ENGLISH LITERATURE
Academic year and teacher
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- Versione italiana
- Academic year
- 2021/2022
- Teacher
- PAOLA SPINOZZI
- Credits
- 6
- Didactic period
- Primo Semestre
- SSD
- L-LIN/10
Training objectives
- Students will widen their knowledge of British literature and culture from a theoretical, methodological, diachronic, and synchronic perspective.
Discussion of theoretical and methodological topics will highlight the metaliterary dimension. The study of specific authors and texts is aimed at: presenting the historical and cultural contexts in Great Britain and Europe; applying critical tools to literary texts and interpreting their aesthetic, ethical and ideological value.
Particular attention will be devoted to the students’ acquisition of skills required in job sectors such as literature teaching and publishing, which involve understanding how literary forms and genres have evolved through history and in relation to other cultural expressions. Prerequisites
- Knowledge of English language: B2 level
Course programme
- NATURE [AND] POETRY
We will focus on nature poetry, which in the western literary canon comprises: classical pastoral; Renaissance versions of pastoral; 18th-century landscape poetry; Romantic poems on nature; the contemporary genre of ecological poetry. Ecopoetry emphasises the interconnectedness of human and nonhuman life in a time of anthropogenic impact on the environment and envisions the future of our planet by re-examining our relationship with the natural world.
Close reading will concentrate on:
Nature poetry in Romanticism;
Nature poetry in the Victorian Age;
Georgian poetry in the twentieth century;
Contemporary ecological poetry. Didactic methods
- Classes will be face-to-face and live-streamed. They will be recorded and made available to the students on the SEA platform managed by the University of Ferrara.
Classes will tackle the historical and cultural context as well as specific authors and literary texts. To foster interaction, specific contexts and texts will be presented and students’ comments and questions will be encouraged.
The timetable is downloadable from the web site: https://docente.unife.it/paola.spinozzi/didattica. Learning assessment procedures
- The exam consists of:
A. a written essay on the topics of the course;
B. an oral exam, focusing on the history of English literature as well as on the topics of the course.
The written part of the exam can be taken separately from and before the oral part only if you choose the first date available after the end of the course. After that date, the written and the oral part of the exam will have to be taken jointly on the same day.
All primary and critical works can be downloaded from Materiale didattico.
Assignments for the students who attend the course:
1.a) the study of the primary works;
1.b) the study of the critical works, 1 per primary work;
2) the study of a century of history of English literature.
Assignments for the students who do not attend the course:
1.a) the study of the primary works in the bibliography;
1.b) the study of the critical works, 1 per primary work;
2) the study of two centuries of history of English literature. Reference texts
- PRIMARY TEXTS
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Aeolian Harp” (1795, published 1796), “Frost at Midnight” (1798), “Kubla Kahn” (1797, published 1816), in Selected Poems (1906).
William Morris, “The Lapse of the Year”, in A Book of Verse (1870); “An Apology”, “Prologue – The Wanderers. Argument”, pp. 3-6, in The Earthly Paradise (1868-1870), Volume I.
Vita Sackville West, “A Saxon Song”, in Orchard and Vineyard (1921); The Land (1926); The Garden (1946).
10:10 Review climate change special, published in The Guardian on Friday 25 September 2009, https://www.theguardian.com/culture/series/10-10-climate-change-special/2009/sep/25/all.
Carol Rumens, “2084” (2009), https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2009/sep/26/2084-carol-rumens
Kathleen Jamie, “The Spider” (2009), https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2009/sep/26/the-spider-kathleen-jamie
Andrew Motion, “The Sorcerer’s Mirror” (2009), https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2009/sep/26/the-sorcers-mirror-andrew-motion
Keep It in the Ground. An anthology of poetry on climate change, curated by British poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy and published in The Guardian on 11 May 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/11/an-anthology-of-poetry-on-climate-change
Carol Ann Duffy, “Parliament” (2015), https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/27/keep-it-in-the-ground-a-poem-by-carol-ann-duffy
Matthew Hollis (2015), “Causeway”, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/20/a-climate-change-poem-for-today-causeway-by-matthew-hollis
Michael Longley, “Storm” (2015), https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/22/a-climate-change-poem-for-today-storm-by-michael-longley
Jackie Kay, “Extinction” (2015), https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/15/a-climate-change-poem-for-today-extinction-by-jackie-kay
TESTI CRITICI - CRITICAL TEXTS
THEORY AND METHODOLOGY
Lynn White Jr, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis”, Science, vol. 155, no. 3767, 1967, pp. 1203–1207.
Jonathan Bate, The Song of the Earth, Harvard, Harvard University Press, 2000.
Three chapters of your choice.
Greg Garrard, Ecocriticism, Abingdon, Routledge, 2004.
“Beginnings: Pollution”; “Pastoral”; “Apocalypse”; “Wilderness”.
Greg Garrard, Teaching Ecocriticism and Green Cultural Studies, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
Two chapters of your choice.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
James C. McKusick, “Coleridge and the Economy of Nature”, Studies in Romanticism, Fall, 1996, Vol. 35, No. 3, Green Romanticism, pp. 375-392.
WILLIAM MORRIS
John Holmes, “Sustaining the Earthly Paradise”, in Victorian Sustainability in Literature and Culture, ed. Wendy Parkins, London and New York, Routledge, 2017, pp. 32-50.
Elizabeth Carolyn Miller, “William Morris, Extraction Capitalism, and the Aesthetics of Surface”, Victorian Studies, Vol. 57, No. 3 (Spring 2015), pp. 395-404.
VITA SACKVILLE-WEST
Elizabeth W. Pomeroy, “Within Living Memory: Vita Sackville-West’s Poems of Land and Garden”, Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 28, No. 3 (Autumn, 1982), pp. 269-289.
ECOPOETRY
James Randerson, “A story of hope: The Guardian launches phase II of its climate change campaign”, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/05/a-story-of-hope-the-guardian-launches-phase-two-of-its-climate-change-campaign”.
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
Ronald Carter, John McRae, eds, The Routledge History of Literature in English. Britain and Ireland, London and New York: Routledge, 2017, 3rd Edition [Downloadable from Materiale didattico].
