Teaching code

4S01196

Teacher

Lisanna Calvi

Coordinator

Lisanna Calvi

Credits

6

Language

Italian

Scientific Disciplinary Sector (SSD)

L-LIN/10 - ENGLISH LITERATURE

Period

2 B dal Apr 4, 2022 al Jun 4, 2022.

Lessons timetable Moodle Seminars 0

Learning outcomes

The module aims at offering an overview of late-nineteenth to twentieth-century English drama, as well as at presenting the students with the basics of textual analysis. On successful completion of the module, students will achieve a good knowledge of the cultural context in which the texts included in the programme were composed. They will be able to develop a coherent and detailed interpretation of the texts, apply key methods and concepts relevant to textual analysis, and provide a plausible critical interpretation in a register and style that serve the context and intention.

Program

In dialogue with the past: the Restoration, from John Dryden to the twentieth century.

The return of the monarchy in Britain in 1660 after a decade of republican regime inaugurated a period of ebullient, if contradictory, transformation. Marked by political, scientific, social as well as aesthetic changes and yet nostalgic for the past, the Restoration has become a fruitful ground for twentieth-century dramatic and literary production in a problematic and imaginative dialogue between history and fiction.

Please be advised
Language: lectures will be held in Italian; primary texts will be read in English.
Further materials (slides, images, videos, etc.) will be used in class and will later be available for download from the MOODLE e-repository.
Students are required to do all the readings indicated in the three sections below:
a. Primary Texts
b. Readings
c. Further readings for non-attending students

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Primary texts
- John Dryden, Marriage-À-la-Mode, ed. by David Crane, Methuen New Mermaids, 2010.
- George Bernard Shaw, In Good King Charles’s Golden Days, in G.B. Shaw, Last Plays, Penguin, 1985.
- Rose Tremain, Restoration, Sceptre, 1989.
2. Readings
- J. Douglas Canfield, “The Ideology of Restoration Tragicomedy”, ELH, Vol. 51, No. 3, 1984, pp. 447-464.
- Gale K. Larson, “In Good King Charles’s Golden Days: An Imaginative and Truthful History”, Shaw, Vol. 19, 1999, pp. 149-158.
- Christine Harrison, “In Dialogue with the Early Modern Past. Gender Resistance in Rose Tremain’s Restoration and Music and Silence”, European Journal of English Studies, Vol. 16, No. 3, 2012, pp. 227-239.
3. Further readings for non-attending students
- Marc Kishlansky, L’età degli Stuart. L’Inghilterra dal 1603 al 1714, Il Mulino, 1999, pp. 275-366.
- Martha Rozett Tuck, “Constructing a World: How Postmodern Historical Fiction Reimagines the Past”, Clio, Vol. 25, No. 2, 1996, pp. 145-164.
Further details on required readings and general information on the bibliography will be provided during classes.

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 above.

Bibliography

Examination Methods

Typology: oral exam in Italian. There will be no mid-term tests.

The exam will consist in an oral discussion (in Italian) that will test the knowledge of the module’s topics (texts and authors). Students will be required to analyze and critically evaluate the primary texts also by contextualizing them in their historical, dramatic, and cultural background. Assessment will consider: 1. the knowledge and comprehension of primary texts (see a. above), 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.