to provide the students with the opportunity to be guided into a critical study -aware of literary language and of contextual implications- of the the impact that Milton's epic and his characterization of Satan in Paradise Lost had on both the Restoration theatre - thorugh the figure of the rake in comedy and tragedy - , and Romantic literature and culture, when the poet of the Sublime and the prophet of revolution could be appropriated from various, different positions. Crucially, the student will analyze the deep and pervasive presence of Milton's Satanic epic in Mary Shelley's novel, where, by having it interact with the classic myth of Prometheus (the other powerful cultural icon of Romanticism), she has founded the modern myth of Frankenstein.

BIBLIOGRAPHY (all the listed works can be consulted in Frinzi Library)

*TEXTS:
- J.MILTON, Paradise Lost (1667), Book I (any annotated and unabridged edition)
-G. ETHEREGE, The Man of Mode (1676), New Mermaids, ed. by J. Barnard
-T. SHADWELL, The Libertine: A Tragedy (1677), (any unabridged edition)
-M. SHELLEY, Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus (1818), Penguin Classics
-P.B. SHELLEY, "Preface" to "Prometheus Unbound" (1839) (any unabridged edition)

*CRITICISM:
-J. CAREY, "Milton's Satan", in The Cambridge Companion to Milton, ed. by D. Danielson, 1999
-L. Berglund, "The Language of the Libertine: Subversive Morality in The Man of Mode", Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol 30.3 (1990): 369-386 (Jstor)
-A. JAFFE, "Seditious Appetites and Creeds: Shadwell's Libertine and Hobbes's Foole", Restoration: Studies in English Literarary Culture, 1660-1770, Vol. 24, No.2 (Fall 2000), 55-74 (Jstor)
-A. SHARMA, "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Milton's Monstruous Myth", Nineteenth-Century Literature, Vol. 47, No.3 (dec. 1992), 303-319, (Jstor)

Handbook for literary history: from The Oxford History of English Literature, ed. by SANDERS :
Ch.4 Revolution and Restoration Literature 1620-1690 (Hobbes; Political Prose of the Civil War Period; Milton; Rochester and Dryden; Mary Astell, Aphra Behn; Restoration Drama), Ch. 5 Eighteenth-Century Literature 1690-1780 (Introduction 276-283; Jonathan Swift; Pope; Defoe and the Rise of the Novel; Richardson and Fielding; Smollett and Sterne; Sensibility, Sentimentality, tears, and Graveyards), Ch. 6 The Literature of the Romantic period 1780-1830 (Introduction 338-340; Paine, Godwin, and the 'Jacobin' Novelists; Gothic Fiction; Blake; Coleridge; Austen, Scott; Byron, Shelley, and Keats).

N.B.: Detailed information concerning where to find the set bibliography will be given in the first, introductory class.

NON-ATTENDING STUDENTS ARE REQUIRED TO STUDY THE FOLLOWING SOURCES IN ADDITION TO THOSE GIVEN ABOVE:

-B. KIEFER LEWALSKI, "The Genres of Paradise Lost", in The Cambridge Companion to Milton, ed. by D. Danielson, 1999
-N. FORSYTH, "Satan", in The Cambridge Companion to Paradise Lost, ed. by L. Schwartz,Cambridge UP, 2014 (17-28)
-H. WEBER, da"The Restoration Rake-Hero", University of Wisconsin Press, 1986, Chapter 2
- D. ARMITAGE , "Monstrosity and Myth in Mary Shelley's Franknstein" (200-226), in Monstruous Bodies/Political Monstrosities in Early Modern Europe , ed. by L. Lunger Knoppers and J. B. Landes, 2004

TEACHING
This module will be taught in English through lectures (27 X 2 hours). It will avail itself of DVD material (film).

Examination Methods

EVALUATION
This module will be assessed by an oral examination in English and is meant to evaluate the student's acquired competence (i.e. analytical skills and contextual knowledge) in approaching the literary texts set in the syllabus.
To prepare him/herself for the examination the student is required to study the set critical bibliography, to integrate the contents developed during classes.

Non-attending students are required to study the additional, and obligatory, critical bibliography set for them in the programme.

Students are required to sit for the exam with a copy of the programme and their own primary texts.