Teaching code

4S002927

Teacher

Susanna Zinato

Coordinator

Susanna Zinato

Credits

9

Language

English

Scientific Disciplinary Sector (SSD)

L-LIN/10 - ENGLISH LITERATURE

Period

I semestre (Lingue e letterature straniere) dal Sep 25, 2023 al Dec 22, 2023.

Courses Single

Authorized

Lessons timetable Moodle Seminars 0

Learning objectives

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 goal 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.

Prerequisites and basic notions

To take the exam of this module students must have passed the exams of English Literature 1 and of English Language 1.

Program

TITLE: Memoirs and “opinions”: identit-y/ies, reliability, and irony in autobiographical fiction.
The module aims at making the students familiar with the theoretical topics, and the thematic/formal dynamics of autobiographical fiction from a diachronic perspectice and through the close-reading of three representative texts, whose rhetorical force keeps on challenging their readers.
TEXTS:
-DANIEL DEFOE, Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress (1724)
-LAURENCE STERNE, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1760-1767), Voll. I, IV, VII
-W.M. THACKERAY, The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. (1844)
Recommended editions: Oxford World’s Classics
CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY:
-J. CRANE, “Defoe’s Roxana: the making and Unmaking of a Heroine”, The Modern Language Review , Vol. 102, pp.11-25
-J.P. HUNTER, “Clocks, Calendars, and Names: The Troubles of Tristram and the Aesthetics od Uncertainty”, in J. Douglas CANFIELD and P. HUNTER (eds.), Rhetorics of Order/Ordering Rhetorics in English Neoclassical Literature, University of Delaware Press, 1990, pp.173-198
-R.P. FLETCHER, “‘Proving a thing even while you contradict it’: Fictions, Beliefs, and Legitimation in The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq., Studies in the Novel, Vol 27. (1995), No.4, pp.493-514
Handbook of literary history: P. POPLAwski (ed.), English Literature in Context”, Cambridge UP, 2017, chs. 3 + 4
SUPPLEMENTARY OBLIGATORY CRITICAL BILBIOGRAPHY FOR NON-ATTENDING STUDENTS:
-M. DI BATTISTA, E.O. WITTMAN (eds.), “Introduction” (pp.1-20) in The Cambridge Companion to Autobiography, Cambridge UP, 2014
-J. RICHETTI (ed.), “Introduction” + “Defoe as a Narrative Innovator” (121-138), in The Cambridge Companion to Daniel Defoe, Cambridge UP, 2008
-H. OSTROVITCH, “The Reader as a Hobby-Horse” (pp.171-190) in T. KEIMER (ed.), Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy: A Casebook, Oxford UP, 2006
-R. KING, “Tristram Shandy and the Wound of Language”, (pp.123-146) in T. KEIMER (ed.), Laurence Sterne’s the Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy: A Casebook, Oxford UP, 2006
N.B.: attending and non-attending students are expected to know about the informative and critical material uploaded on the moodle of the course.
N.B.: the entire above-given bibliography can be accessed through Frinzi Library (the articles can be downloaded from Jstor of its Data Bank)

Bibliography

Didactic methods

Frontal teaching lessons in English, with, at intervals, more interactive modes meant to verify the students’ acquisition of what is being taught and their participation. Filmic material will be used, too.
Updatings and further textual material discussed in class will be uploaded on the moodle of the course and made available to all registered students: therefore the latter are requested to keep a regular eye on it.
Students unable to attend classes are required to prepare the exam programme specially prepared for non-attending students (see “Programme”) e to regularly check the course moodle to stay updated as to reading indications and material. To get bibliographical explanations they should contact directly the professor in her office hours.
Regularly-attending students in need of recuperating a few missed classes may receive useful indications directly by the professor in her office hours (‘ricevimenti’).

Learning assessment procedures

Oral exam in English.
The exam will principally consist in questions on the scheduled texts and on the contents of the taught classes; the students' reading of the assigned critical bibliography and of the handbook will be also ascertained.
(Non-attending students will have to demonstrate they have read the primary texts and the whole critical bibliography for non-attending students, including the handbook chapters but excluding the class notes).
All students might be asked to read and comment on passages taken from primary texts.
Students will have to bring their own primary texts at the exam, without which they won't be allowed to sit for it.

Evaluation criteria

The exam will assess:
-thestudents' knowledge of the set texts (primary texts and critical bibliography)
-the student's knowledge and comprehension of the themes discussed in class (for non-attending studedents: of the topics dealt with in the critical bibliography)
-the student's acquired competence as to textual analysis and critical comment
-the student's adequate linguistic competence and propriety as to critical literary language.

Criteria for the composition of the final grade

The final grade, awarded on a 30-point scale, will assess the student's grade of satisfaction of the above-mentioned criteria.

Exam language

English