HISTORY OF ENGLISH CULTURE

The main objective of this course is to familiarize students with the evolution of Gothic fiction from the second half of the eighteen century to its modern and postmodern rivisitations. Students are expected to consolidate the critical and methodological skills achieved during the BA educational programme. They will be led to acquire new critical tools and subject-specific knowledge relating to the ways in which Gothic fiction often incorporates motifs and narrative strategies from the fantastic and the literary fairy tale genre. Students are also encouraged to actively participate in classroom discussions in order to articulate and defend positions, consider different points of view, and evaluate evidence.
This English-taught course is part of the JOINT DEGREE IN ENGLISH AND AMERICAN STUDIES, an international educational programme, which offers motivated students the opportunity to attend some courses at a foreign partner university.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will hopefully learn to critically read novels, as well as to write a paper with coherent arguments and analytic interpretation. They will also be encouraged to draw connections between their own experiences of novels reading and critical theory. In addition, at the end of this course students should have attained an awareness of the Gothic genre, of its most relevant cultural and social contexts, its connection to the literary traditions of fantasy and fairy-tales, and finally its correlation with feminism and Postmodernism.

Students are required to possess a good degree of proficiency in both written and spoken English.
They are also expected to have some familiarity with late 19th century English and American literature, as well as with the core stylistic features of Postmodernism

Title: "The Gothic Imagination"

This course aims to provide a survey of the development of the literary Gothic from the Mid-Nineteenth Century to the Twentieth Century. A transgressive genre, the Gothic is a dynamic type of literature, which reflects what is most active and changing in the cultural developments of the times in which it is written. It encompasses most of fantastic fiction under a unifying theme: a preoccupation with fear. The close reading of the texts will show how Gothic imagery and conventions – the irrational, suspense, and horror – are deployed to explore a variety of issues relating to gender relationships, feminine sexuality but also race, degeneration, and ‘othering’.

Primary sources:

J. S. Le Fanu, GREEN TEA (1872), a cura di M. Vanon Alliata, Marsilio, 2017;
B. Stoker, DRACULA (1897) ed. with an Introduction and Notes by M. Hindle, Preface by C. Frayling, Penguin, 2003;
H. James, THE TURN OF THE SCREW (1898) any edition;
D. Du Murier, REBECCA (1938) with an Aferward by S. Bauman, Virago, 2003;
A. Carter, THE BLOODY CHAMBER and OTHER STORIES (1984), with an Introduction by H. Simpson, Vintage, 2006.

Secondary Sources:
D. Punter, The Literature of Terror, vol. I, Second edition, Longman, 1996. pp. 1-53; pp. 187-207.

J. Sullivan: "Green Tea": The Archetypal Ghost Story", in Reflections in a Glass Darkly, ed. G.W. Crawford, J. Rockhill, and B.J.Showers, New York: Hippocampus Press, 2011pp. 269-86.

Dracula, New Casebooks, ed. G. Byron, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1-21; 22-9; 30-42; 119-44.

M. Makinen, "Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber and the Decolonisaiton of Feminine Sexuality"in Angela Carter, New Casebooks, ed. A. Easton, Palgrave MacMillan, 2000, pp. 20-36.

Additional readings for non attending students:

The Gothic, ed. D. Punter and G. Byron, Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. pp. 3-12; pp. 26-30 (Introduction); pp.101-2 (A. Carter); p. 127 (Hoffmann); pp. 131-2 ( H. James); pp. 137-8 (Le Fanu); pp. 141-2 (M.G. Lewis); pp. 157-8 (J.W. Polidori); pp. 158-9 (A. Radcliffe); pp. 167-8 (B. Stoker); pp. 169-170 (H. Walpole).

The Oxford Companion to English Literature, ed. M. Drabble, Oxford: OUP, pp. 405-6 (Gothic Novel); pp. 503 (H. James); pp. 599-60 (Le Fanu) pp. 606-7 (Magic Realism); pp. 298 (Du Maurier).

A.Smith, Gothic Literature, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008. pp. 1-15 (introduction); pp. 18-33 (The Gothic Heyday); pp. 87-117 (Gothic Proximities), pp. 140-6 (Contemporary Fiction: Postmodern Gothic).

The Encyclopedia of the Gothic, eds. W. Hughes, D. Punter, and A. Smith. Vol. I, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. pp. 112-8 (A. Carter); pp. 333- 36 (Hypnotism); pp. 366-68 (H. James).

Victorian Ghost Stories: An Oxford Anthology. Selected and Introduced by M. Cox and R. A. Gilbert, Oxord: OUP, 1991, pp. ix-xx.

M. Vanon Alliata, Haunted Minds: Studies in the Gothic and Fantastic Imagination, Verona: Ombre corte, 2017. pp. 11-29 (The powers of fancy: Introduction); pp. 76-96 (Green Tea); pp. 163-78 (Dracula); 198-214 (The Turn of the Screw)

M. Vanon Alliata, "Vampires and Vampirism", in Blackwell Encyclopedia of Victorian Literature eds. Dino Felluga, Pamela K. Gilbert and Linda K. Hughes, New York: Blackwell, 2015, pp. 1713-1719.

B. Nicol, The Cambridge Introduction to Postmodern Fiction, Cambridge: CUP, 2009, pp. 1-49.

Due to the COVID-19 health emergency, the exam will be delivered remotely.
The final ORAL exam will cover all material from class and assigned readings. Students are expected to be proficient in understanding and critically analysing the texts given in the syllabus. In order to do so, when taking the exams, students are requested to have on hand the novels indicated in the primary sources. Levels of linguistic knowledge and of the ability to communicate will also be assessed.
The students must be aware that remote participation in examination is only temporary and that it has being prompted by the coronavirus pandemic.

Front lectures, class discussions, and occasional lectures by renowned scholars.
The course is taught in English

English

Class attendance is not mandatory but is highly recommended.
As far as the examination is concerned, make sure that your answers are structured logically, that you write clearly and legibly, paying attention to grammar, spelling and punctuation. The level of linguistic knowledge will be also part of the assessment. The use of bilingual dictionaries in the examination is prohibited.

written