Against the backdrop of the main historical events of the twentieth century, the student will have to be able to recognize the features of modernist and postmodernist aesthetics in the field of the arts in general and in the narrative field in particular. Particular attention will be paid to the transition from an epistemological dominant (modernist) to an ontological dominant (post-modernist). After having demonstrated the ability to recognize the lines of continuity and the fractures between the two aesthetics covered in the program, the student will have to demonstrate the ability to analyze the works, examined during the course, of the following authors: William Butler Yeats and other modernist poets, Virginia Woolf, Ian McEwan, Ali Smith, Kazuo Ishiguro.
During the assessment, the student must be able to read and translate the primary texts in the original language, must be able to comment on them, analyzing them in thematic content and in stylistic and genre forms. He/she must also be able to place the analyzed works in the appropriate contexts from a historical and cultural point of view, recognizing the aesthetics of reference. It is also required to show in the critical commentary an ability to personally rework the concepts learned.
Autonomy of judgment: Originality of thought and the ability to personally elaborate will be particularly appreciated.
Communication skills: The ability to present in an articulated, easy-going and lexically rich way will be particularly appreciated.
Learning skills:
From the point of view of learning skills, the expected results will concern the awareness of the methods and the ability to apply them in other contexts and on other materials.
The student must have knowledge of the history of English literature with an in-depth study of the early modern period (5-600), within which knowledge of the Elizabethan Theatre and Shakespeare's work is essential. He or she must also know the history of the literary canon of the 18th and 19th centuries, and master the distinctions of literary genre with particular reference to poetry and the novel genre.
The course includes lectures in Italian with materials and slides in English. There will be seminar-type discussions on the topics covered.
The exam consists of an oral test in Italian with reading, and possible translation, from English. The ability to understand the text, the ability to elaborate a commentary on it, and above all the ability to insert it into its aesthetic and genre framework will be considered fundamental. Precision in the use of specific terminology and attention to syntax during the argumentative presentation are recommended.
A series of poems provided by the teacher
V. Woolf, To the Lighthouse, 1927
Ian McEwan, Atonement, 2001
Ali Smith, The Accidental, 2005
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let me Go, 2005
Criticism
Peter Childs, Modernism, London, Routledge, 2016 (III edition)
Raman Selden, Peter Widdowson, Peter Brooker, A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory (fifth edition), London, Longman, 2005 (pp.197-217)
Rossella Ciocca, “Cinematic narration and the mélange of genres in The Accidental by Ali Smith”, in Forms of Migration. Migration of Forms, C. Corti, M. Trulli, V. Cavone (Eds.), pp. 367-374, Bari, Progedit, 2009
Sebastian Groes (ed.), Ian McEwan Contemporary Critical Perspectives, London, Continuum, 2009 (Chapters 5, 6)
Brian Willems, Facticity, Poverty and Clones: On Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, Atropos Press, 2010 (chapter 1)
Modernist and postmodernist fiction in XX Century English Literature.
1. Crisis of representation and the artistic vanguards of early 1900
2. The revolution in time and space
3. Modernist poetry: imagism, vorticism
4. Symbolism and William Butler Yeats
5. Woolf and the stream of consciousness
6. After the II world war: from realism to the death of the novel
7. Experimentalism is back: postmodernism
8. Ian McEwan, the concept of metafiction
9. Ali Smith, the use of pastiche
10. Kazuo Ishiguro, alternative ontologies in literature
Italian
