Unit ENGLISH LITERATURE
- Course
- Humanities
- Study-unit Code
- GP005240
- Curriculum
- Moderno
- CFU
- 6
- Course Regulation
- Coorte 2017
- Offered
- 2019/20
- Learning activities
- Affine/integrativa
- Area
- Attività formative affini o integrative
- Academic discipline
- L-LIN/10
- Type of study-unit
- Opzionale (Optional)
- Type of learning activities
- Attività formativa monodisciplinare
ENGLISH LITERATURE - Cognomi A-L
| Code | GP005240 |
|---|---|
| CFU | 6 |
| Teacher | Francesca Montesperelli |
| Teachers |
|
| Hours |
|
| Learning activities | Affine/integrativa |
| Area | Attività formative affini o integrative |
| Academic discipline | L-LIN/10 |
| Type of study-unit | Opzionale (Optional) |
| Language of instruction | Italian |
| Contents | “WISE CHILDREN”, BETWEEN SHAKESPEARE AND HOLLYWOOD. The course intends to analyse "Wise Children" (1991), the last and greatest novel by Angela Carter, one of the most distinctive, original narrative voices in modern English literature. |
| Reference texts | Angela Carter, "Wise Children". |
| Educational objectives | This teaching aims to provide a basic knowledge of the English contemporary literature, and a deep, accurate acquaintance and comprehension of one influential work of the 20th century, also in its correlations with Shakespeare's drama. Upon successful completion of this course, students should be able to do the following: 1. Demonstrate detailed knowledge of the primary texts and of their historical framework. 2. Identify aesthetic principles of literature, arts and humanities. 3. Select and use the vocabulary of the humanities at an appropriate intellectual level. 4. Demonstrate the skill of reading, translating and commenting on the texts. |
| Prerequisites | In order to be able to know how to tackle the course, students 1. must have an in-depht knowledge of history and geography of Great Britain; they must also have a basic knowledge of World history and geography; 2. are expected to be able to read primary texts in their original language; 3. must be able to read critically and formulate relevant conclusions (critical thinking); 4. must have acquired proficiency in communication (writing, reading, listening skills). These are competences that the student should have already acquired in his/her school and university curriculum. These preconditions are valid both for attending and not attending students. |
| Teaching methods | Class, primary resources, slides, PowerPoint presentations, video clips, films. |
| Other information | Attendance is not mandatory. contacts: francesca.montesperelli@unipg.it |
| Learning verification modality | ORAL EXAM: The exam is a talk upon the subject and themes of the course, and a reading, translation and comment on passages taken from the primary texts. Students are reminded that they are supposed to have an in-depht knowledge of history and geography of Great Britain and a basic knowledge of World history and geography. The date scheduled in the official timetable is that of the II year written examination. Usually, students sit the oral exam three days after the written one. The course program is valid only for one academic year. |
| Extended program | “WISE CHILDREN”, BETWEEN SHAKESPEARE AND HOLLYWOOD. Wise Children (1991) is the last and greatest novel by Angela Carter, one of the most distinctive, original narrative voices in modern English literature. In this novel is palpable her love of fairy tales and the surreal, incorporating a large amount of magical realism and elements of the carnivalesque. The novel follows the fortunes of twin chorus girls, Dora and Nora Chance, and their bizarre theatrical family. This family is served up to the reader as a model for Britain and Britishness, obsessively dividing itself into upper and working class, high and low culture. And just as Dora proves these strict lines of demarcation to be false within her own family, so, too, her story shows the reader how badly they fit the complexity and hybridism of British society and culture. The novel plays also on Carter's admiration of Shakespeare, whose work, like Carter’s own, is brimful with ideas of doubleness, artifice and parody, and with the tropes of ambition, greed and revenge, fathers and daughters, brothers and sisters, twins, mistaken identity, incest and adultery. Moreover, like any postmodern novel, “Wise Children” not only steals freely from other literary texts but also takes from real people’s lives. In Hollywood, for example, Carter has a field day, and its stars make several guest appearances: featured players are Charlie Chaplin, Judy Garland, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Josephine Baker, Jack Warner, W C Fields, Gloria Swanson, Clark Gable, and so on. “Wise Children” represents a jumbled, impure multi-culture, while showing clearly that class, racial and sexual elites which seek to exclude otherness are still a powerful and conditioning force. By revealing Shakespeare at the heart of British culture, as the ‘author of our being’, Carter is arguing that plurality and hybridity are not simply conditions of modernity, but have always existed and are characteristic of life itself. |
ENGLISH LITERATURE - Cognomi M-Z
| Code | GP005240 |
|---|---|
| CFU | 6 |
| Teacher | Annalisa Volpone |
| Teachers |
|
| Hours |
|
| Learning activities | Affine/integrativa |
| Area | Attività formative affini o integrative |
| Academic discipline | L-LIN/10 |
| Type of study-unit | Opzionale (Optional) |
| Language of instruction | Italian |
| Contents | trauma and literature |
| Reference texts | to be defined |
| Educational objectives | Understanding of contemporary British cultural and literary context within the field of trauma studies |
| Prerequisites | Knowledge of the history of English literature between the nineteenth and twentieth century |
| Teaching methods | Ldctures in the classrooms assisted by multimedia tools |
| Learning verification modality | written test |
| Extended program | Literature and trauma in British literature between modernism and contemporary age |