Students are expected to possess an adequate level of English to be able to follow lectures, discuss literary topics, make an oral presentation, and write an essay in English. 

Students are also expected to already possess a sound knowledge of English literary history from its origins to the contemporary.

• Teaching will mainly consist in lectures, but class discussion will also be strongly encouraged; the last part of the semester will be devoted to oral reports.
• Elearning page of course: the course page on the elearning platform will be used to share materials (primary and secondary texts; material for oral report and written paper, information about timetables, deadlines, etc...).
• Teacher/student interaction: weekly office hours; email.
• Language of course: English

This course consists of two different modules:

Module A: 54 class hours, Writing History as a Novelist: History and Fiction from Scott to the present.

Module B independent work: list of primary and secondary sources 

MODULE A:

The course intends to introduce students to one of the most fertile areas of contemporary theory, the controversial debate on the relationship between history and narrative or, to put it differently, on the “construction” of history within the narrative text.

The introductory part of the course will be devoted to delineating a theoretical and methodological framework through the illustration of specific approaches such as Historiographic Metafiction and Trauma Theory. The course will also take into account the transformations of the “historical novel” as a genre, from its beginnings in the early 19th century up to contemporary fiction, where the phenomenology and functions of historical writing appear interestingly varied.

MODULE B

Module B consists of a list of readings to be contextualized within the panorama of English Literary and Cultural History.

MODULE A

a/ Primary sources

Walter Scott, Ivanhoe, ed. by Ian Duncan, OUP, 1996.

Virginia Woolf, The Years, ed. by Hermione Lee and Sue Asbee, Picador, 1992

Graham Swift, Waterland (1983), Picador, 1992.

Peter Ackroyd, Chatterton (1987), Sphere Books, 1988.

Ian McEwan, Black Dogs (1992), Vintage, 1998.

b/ Secondary sources

Anne H. Steven, "The Formation of a Genre" (1-20)  and "Epilogue: Ivanhoe  and Historical Fiction" (150-163), in British Historical Fiction before Scott, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

Julia Briggs, "The Novels of the 1930s and the impact of History", in The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf, ed. by Sue Roe and Susan Sellers,  Cambridge, CUP,  2000, pp. 72-90.

Del Ivan Janik, "History and the 'Here and Now': The Novels of Graham Swift", Twentieth Century Literature, 35 (1), 1989, pp. 74-88.

Dana Shiller, "The Redemptive Past in the Neo-Victorian Novel", Studies in the Novel, 29 (4), 1997, pp. 538-560. 

Muller-Wood, Anja and Wood, J. Carter,  "Bringing the past to heel: History, identity and violence in Ian McEwan's Black Dogs", Literature and History, 16 (2), 2007, pp. 43–56.

Roberta Ferrari, Ian McEwan, Firenze, Le Lettere, 2012 (Chapter on Black Dogs).  

Theory

Laura Winkiel, Modernism. The Basics, London and New York, Routledge, 2017.

L. Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism, Routledge, London and New York 1988 (Part II: “Historiographic Metafiction: ‘The Pastime of past time’” e “Intertextuality, parody, and the discourses of history”, pp. 105-140.

Shoshana Felman, “Education and Crisis, Or the Vicissitudes of Teaching” (1-56) and Dori Laub, “Bearing Witness or the Vicissitudes of Listening” (57-74), in S. Felman and D. Laub, Testimony. Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History, Routledge Taylor & Francis, New York 1992

Further criticism will be suggested during the course

MODULE B

Primary sources:

Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy, ed. by C. Calvo and J. Tronch, Bloomsbury Arden, 2010.

Laurence Sterne, Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, ed. by Ian Campbell Ross, OUP, 1983.

T.S.Eliot, The Waste Land/La terra desolata (1922), introduzione, traduzione e note di Alessandro Serpieri, Rizzoli, 1982.

T.S.Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent”; “Ulysses, Order and Myth” any edition.

Caryl Churchill, Top Girls, in Teatro di Caryl Churchill, a cura di Paola Bono, Editoria e Spettacolo, 2016, vol. III.

Secondary sources:

Clara Calvo and Jesus Tronch, "Introduction" to T. Kyd,  The Spanish Tragedy, cit. 

Juliet McMaster, "'Uncrystallized Flesh and Body': The Body in Tristram Shandy", Eighteenth-Century Fiction, 2 (3), 1990, pp. 197-214.

Francesco Gozzi, Letture eliotiane, ETS, 2003 ("Introduction", pp. 5-17 and Chapter 2 "The Waste Land", pp.61-102).

Mary Luckhurst, Caryl Churchill, London, Routledge, 2014: "5. Key Production: Top Girls" (85-105).

Darren L. Gobert, The Theatre of Caryl Churchill, London, Bloomsbury, 2014: "1. Churchill's Landscapes" (1-19).

Literary and cultural Theory:

Peter Barry, Beginning Theory. An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory, Second Edition, Manchester UP, Manchester and New York, 2009.

Students who cannot attend classes will necessarily take an oral exam (Module A + B together), starting from the winter session (January – February 2019).

