54
English Literature
UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI NAPOLI "L'ORIENTALE"
Overview
Date/time interval
Syllabus
Course Objectives
The course's objective is to give a comprehensive understanding of English literature from the 18th and 19th centuries. Specifically, the lectures will concentrate on the evolution of the novel as a literary form, highlighting its ability to forge connections with various cultural aspects. The goal is to explore how literature and social progress interact and shape one another.
Ability to apply knowledge and understanding
The student is expected to exhibit a strong grasp of the prominent authors from the 18th and 19th centuries in English literature. This entails referencing their works and analyzing them within a critical framework that encompasses their relevant historical context. Additionally, the student should showcase proficiency in discussing and analyzing the novels listed in the bibliography, demonstrating their acquired knowledge and skills in this regard.
Further expected learning outcomes
Autonomy of opinion:
The student should be able to recognise and comment on the linguistic and narrative strategies employed in the novels studied, especially in how they present, cultivate or develop categories of cultural and identity belonging.
Communication skills:
The student should possess the ability to identify, contextualize, and provide critical analysis of excerpts from the novels mentioned in the bibliography. Furthermore, they should be capable of making comparative connections between the various styles, linguistic techniques, and communicative devices employed in these novels.
Learning skills:
The course's objective is to familiarize students with the study of English literature by providing them with the essential critical skills needed to cultivate their own literary preferences and a heightened sensitivity to writing.
Course Prerequisites
A solid understanding of the English language (at least at a B2 level) is advantageous for attending this course.
Teaching Methods
The course will consist of 27 in-person lectures, with each lecture lasting two hours. Students will be actively encouraged to engage in the assigned readings and share their own reflections, which will subsequently be discussed collectively.
Assessment Methods
The examination entails an oral exam with the purpose of assessing the understanding of the syllabus.
Students may submit a final report in Italian on the content covered during the lectures, which will form the basis for the exam. This report consists of a personal reworking of the critical analysis developed during the semester, offering space for individual reflection and analysis. Students may focus on one or more significant aspects that emerged during the lectures and explore them in depth in their own style and with their own considerations, establishing connections or relating two or more novels. The presentation of the final report involves a partial reduction of the content covered in the oral exam, which is conducted in a more focused manner, taking into account the strengths and weaknesses highlighted in the report.
Texts
Handbook for the Study of English Literature
Paolo Bertinetti, edited by, Storia della letteratura inglese, Torino, Einaudi, 2004), Vol. I 316-383, Vol. II 1-163. (mandatory)
Novels to read
Daniel Defoe, The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719);
Jonathan Swift, Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World (Gulliver's Travels) (1726);
Samuel Richardson, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded (1740);
Lawrence Sterne, Tristram Shandy (1759-67);
Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey (1818);
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818);
Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (1849-50);
Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865);
Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886);
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
Critical Bibliography
Daniel Carey, “Reading Contrapuntally: ‘Robinson Crusoe’, Slavery, and Postcolonial Theory”, in Postcolonial Enlightenment: Eighteenth Century Colonialism and Postcolonial Theory, edited by Daniel Carey e Lynn Festa, New York, Oxford University Press, 2009, 105-136;
Rossella Ciocca, I volti dell'altro, Napoli, IUO,1990;
Gareth Cordery, “David Copperfield”, in A Companion to Charles Dickens, edited by David Paroissien, Oxford, Blackwell Publishing, 2008;
Terry Eagleton, 2009, “Utopia and Its Opposites”, Socialist Register, Vol. 36, 31-39;
Jacques Lacan, “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience”, speech delivered at the 16a International Congress of Psychoanalysis, Zurigo, 17 July 1949;
Maria Laudando, “Parody, Paratext, Palimpsest - A Study of Intertextual Strategies in the Work of Lawrence Sterne”, s.l., 1994
Contents
Course Title: The English novel in the Eighteenth and Seventeenth centuries (9 CFU)
Topics
1. The Augustan Age, journalism and the birth of the novel;
2. Birth of the bourgeois novel: Daniel Defoe and colonial otherness in Robinson Crusoe;
3. Jonathan Swift’s satire: A Modest Proposal;
4. The satirical novel: otherness and elsewhere in Gulliver’s Travels;
5. The epistolary novel: psychological introspection in Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson;
6. The novel of manners: the locations of desire in Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen and The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliff;
7. The Gothic novel: Monstrosity and social imaginary in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley;
8. The social novel: David Copperfield by Charles Dickens;
9. The fantastic novel: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll;
10.The psychological novel: the influence of psychoanalytic theories in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson;
11. The decadent novel: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde;
Course Language
English.
More information
Special attention will be given to the student's capacity to provide clear and coherent commentary on all aspects of the studied novels.