Knowledge and skills to be acquired
Students will demonstrate their ability to discuss the topics proposed in class and the primary (novels and poems) and secondary (critical essays and historical-cultural contextualisation) materials in the bibliography.
Critical links between the proposed readings and the authors' contribution to their own time will be important.
Section 1
Nineteenth Century Poetry:
We will read the complex history of English poetry from the beginning of the nineteenth century.
We will begin with the Romantic period and move on to the Victorian period, highlighting the particularities of the authors and the issues surrounding the turn of the century, both from a socio-political and literary point of view.
We will study the poetry of Alfred Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Rossetti, starting with William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Section 2
The history of literature from the 19th to the 20th centuries.
Novels:
Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go
Patrick McGrath: Asylum
Examinations are oral
Students will be required to bring with them to the examination a hard copy of all the texts in the syllabus.
The exam consists of four questions:
1. a question on a topic of the student's choice in the general critical and cultural-historical section.
2. a question on the reading and commentary of a poetic composition specified in the syllabus.
3. a question on the novel. The general critical and cultural-historical section is compulsory.
4. a question based on a critical or contextualising essay.
The Teacher will provide any guidance required during or following the Course.
Erasmus students are asked to contact the teacher at the beginning of the course.
