BERGAMO
Overview
Date/time interval
Syllabus
Course Objectives
At the end of the course, students will have a deeper understanding of 19th-century and 20th-century European literature from a comparative and intercultural perspective and will have acquired a sound knowledge of literary theories pertaining to the relationship between auto/biographical reality and fictional representation. Competence in the English language will also be enhanced with a view to intercultural communication.
Course Prerequisites
English level: B2+ required, C1 a bonus. Familiarity with English, French, and German literature from a comparative perspective (esp. 19th-20th centuries) welcome but not essential.
Teaching Methods
The course consists mainly in a series of lectures, but special attention will be devoted to a dialogue with students. Depending on the number of students attending the course, some small workshops may be organised. Audiovisual as well as textual materials will be used for teaching.
Assessment Methods
Depending on the number of students attending the course, the exam will consist in EITHER (1) an essay, in English, on a topic agreed upon with the lecturer with a subsequent oral exam on the rest of the syllabus to confirm the final grade (in the case of a small number of students attending the course); OR (2) an oral exam which ascertains the acquisition of the competences that are necessary to fulfil the credits (in the case of a large number of students attending the course). The lecturer will specify the type of exam and the specific mode of assessment once the number of enrolled students will be ascertained.
If there is a large number of students, the oral exam will consist in BOTH (1) reading and commenting on a passage drawn from one of the three novels (Flaubert, Woolf, Wolf), in particular by contextualising the passage within the economy of the text, by describing the narrative and rhetorical strategies employed in it, and by reflecting upon its form and content; AND (2) two or three broader questions on the other texts in the syllabus, with the possibility of creating critical and intertextual links.
If there is a small(er) number of students, the oral exam will turn upon BOTH (1) a summary of the essay and an examination of its arguments; AND (2) two or three broader questions on the other texts in the syllabus, with the possibility of creating critical and intertextual links.
Form, meant not only as grammatical accuracy and fluency but first and foremost as taking care in arranging and organising contents in a cogent and coherent manner, will be a fundamental criterion in the assessment of the knowledge and the competences acquired by the student.
Contents
Entitled "Auto/biographical reality and intercultural representation", this course intends to investigate the relationship between literature and life, between reality and fiction in a series of European texts between the 19th and the 20th century. The course comprises three novels and three essays; students unwilling or unable to attend the course will have to complete some further reading (indicated below). If the number of students allows it, students will also have to submit an essay before the oral exam. At any rate, active participation will be encouraged and we will work on texts together so as to fine-tune the students' close reading skills.
We will start with Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1857), a canonical text which first created that rift between literature and life (as seen in so-called bovarysme) which is still perceived to be foundational of literary modernity (and subsequently, the contemporary period). Extracts from Julian Barnes's postmodern novel Flaubert's Parrot (1984) will be referenced so as to examine the intercultural construction of Flaubert beyond his national context. We will move on to examine Virginia Woolf's Orlando (1928), an early 20th-century novel which will allow us to consider English life-writing, in particular by adding and amplifying some elements related to gender and sexuality. Finally, the third compulsory novel, Christa Wolf's Nachdenken über Christa T. (1968) will lead us to further explore the relationship between writing and society through the study case of the German Democratic Republic, in particular in the tension, intrinsic to experimental writing, between freedom and responsibility.
Three compulsory essays are to be read alongside the three novels, namely:
- Oscar Wilde, "The Decay of Lying" (1891);
- Erich Auerbach, "Mimesis: Dargestellte Wirklichkeit in der abendländischen Literatur" (1946) (extract);
- Marcel Proust, "La Méthode Saint-Beuve" (posthumous, 1954).
The three novels and the three essays are to be read, if possible, in the original language; alternatively, they may be read in English.
Students who are unable or unwilling to attend the course are required to complete the following extra reading:
- Jonathan Culler, "The Realism of Madame Bovary", Modern Language Notes 122:4 (2007), pp. 683-96;
- Max Saunders, "Woolf, Bloomsbury, the ‘New Biography’, and the New Auto/biografiction" (capitolo 11), in Self Impression: Life-Writing, Autobiografiction, and the Forms of Modern Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 438-83;
- Anna K. Kuhn, "Christa T.: The Quest for Self-Actualization" (capitolo 3), in Christa Wolf's Utopian Vision, from Marxism to Feminism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 51-95.
Online Resources
More information
Students who are unable to attend the course are encouraged to contact the lecturer as soon as possible in order to discuss the essay and the additional reading.