Module A will be assessed through an evaluation of the oral presentation and of the written paper.

The deadline for the submission of the written paper is at least ten days before the date of the oral exam. 

Module B will be assessed by an oral examination in English, during which students are expected to discuss the primary sources by analyzing them from a stylistic, thematic and linguistic point of view, as well as by contextualizing them within their literary period.  

Students are also expected  to be able to delineate and discuss in general terms the development of literary and cultural theory from Structuralism to Post-structuralism and the most recent trends.

It is also expected that students will have  a thorough knowledge of English Literary History from the beginnings to the contemporary. 

http://elearning.humnet.unipi.it/course/view.php?id=2036

INFORMATION ADDRESSED TO LINGTRA STUDENTS

Knowledge

At the end of the course the student will possess a thorough knowledge of :

• the genre of the "historical novel" and its development through the centuries,  from the Romantic period to the present;
• the methodologies of analysis of narrative texts;
• the cultural and literary context from the early 19th to the 21st century;
• the cultural and literary theoretical debate from the early 20th century to the present.

They will also acquire specific knowledge of:

• the major theories in the field of translation studies;
• the translation of drama. 

Assessment criteria of knowledge

Acquired knowledge will be assessed through:

• an oral report in class and a written paper which will verify the acquisition of specific knowledge and understanding of the narrative genre of the "historical novel" from the early 19th century to the present, as well as the capability to discuss specific critical and theoretical issues in context;
• a final oral exam in which students will have to demonstrate a good knowledge of the major theories in the field of translation studies; they will also be expected to discuss the Italian translation of English  texts and to problematize them in the light of the various theoretical approaches to translation practice.

Skills

At the end of the course  students will be able to:

• apply advanced methodological and theoretical tools to the analysis of narrative texts, in particular historical fiction;
• read, analyse and report orally on critical or theoretical essays concerning literary and cultural issues variously connected with the central topics of the course;
• contextualise narrative texts within the cultural and literary background from the early 19th to the 21st century;
• plan and write an argumentative essay in English on one of the topics of the course;
• gather and interpret relevant data;
• communicate, both orally and in written form, their conclusions, and the knowledge and rationale underpinning them, in a clear and unambiguous way;
• comment on various aspects of literary texts;
• compare and discuss Italian translations of literary texts of the English canon. 

Assessment criteria of skills

Students will be required to prepare an oral report in English based on a critical essay dealing with one of the topics of the course. 

Students will also be asked to write a paper in English (2500 to 3000 words) discussing one of the course topics. 

The final oral exam will test the students' capability to discuss the Italian translation of English literary texts, and to discuss them in the light of the various theoretical approaches to translation practice.  

THE COURSE PROGRAMME FOR LINGTRA STUDENTS DIFFERS ONLY IN MODULE B

MODULE B FOR LINGTRA STUDENTS

Module B centers on the analysis of the Italian translation of some historical plays by contemporary dramatist Caryl Churchill, and their contextualisation within the most recent theories in translation studies.

Primary sources:

Students will choose two among the following:

Caryl Churchill, Light Shining in Buckinghamshire  in Plays: One, London, Methuen, 1985; tr. it. Splende la luce nel Buckinghamshire, in Teatro di Caryl Churchill, a cura di Paola Bono, Editoria e Spettacolo, 2015, vol. II.

Caryl Churchill, Cloud Nine, in Plays: One, London, Methuen, 1985; tr. it. Settimo cielo, in Teatro di Caryl Churchill, a cura di Paola Bono, Editoria e Spettacolo, 2016, vol. III.

Caryl Churchill, Top Girls, Plays: Two, London, Methuen, 1990; tr. it. in Teatro di Caryl Churchill, a cura di Paola Bono, Editoria e Spettacolo, 2016, vol. III.

Caryl Churchill, Vinegar Tom, in Plays: One, London, Methuen, 1985; tr. it.  in Teatro di Caryl Churchill, a cura di Paola Bono, Editoria e Spettacolo, 2018, vol. V in press.

Secondary sources:

Students will choose two essays among the following:

“Churchill’s history plays: Light Shining in Buckinghamshire and Vinegar Tom”, in S. Adiseshiah, Churchill’s Socialism: Political Resistance in the Plays of Caryl Churchill, Newcastle, Cambridge Scholars, 2009, pp. 93-131.

Mary Luckhurst, Caryl Churchill, London, Routledge, 2014: “1. Contexts” (1-26); “3. Stage Work in the 1970s” (41-68); "5. Key Production: Top Girls" (85-105).

Darren L. Gobert, The Theatre of Caryl Churchill, London, Bloomsbury, 2014: "1. Churchill's Landscapes" (1-19); “4. The Aesthetics and Politics of Collaboration” (123-37);  "3. Identity and the Body" (83-102). E. Aston, “The Picasso of Modern British Playwrights” (201-14).

Translation studies:

Susan Bassnett, Translation Studies, London, Routledge, 20053.

Jeremy Munday (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Translation Studies, London and New York, Routledge, 2009.