OVERVIEW

This is a third-year course taught in the second semester. It introduces students to aspects and issues of early modern English drama before examining William Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra (36 hours= 6CFU).

The second part of the course (18 hours = 3CFU) will focus on the group of seventeenth-century English poets known as 'metaphysical poets', with particular reference to John Donne, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Richard Crashaw and Thomas Traherne.

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The courses of English literature aim to provide students with a basic knowledge of British literature and culture from the Renaissance to the present age with special emphasis on the development of modern fiction, post-colonial studies, twentieth-century modernism and post-modernism.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

Students who attend this course regularly and study the prescribed materials

1. can describe the literary forms and the most important personalities of early modern Engish literature;
2. are familiar with numerous aspects and issues of early modern English drama;
3. are acquainted with the main features of Early Modern English and are able read and understand English texts in old spelling;
4. know analytically at least one play by Shakespeare, can describe its main features and relate them to specific historical and cultural contexts;
5. are able to analyse highly complex texts such as those by Shakespeare recognising the main formal features of the single texts and relate them to the various historical and cultural context, as well as using the cues and ideas offered by the critical material;
6. can identify the formal and content feature of significant seventeenth-century poems.

TEACHING METHODS

Lectures in English (54 hours; 5 hours per week; second semester), interspersed with screenings of movies or recordings of theatrical performances and/or seminar activities (if the students who attend classes regularly will show an interest in said activities).

Attendance is heartily recommended.

Students who are unable to attend will have to read some supplementary material, which will be made available in aulaweb.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The course aims to introduce the students to the study of early modern English literature. Lectures will first illustrate the historical, religious, social and cultural features of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. They will then focus on the formal and content analysis of William Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. Particular attention will be paid to: the relevance of religious controversies on the literary, artistic and cultural production; the material conditions of the period's theatrical experience (structures of the playhouses and the theatrical business) and the way they profoundly shaped dramatic texts that would later acquire traits of universality and atemporality; the importance of ancient Rome in the early modern social imagination. In order to locate Antony and Cleopatra more firmly within Shakespeare's oeuvre, as well within the broader context of early modern drama, analyses of passages from other plays by Shakespeare or other playwrights of the period such as Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson may be proposed (36 hours = 6CFU).

The latter part of the course (18 hours = 3 CFU) will focus on the metaphysical poets of 17-century England, with particular reference to the theatrical element that is typical of their works, as well as the tension between profane and mystic Eros that characterizes the production of authors such as John Donne, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Richard Crashaw and Thomas Traherne.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Students will have to study William Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra in English, as well as the other materials (presentations, contextual texts and critical essays) that will be made available either through aulaweb or in the Department library.

They will also have to make themselves familiar with the history of English literature 1500-1785 (reference books: L. Hopkins and M. Steggle, Renaissance Literature and Culture, Continuum, London 2006, pp. 1-96; L. M. Crisafulli e K. Elam, Manuale di letteratura e cultura inglese, Bononia UP, 2009, pp. 19-179).

They will also have to read in English either Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe or Samuel Richardson's Pamela.

Foreign students who cannot read Italian will be allowed to use a different reference book from Crisafulli-Elam.

A collection of seventeenth-century English poems (for those who have 9 CFU) will be made available at Copycolor in Via Balbi.

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

Exam Board

DOMENICO LOVASCIO (President)

STEFANIA MICHELUCCI (President)

LESSONS

LESSONS START

Monday 18 February

Class schedule

ENGLISH LITERATURE AND CULTURE III

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

This course is assessed by written examination. Language of examination: Italian or English (students are free to choose either). The open-ended-question exam paper (4 hours/9 CFU; 3hours/6 CFU) covers all parts of the syllabus (cultural and historical context, history of literature 1500-1785 and all the prescribed texts and critical materials).

ASSESSMENT METHODS

The exam paper involves open-ended questions (on the historical period, the cultural contexts, the main authors, extracts of plays and novels) and guided commentary of literary texts. The open-ended questions test knowledge and comprehension; the guided commentary tests the students’ ability to recognise and describe the main formal features of specific texts, and connect them to contextual historical and cultural information; it also tests the students’ comprehension of, and ability to respond to, the critical essays included in the reading list.

Exam schedule

FURTHER INFORMATION

Attendance is heartily recommended. Students who are unable to attend will have to study some supplementary or different material. Subscription to the course via aulaweb is mandatory. The password will be provided at the beginning of the course.

Students who have already taken an exam on early modern English literature will have to inform Professor Lovascio to find out whether they can take this exam on a tailored reading list.

This syllabus is valid until February 2020.