ENGLISH LITERATURE 2

This two-year course aims to perfect students’ skills and basic knowledge of English literature gained in the first year of the BA course in “Lingue, Civiltà e Scienze del Linguaggio” (Literary and Cultural Course). It will focus on a group of novels belonging to the early and late Victorian period, which include many unrealistic features, such as ghosts, supernatural experiences, and dark secrets belonging to the romance genre.
This course will also provide students with major critical theories and methodologies, textual analysis as well as with an in-depth investigation of the cultural-historical context.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will hopefully learn:

1) to read, understand and translate novels and to relate them to their historical and cultural contexts;
2) to analyse critically a literary text;
3) to make autonomous judgements;
4) to show in academic writing that you can think critically about the topics discussed and that you can back up your points with evidence.

Students must be fully proficient in English. They are required to have certified English proficiency at level B. (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages).
They are also expected to be familiar with nineteenth-century English literature.

Forms of the Novel

Starting with the distinction between novel and romance, two distinct genres designating respectively a picture of real life and manners, and works free of the more restrictive aspects of realistic verisimilitude, the course will analyse the presence of romance elements in the works of four novels belonging to High and Late Victorian literature. Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, R.L. Stevenson and Oscar Wilde favour a realistic narrative form, which however combines fantastic and Gothic elements. In this essentially anti-mimetic conception of art, fears and desires, as well as longing and grief may be articulated.

Primary Sources

C. Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847)
C. Dickens, Great Expectations (1860)
R.L. Stevenson, The Master of Ballantrae (1888)
O. Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)

Secondary Sources

Andrew Sanders, “The Short Oxford History of English Literature”, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 399-422(High Victorian Literature); pp. 468-71; 476- 78 (Late Victorian and Edwardian Literature).
Beth Newman, “Introduction: Biographical and Historical Contexts”, in "Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyre" , ed. by Beth Newman, Boston, New York, Bedford Books, 1996, pp. 3-14.
Sandra M. Gilbert, Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. New Haven, London, Yale University Press, 1979, p. 360.
“The Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde”, ed. by Peter Raby, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 78-91.
C. De Stasio, "Introduzione a Stevenson", Bari: Laterza, 1991, pp. 3-40; pp. 68-76.
R. Ellmann, “Oscar Wilde”, London: H. Hamilton, 1987, pp. 288-315.
“Oscar Wilde”, edited by Isobel Murray, Oxford, New York : Oxford University, 1989, pp.

Letture integrative per gli studenti non frequentanti

F. Marroni, “Come leggere Jane Eyre”, Chieti: Solfanelli, 2013.
Sandra M. Gilbert, “Plain Jane’s Progress”, in Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë, ed. Beth Newman, Ibid., pp. 475-501.
Susan Meyer, “Colonialism and the Figurative Strategy of Jane Eyre”, in New Casebooks Jane Eyre, pp. 92-129.
F. Marucci, Dickens, Milano: Edizioni universitarie di Lettere, Economia, Diritto, 2021, pp. 7-46; pp. 155-162.

Students will be assessed by a final written exam either in Italian or in English consisting of:

1) one open-ended question;
2) two critical analysis of a given passage drawn from the works indicated in the primary sources;
3) one short translation from English into Italian

Non-native English speakers are not requested to do the translation. They will write a critical analysis of the given passage.

Front lessons and class discussions

Italian

Ideally, students should read the novels indicated in the primary sources before the beginning of the course in order to increase their participation in class discussions.

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