Learning outcomes

The course, held in English, aims at introducing the students to English literature (from the Victorian to the contemporary period), with specific reference to a selection of canonical texts, and at presenting methodological approaches for the analysis of literary texts and genres. The course aims at providing a good knowledge of British literature (articulated in historical context, texts, genres, literary trends and authors) and the skills for a critical analysis and argumentation on different kinds of texts in their historical and cultural context. At the end of the course, students will be able to: - Analyse the literary texts of the programme in their historical and cultural context; - Apply an aware critical approach to literary texts and present an argumentation which shows knowledge of literary conventions; - Express the acquired literary and critical competence in English clearly and coherently.

Program

THE SHORT-STORY GENRE, FROM JOYCE TO KUREISHI

A) PRIMARY SOURCES:* (in any edition; those signalled below are to be found in Frinzi Library)
-J. JOYCE :“The sisters”, “Eveline”, “A little cloud”, “Clay”, “A painful case” ("Dubiners", ed. by T. Brown, 1992)

-V- WOOLF, : “The mark on the wall”, “Kew Gardens”, “The evening party”, An unwritten novel”, “Monday or Twesday” (cf. in Frinzi, V.Woolf, " A Hounted House: the Complete Short Fiction" ed. by S. Dick, Bloomsbury Classics, 2003)

-K. MANSFIELD: “Prelude”, “Je ne parle pas français”, “Bliss”, “Miss Brill”, “Her first ball”, “At the bay”, “The garden party”, “The fly” (cf, in Frinzi, "The complete Stories of Katherine Mansfield", Avondale, 1978)
-J. FRAME,: “The lagoon”, “The reservoir”, “Keel and Kool”, “The day of the sheep”, “The teacup”, “”Ian Godfrey”, “A relative of the famous”, “The terrible screaming” (cf., in Frinzi, the collections "The Lagoon and Other Stories", Bloomsbury Classics, 1991; "The Reservoir: Stories and Sketches", Braziller, 1963; "You are Now Entering the Human Heart", The Women's Press, 1984)

-H. KUREISHI: “We’re not Jews”, “My son the fanatic”, “Lately”, “The flies” (in "Love in a Blue Time", Faber and Faber, 1997);

*The short stories listed above may be read in any edition in English. In any case, they will be gathered together for the students' easy access to them. Details will be given at the beginning of the course.

B) CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
-C.E. MAY, "The New Short Storiy Theories", Ohio UP, 1994 (E.A. Poe, "Poe on short fiction", 59-72; B.M. Ejxenbaum, "o. Henry and the Theory of the Short Story" (81-90); M.L. Pratt, "The short stoy. The long and the short of it", 91-113; A. Chekov, "The short story", 195-198; C.E. May, "Chekov and the modern short story", 199-217; J. Cortàzar, "Some aspects of the short story", 245-267; N. Gordimer, "The flash of fireflies" (263-267)
-A. HUNTER, "The Cambridge Introduction to the Short Story in English", Cambridge UP. 2007 (pp.6-9, 50-83)
-S. ZINATO, "Screaming Silence: Language and Fear in Janet Frame's Short Fiction", 181-194 in A. Righetti (ed.), "Theory and Practice of the Short Story: Australia, New Zealand, The South Pacific", 2006
-B. BUCHANAN, "Hanif Kureishi", Palgrave Macmillan, 2007 (le pagine che verranno indicate a lezione)

OBLIGATORY INTEGRATION OF CRITICAL READINGS (B) FOR NON-ATTENDING STUDENTS
-S. CHATMAN, "Story and Discourse. Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film", Cornell UP, 1978, pp.181-219
- D. HEAD, "The Modernist Short Story", Cambridge UP, 2009, ch.s 2,3,4.
-K.C. KALETA, "Hanif Kureishi. Postcolonial Storyteller", University of Texas Press, 1998 (pages on Kureishi's short fiction)

C) HANDBOOK OF LITERARY HISTORY
-A. SANDERS, "The Short Oxford History of English Literature", Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994: ch.7-10 (the parts that will be indicated on the course moodle)

All students (attending and non-attending) are requested to register on the moodle of the course, in order for them to have access to posted information and didactic material

Bibliografia

Examination Methods