Teaching code

4S002903

Teacher

Lisanna Calvi

Coordinatore

Lisanna Calvi

Credits

6

Language

English

Scientific Disciplinary Sector (SSD)

L-LIN/10 - ENGLISH LITERATURE

Period

I semestre (Lingue e letterature straniere) dal Sep 27, 2021 al Jan 8, 2022.

Lessons timetable Moodle Seminars

Learning outcomes

The course, held in English, aims at introducing students to relevant aspects of English literature, from the Pre-Romantic to the contemporary period, through the reading of a selection of canonical texts. Primary notions about possible methodological approaches for the analysis of literary texts and genres will be imparted. Furthermore, the course will provide a sound knowledge of the English literature of the period (historical context, texts, genres, literary movements and authors) and stimulate abilities and skills for the critical analysis of texts, their discussion and analysis, in consideration of their historical, cultural, and context specificities. At the end of the course, students will be able to: - Analyse the literary texts of the syllabus discussing them in relation to their historical and cultural context; - Discuss the texts using an appropriate critical approach demonstrating the knowledge of the literary conventions of their time; - Express the acquired literary and critical knowledge demonstrating an adequate competence also in the English language.

Program

Her Bread to Earn. Women, Money, and Society in the Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Literary Imagination

Moving from three texts, published between 1847 and 1966 and all written by female authors, the module will investigate, also in the light of the notion of appropriation, the intellectual, socio-economic, cultural, and of course literary problems related to the position of women and to its conceptualization between the nineteenth and the twentieth century.

Please be advised
The programme consists in three parts: a. Primary texts, b. and b.1 Readings, and c. Handbook (see the BIBLIOGRAPHY section below).
Further details on required readings, general information on bibliographical material, and exam method will be given during classes.
Language: lectures will be in English.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

a. Primary texts
- Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, ed. by Stevie Davies, Penguin, 2006.
- Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, in V. Woolf, A Room of One’s Own and Three Guineas, ed. by Michèle Barrett, Penguin 2019, pp. 3-103.
- Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea, ed. by Andrea Ashworth, Penguin, 2000.

b. Readings
- Julie Sanders, Adaptation and Appropriation, Routledge, 2006, pp. 1-41, 95-137.
- Esther Godfrey, “Jane Eyre, from Governess to Girl Bride”, Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 45, No. 4, 2005, pp. 853-871.
- Susan Stanford Friedman, “A Room of One’s Own in the World: The Pre-life and After-life of Shakespeare’s Sister”, in A Companion to Virginia Woolf, ed. by Susan Berman, Blackwell, 2019, pp. 189-201.
- Caroline Rody, “Burning Down the House: The Revisionary Paradigm of Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea”, in Wide Sargasso Sea, ed. by Judith L. Raiskin, Norton, 1999, pp. 217-225.

b1. Further readings for non-attending students
- Laura Marcus, “Woolf’s feminism and feminism’s Woolf”, in The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf, ed. by Susan Sellers, Cambridge UP, 2010, pp. 142-179.
- Michael Thorpe, “The Other Side: Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre”, in Critical Perspectives on Jean Rhys, ed. by Pierette M. Frickey, Three Continents, 1990, pp. 178-185.

3. Handbook
As regards the literary and cultural context spanning from the Romantic Age to Postmodernism, students will refer to:
- Andrew Sanders, The Short Oxford History of English Literature (Oxford University Press, 2003 - third edition), chapters 6 (“The Literature of the Romantic Period 1780-1830”), 7 (“High Victorian Literature 1830-1880”), 8 (“Late Victorian and Edwardian Literature 1880-1920), 9 (“Modernism and its Alternatives: Literature 1920-1945”) e 10 (“Post- War and Post-Modern Literature”).

FURTHER MATERIALS
Other teaching materials (slides, images, videos, other texts, etc.) that will be used during classes will be available for download from the MOODLE e-repository. These contents do not substitute but complement the mandatory readings listed in the BIBLIOGRAPHY section.

Bibliography

Examination Methods

Typology: oral exam. There will be no mid-term tests.
The exam will consist in an oral discussion (in English) that will test the knowledge of the module’s topics (texts, authors, and genres) and the literary and cultural context (c. Handbook; main authors and movements from the Romantic Age to Postmodernism). Assessment will consider: 1. the knowledge and comprehension of primary texts, 2. the development of good analytical and synthetic skill levels with regard to the main historical, cultural, textual, and critical topics of the module, 3. the use of an appropriate vocabulary. Students may be required to read and comment on passages taken from primary texts (see a. above).