54705 - English Literature 3 (M-Z)

Learning outcomes

Upon completing this course students will have acquired an in-depth knowledge of the history of English literature. They will have obtained critical insight into a selection of literary works and will be capable of evaluating their literary qualities, analysing them with the help of precise critical metholodogies. They will have acquired the theoretical tools they need to recognise the formal, thematic and stylistic components of the works included in the syllabus, relating them to their historical and cultural contexts. They will be able to discuss, translate and relate the contents of these works from a linguistic, historical and philological viewpoint.

Course contents

Crime Fiction and the Gothic.

Maurizio Ascari

 

This course will explore the development of crime fiction along the 19th and 20th centuries. Its aim is to illustrate the complexity of a literary genre which was reductively considered in the past as structurally formulaic and critically uninteresting, but which has recently obtained increasing attention and recognition as a significant literary phenomenon. At the end of the twentieth century criticism has reassessed the normative view of the genre that asserted itself in the so-called ‘golden age' of detective fiction – i.e. the interwar years, the age of Agatha Christie, when the British formula of the ‘clue-puzzle', based on a skilful use of clues and on the ‘fair play' principle, asserted itself – in order to study what is now commonly labelled as crime fiction with a descriptive and inclusive approach.

In recent years, rejecting the stereotyped view that this genre is identified solely by the focus on clues and the disciplinary presence of a detective, critics have reassessed its complex history. They have underlines its debt to the Gothic tradition, and they have explored the relation between interweaving subgenres such as nineteenth century sensation fiction, detective fiction proper, the hardboiled, the noir, the psycho-thriller, the police procedural, postmodern anti-detective fiction and conspiracy thrillers. As we can see, crime fiction is incessantly metamorphosing. Moreover, in the course of the twentieth century this galaxy of subgenres has been characterised by the process of remediation or more generally by a phenomenon of cross-fertilisation whereby noir films – and more recently tv series – have played a major role in shaping the imagination of the reading public.

This transmedia genre will be explored as a ‘field of tension' in order to study the changing status of both crime/criminals (due to the continuous reshaping of laws and social norms) and of detection/detectives (due to the development of forensic science). We will also investigate the interplay between aspects of the detective such as mind and body (thinking machines versus vulnerable detectives), intellect and emotions (how do these apparently opposed dimensions concur to the personality of fallible and infallible detectives?) as well as the issue of gender, since we will discuss both male and female detectives.

Readings/Bibliography

Primary sources

Thomas De Quincey, “The Avenger” (1838)

E.A. Poe, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841)

William Wilkie Collins, “The Diary of Anne Rodway” (1856)

A.C. Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)

Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep (1939)

P.D. James, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972)

Ian Rankin, Knots and Crosses (1987)

 

Critical sources

Reference text:

Worthington, Heather, Key Concepts in Crime Fiction, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, pp. 1-151.

Articles:

Ascari, Maurizio, “Dal trionfo dell'enigmistica al ritorno del brivido: evoluzione di un genere letterario”, in Crime e detective fiction nel Novecento: voci a confronto, a cura di Maurizio Ascari e Francesca Saggini, Fictions. Studi sulla Narrativita', 10 (giugno 2011), pp. 15-23.

Ascari, Maurizio, “In Pursuit of the Sublime: De Quincey and the Romantics' Metaphysical Conception of Crime”, in Crime and the Sublime, a cura di Maurizio Ascari e Stephen Knight, numero monografico della rivista La Questione Romantica, nuova serie, 2.2 (ottobre 2010), pp. 27-41.

Knight, Stephen, “Watson's Wound and the Speckled Band: Imperial Threats and English Crimes in Conan Doyle”, Linguae &, 1 (2006), pp. 11-24.

Maxfield, James F., “The Unfinished Detective: The Work of P.D. James”, Critique, 28.4 (Summer 1987), pp. 211-23.

Oak Taylor-Ide, Jesse, “Ritual and the Liminality of Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of Four and The Hound of the Baskervilles”, in English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920; 2005; 48, 1, pp. 55-70.

Rabinowitz, Peter J., “Rats Behind the Wainscoting: Politics, Convention, and Chandler's The Big Sleep”, Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 22.2 (Summer 1980), pp. 224-45.

Werner, James V., “The Detective Gaze: Edgar A. Poe, the Flaneur and the Physiognomy of Crime”, in American Transcendental Quarterly, 15.1 (March 2001), pp. 5-21.

Students will be required to prove their knowledge of the main tendencies of twentieth century English literature.

Teaching methods

The course will consist of

1) frontal lessons, aiming to provide participants with the critical tools they need to interrogate and understand literary texts, both in terms of linguistic analysis and of historical/cultural contexts;

2) seminars in which students will discuss a literary text in an informal context.

3) since our critical itinerary will be cultural rather than literary, the course will include the viewing and discussion of films such as Hitchock's psycho-thriller Spellbound (1945) and Orson Wells's The Third Man (1949), a noir film set in post-war Vienna.

Assessment methods

Two different options are possible:

1) A written test followed by an oral exam. The written test will take place only once, at the end of the course, and will consist of 'multiple choices' concerning 20th century English literature. The course reading list includes a history of literature. The written test will be followed by a 20-minute oral exam in English the aim of which is to evaluate the students' critical and methodological skills. In order to assess these skills students will be invited to discuss the literary and critical texts that will have been presented during the course. 

2) Oral exam. Those who will not take - or who will not pass - the written test, will have to take a 25-minute oral exam in English, which will be divided into two parts. The first part will focus on 20th century English literature, while the second will aim to evaluate the students' critical and methodological skills. In order to assess these skills, students will be invited to discuss the literary and critical texts that will have been presented during the course. 

NB: In order to take this exam, students who are registered in Bologna need to have already passed the following exams: Lingua e linguistica inglese 1, Lingua e linguistica inglese 2, Letteratura inglese 1, Letteratura inglese 2. This does not apply to Erasmus students.

Teaching tools

The Powerpoint files that will be used during the course will be available for students on the AMS Campus website

Office hours

See the website of Maurizio Ascari