THE AMERICAN EPIC
This course is about American literature and culture in the 19th and 20th century. It will consider works that show epic ambitions, among them novels by Melville, Stephen Crane and Hemingway, long poems by Whitman, Pound, Eliot, Williams and Hart Crane, as well as films and folk music. We will consider how American writers, artists and filmmakers haveconsistently sought to create the Great American Epic.
The course aims to familiarize students with major trends of American culture and with important works in different genres (fiction, essay, drama, poetry, film). Students will learn how to analyze such works competently from a historical. textual, and generic perspective.
At the completion of the course the student
- will have become familiar with major American historical and cultural developments, and with some major American writers and texts;
- will be able to interpret these developments in English and Italian with reference to fiction, poetry, drama and literary theory;
- will be able to contextualize and analyze texts and documents of notable complexity and historical significance and describe their cultural and linguistic peculiarities.
Preferably, students should already have taken an introductory course in American literature. However, personal interest and a good background in reading literature may be sufficient to participate usefully in this course. A fair knowledge of English (B2 or superior level) and an ability to follow complex historical and cultural arguments is also required. Erasmus students are welcome.
This is a lecture course given in English for 6CFU (Semester I) or 9CFU (Semster I and II). In Semester I there will be 3 hours per week given in 2 classes; in Semester II, one two-hour class per week (only for students who wish to acquire 9 CFU). Students must enroll for this course in Aulaweb where they will find weekly notes & resources. The final exam is written. Students may write a paper after taking their final exam if they wish to improve their grade.
EXAMINATION PROCEDURE There will be a written exam (3 hours), which can be taken in February, June-July, September-October 2019 or February 2020. The exam is in three parts: Part 1 - Fill in the blank (10 questions); Part 2 - Short Answer (5 questions); Part 3 - Essay questions (Answer 3 questions chosen from a list).
PLAGIARISMS ARE UNACCEPTABLE AND WILL LEAD TO A LOWER OR FAIL GRADE.
Examples of American approaches to a national epic in the 19th century are Melville's Moby-Dick, Whitman's Leaves of Grass and Crane's The Red Badge of Courage. The 20th century is rich in long poems and sequences: Frost's North of Boston, Eliot's The Waste Land, Pound's Cantos ; W.C. Williams's Paterson, Stevens's Notes Toward s Supreme Fiction, Crane's Bridge, Lowell's History. We will be reading closely some of these works in their entirety, and selections from others.
Indicative Reading List
(Readings for 6CFU and 9CFU will be indicated and distinguished precisely in the Aulaweb for this course.)
Whitman, Leaves of Grass; Robert Frost, North of Boston; T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land; Ezra Pound, XXX Cantos; W.C. Williams, Paterson; Hart Crane, The Bridge; Robert Lowell, History.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables; Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courgae; William Faulkner, Sanctuary; F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.
Outline of American History https://usa.usembassy.de/etexts/history/toc.htm
Outline of American Government http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/outlines/government-1991/
1 October 2018.
ANGLO-AMERICAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE III
EXAMINATION PROCEDURE There will be a written exam (3 hours), which can be taken in February, June-July, September-October 2017 or February 2018.The exam is in three parts: Part 1 - Fill in the blank (10 questions); Part 2 - Short Answer (5 questions); Part 3 - Essay questions (Answer 3 questions chosen from a list). Students are also encouraged to write after taking the written exam a 1,500-word paper on a subject agreed upon with lecturer. PLAGIARISMS ARE UNACCEPTABLE AND WILL LEAD TO A LOWER OR FAIL GRADE.
See Examination Procedure. The written exams are graded by the lecturer and a colleague in the same discipline who have previously agreed on criteria of evaluation, as outlined in class.
