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 English 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 to 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 relating them to the various historical and cultural context, as well as using the cues and ideas offered by the critical material.

PREREQUISITES

Level B1, English Language

TEACHING METHODS

Lectures in English, which will be complemented by screenings of theatrical performances in order to enable students to appreciate theatrical texts in their fullest instantiation. 

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 seeks 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 Othello. 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 (the structure of the playhouses and the theatrical business) and the way they profoundly shaped dramatic texts that would later acquire traits of universality and atemporality. In order to locate Othello 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, Ben Jonson and John Fletcher may be proposed.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Students will have to study William Shakespeare's Othello 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 Elam-Crisafulli.