30649 - English Literature 2 (2nd cycle)

Learning outcomes

The student has a deep knowledge of Modern British Literature, with particular regard to the relationships between literary texts and  history, language and the arts. She/he is able to use critical methodologies to read and analyze literary texts.

Course contents

"Beauty is truth? Truth beauty?"

Starting from the lines of "Ode on a Grecian Urn", the concept of beauty, its relationships with truth, the shapes it takes and the attempts to define it will be analyzed from Romanticism to Aestheticism.

Readings/Bibliography

Primary texts

John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” e “La Belle Dame Sans Merci: A Ballad”

John Keats, “Letter to Richard Wodehouse, October 27, 1818”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “The Blessed Damozel”

Walter Pater, The Renaissance: “Preface”, “La Gioconda” e “Conclusion”

 

Oscar Wilde, The Decay of Lying

Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

 

The poems of Keats and Rossetti and the essays by Pater can be found in the Norton Anthology of English Literature, available in the library of the Department LILEC

 

Critical texts

R.V. Johnson, Aestheticism, London, Methuen, 1969

P. D'Angelo, Estetismo, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2003, pp. 39-83 (“Estetismo e Romanticismo”, “Arte per l'arte”)

 

P. Ackroyd, “Walter Pater: Lover of Strange Souls”, in T. Wright, ed. by, Peter Ackroyd: The Collection, London, Chatto & Windus, 2001, pp. 407-413

H. Bloom, “Introduction”, in Walter Pater, New York, Chelsea House, 1985

G. Franci, “Pater e Wilde: profeti di una nuova sensibilità estetica”, in E. Bizzotto e F. Marucci, a cura di, Walter Pater (1839-1894): le forme della modernità, Bologna, Cisalpino, 1996

 

P. Ackroyd, “Introduction”, in O. Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, London, Penguin, 1985

L. Danson, “Wilde as critic and theorist”, in P. Raby, ed. by, The Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 80-95

R. Ellmann, “Oscar Wilde at Oxford”, in Four Dubliners, New York, Braziller, 1988

M. Holland, “From Madonna Lilly to Green Carnation”, in The Wilde Years, London, Barbican, 2000

R. Mighall, “Introduction”, in O. Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, London, Penguin, 2003

I. Murray, “Introduction”, in O. Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oxford, Oxford U.P., 1981

 

 

Instead of the critical texts in Italian (D'Angelo Franci) Erasmus e Overseas students can read the following:

B. Charlesworth, “Oscar Wilde”, in O. Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, New York, Norton, 1988

J.P. Riquelme, “Oscar Wilde's Aesthetic Gothic”, in O. Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, New York, Norton, 2007

 

Critical texts will be available in the library of the Department LILEC and in the photocopy shops in via Cartoleria.

 

Assessment methods

Erasmus or Overseas students could sit the exam as the Italian students or write an essay (about 10 pages), whose topic must be approved by the teacher.

Office hours

See the website of Gino Scatasta