OVERVIEW

This course consists of 54 hours of lessons, corresponding to 9 ECTS. The first two parts, eighteen hours each, will take place from October to January and will be articulated in three hours per week; the third part, the last eighteen hours, will take place from the end of February to the end of April, probably two hours per week.

The course will be entirely held in Italian. During the lessons, texts in Swedish, Danish and Norwegian will be analysed.

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

This course aims to introduce the students to the different aspects of cultural and literary history of the Nordic countries, while highlighting elements of uniformity and differentiation among them and, furthermore, in relation to the rest of the European cultural world.

TEACHING METHODS

54 hours of traditional lessons. Further activities will be indicated during the course.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

PART ONE - From the "Men of the modern breakthrough" to Modernism: a journey in Scandinavian literature and society.

The aim of this part of the course, which is meant to complete the literary history examined in the first year, is to consider the main aspects of the cultural and socio-historical evolution of the Scandinavian countries from the Eighties of the Nineteenth century to the present. This subject will be deepened from the particular perspective of the cultural and social reflections in poetic texts, by examining a significant corpus from the literary traditions of Denmark, Sweden and Norway from Naturalism to the late expressions of Modernism in the Sixties.

PART TWO - Fairy and folktales in Scandinavia, from the oral tradition to literary works.

The genre of fairy tale is commonly considered an expression of children's literature due to both its characteristics (symbolism, fantastic elements, universal messages) and the adults' practice to tell these stories to children. However, it preserves a collective patrimony of values, world views, destinies, and its cultural horizon is as well influenced by a particular age or society as concerning human nature in every period. The aim of this part of the course is to propose (and stimulate) a reflection on the genre of the fairy and folktale through the analysis of some significant texts of Scandinavian literature, comparing the oral tradition recovered and transcribed in the nineteenth century with some literary works (Andersen and Strindberg) of the nineteenth and the very early twentieth century.

 

PART THREE - The novel in Scandinavia at the turn of the twentieth century, between identity crisis and social criticism: Niels Lyhne (1880) by Jens Peter Jacobsen, Hunger (1890) by Knut Hamsun and Doctor Glas (1905) by Hjalmar Söderberg.

This part will concern the question of the individual crisis and the reactions to the irruption of modernity during the transition from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. The problem will be contextualized with regard to the European and Scandinavian Realism, Naturalism and Decadentism, and the lectures will focus on three particularly significant Scandinavian novels, which the students are asked to read before the beginning of this part and are invited to analyse and present (individually or in group) during the lessons.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Students are expected to know the contents of the lessons, including all the texts which will be examined during the course, and will have to read a number of Scandinavian works (three by Danish, three by Swedish and three by Norwegian authors) published in the period 1890-1950, or, alternatively, later. 

For details about the programme, the reading list and all the material for students who can't attend the lessons, please contact me at davide.finco@unige.it.

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

LESSONS

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

An oral exam at the end of the course. The exam will last about forty minutes and is meant to test both the knowledge of the programme (contents of the lessons, texts analysed and readings) and the reasoning skills. The accuracy in the use of specific language of the discipline will be taken into account. 

The examination will take place partly in Italian and partly in Swedish on a subject chosen by the student. 

Exam schedule