Teaching code

4S002927

Teacher

Sidia Fiorato

Coordinator

Sidia Fiorato

Credits

9

Language

English

Scientific Disciplinary Sector (SSD)

L-LIN/10 - ENGLISH LITERATURE

Period

I semestre (Lingue e letterature straniere) dal Sep 28, 2020 al Jan 9, 2021.

Lessons timetable Moodle Seminars 0

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

MAPPING THE GOTHIC

The course illustrates the birth and the development of the gothic novel in English literature with a specific focus on the articulation of individual identity in the most representative texts of this genre. A part of the course will be devoted to a digital humanities approach to the genre through digital literary mapping and reflections on hypertexts.

TEACHING METHODS

Students who attend the course: the course will be held in English through lectures and will also include parts for reflection and discussion on the part of the students upon the topics under consideration.
The critical references indicated in the programme will be available for the students. Slides related to the topics of the course and used during the lessons will be uploaded to Moodle and are part of the programme.

Students who do not attend the course: the programme remains the one indicated on the webpage. They can access Moodle and the uploaded slides which are part of the programme.

All students can ask for further references or about the topics of the course during the receiving hours (as indicated on the webpage)

A) Primary Texts (any edition, but NOT abridged)

Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto (1764)
Matthew Gregory Lewis, The Monk (1796)
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818)

B) Critical Texts (compulsory)
Fred Botting, The Gothic, London and New York, Routledge, 2005 (capitoli 1-5)

David B. Morris, “Gothic Sublimity”, New Literary History, Vol. 16, No. 2, (Winter, 1985), pp. 299-319

Daniel P. Watkins, “Social Hierarchy in Matthew Lewis’s The Monk”, Studies in the Novel , summer 1986, Vol. 18, No. 2 (summer 1986), pp. 115-124

Alan Rauch, “The Monstrous Body of Knowledge in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein”, Studies in Romanticism, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Summer, 1995), pp. 227-253
Carolina Sánchez-Palencia Carazo and Manuel Almagro Jiménez “Gathering the Limbs of the Text in Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl”, Atlantis, Vol. 28, No. 1 (June 2006), pp. 115-129
Franco Moretti, Atlas of the European Novel 1800-1900, London, Verso, 1998, (ch 1), pp. 12-73
Gregory I.N., Donaldson C., Murrieta-Flores P. and Rayson P. (2015) “Geoparsing, GIS and textual analysis: Current developments in Spatial Humanities research”, International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing, 9, pp. 1-14
“Mapping the Emotions of London in Fiction, 1700-1900”, in David Cooper, Christopher Donaldson
and Patricia Murrieta-Flores, Literary Mapping in the Digital Age, London and New York, Routledge, 2016, 25-46

C) History of Literature (compulsory)
- A. Sanders, The Short Oxford History of English Literature, Oxford University Press, 2003

Examination Methods

Assessment methods and criteria

The lessons will be in English. The exam will be an oral discussion in English on the topic of the course and the texts in the program (parts A,B,C).
In particular:
- the ability to discuss topics (literary trends, authors, genres) within the history of English literature
- the ability to present a critical argumentation on topics related to the texts of the syllabus (making examples from scenes and passages)
- the ability to make connections between the topics of the course, on the basis of the critical texts indicated in the programme


Requirements
Students unable to attend lectures are required to get in touch before preparing for the exam. The programme and the modalities of assessment do not vary for Erasmus students
All students, possibly also the students who will not be able to attend the course regularly, are kindly invited to attend the first class of the course, when the programme will be illustrated in detail.