ENGLISH LITERATURE AND CULTURE

Single discipline educational activity

Course Sheet

Academic Year of enrolment:

2018/2019

Type of Course:

Basic

Optional/Mandatory:

Optional

Degree:

Bachelor's Degree Programme in LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL COMMUNICATION

Disciplinary Sector:

ENGLISH LITERATURE

Credits:

Programme Year:

Hours of classroom activity:

Prerequisites:

none

Borrowed from

The teaching activity currently displayed is borrowed from the teaching activities listed below.
Click on here to view professor information, educational goals, etc.

ENGLISH LITERATURE AND CULTURE

LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL COMMUNICATION

AF code:

40Y04004

Assessment Methods

Verification of learning:

Oral examination/Viva (English optional)

Assessment of:

- knowledge of the authors and their contexts;
- ability to read critically the literary text in the reading list;
- ability to analyse texts and to do so appropriately, with good critical language competence.

Students are assessed on the basis of their knowledge of the themes and the texts analysed during the course as well as the literary, critical and communicative skills they have acquired.

Teaching period

First semester

Objectives

Students will develop three main areas of competence: (i) knowledge of different cultural paradigms as well as narrative genres, functions and modes; (ii) awareness of the various problems of reading and interpretation; and (iii) critical reading of texts informed by the knowledge of/interaction of text and context. Students will learn to understand some of the basic principles of critical theory as well as applying specific reading strategies to selected texts and to raise questions about the reading process and its contexts. The emphasis throughout is on the development of students critical awareness of positions, strategies and possibilities of interpretation and the ability to propose their personal reading of literary texts.

Contents

The literary canon and its afterlives in contemporary Anglophone literatures and cultures

This years course introduces students to Anglophone literatures and cultures through a critical analysis of the canon and its legacy. Special attention will be given to Sophocles Antigone and to Shakespeares King Lear and to selected contemporary rewritings of these works by George Eliot, Athol Fugard, Yeats, Heaney, Marina Carr. Students will reflect on the interaction of texts and contexts, and the reception of both plays. A selection of key-texts will enable a reflection upon their significance and afterlife in the contemporary English-speaking literature and culture.

Recommended Bibliography

Primary Sources:

Extracts from Antigone by George Eliot, WB Yeats and Seamus Heaney.

Athol Fugard, The Island, in Statements, Theatre Communications Group (January 1, 1993), pp. 77 (dispensa);

William Shakespeare [c.a. 1605], King Lear [edizione con testo a fronte, si consiglia Mondadori, Marsilio o Feltrinelli]; (pp. c.a. 130);

Marina Carr, Il sogno di Cordelia, in TEATRO I, Roma, ES, 2011, (pp. 5-10; pp. 75-115); transl. The Cordelia Dream, Faber & Faber, 2008 (64 pp).

Secondary Sources (photocopied material):

Lecturers Power Point presentation material;

Arato, Franco, Athol Fugard. Un Ritratto, Antropologia e Teatro 8.8 (2017): pp. 192-216;

Brioschi, Di Girolamo, Fusillo, Introduzione alla letteratura. Roma: Carocci, 2013 [Listituzione letteraria: pp. 13-22; Canone: pp. 47-50; Modi della narrativa: pp. 139-184; Luniverso tematico: pp. 185-192; Il linguaggio in scena: pp. 197-205];

Crisafulli, Elam, Manuale di letteratura e cultura inglese. Bologna: Bononia University Press, 2009 [Il teatro di Shakespeare: pp. 39-60; Il teatro contemporaneo: pp. 395-399]

Gualtieri, Vivan, Dalla Englishness alla Britishness. 1950-2000. Discorsi culturali in trasformazione dal canone imperiale alle storie dell'oggi. Roma: Carocci, 2009 [Strumenti e metodi, pp. 87-98];

Pèrcopo, L., Canone e post-coloniale, in Altri canoni/canoni altri. Firenze: FUP, 2011 [pp. 64-93 + note a piè di pagina].

Sibilio, Elena, In principio era il canone: peregrinazioni semantiche di una parola, in Altri canoni/canoni altri. Firenze: FUP, 2011 [pp. 11-26]

Teaching Methods

Frontal and interactive teaching. Cooperative learning teaching methodology may occasionally be adopted. (group work).

Experts in the field may be involved in the course.

All lectures are taught both in Italian and English can be attended by students from the LM-14 course degree below the B1+/B2 level of English (LM-38).

Contacts/More Information

The methodology and theoretical aspects will be taught in the Italian language. Texts will be read in the original language, and thereby analysed with the help of parallel texts.

Further reading: a list of secondary sources is provided for students who want to further their study of the topics encompassed by this module. These selected readings are strongly recommended to students who have not attended the course.

Kathryn Brigger Kruger, The Antigone and its moral. George Eliots Antigonean considerations, in George Eliot Review Online (12 pp, photocopied material);

M. McDonald. The return of the myth: Athol Fugard and the Classics, Akroterion 51.0 (2012): pp. 1-18;

M. Onofri, Sul concetto di canone: significato e sviluppo, in Il canone letterario, Bari, Laterza, 2008, (pp. 7-50).

G. Steiner, Le Antigoni, Milano: Garzanti, 1995 (selected pages).

ENGLISH LITERATURE AND CULTURE

Course year: 1

Course year: 2

Course year: 3

Search form

ENGLISH LITERATURE AND CULTURE