Students will demonstrate their ability to discuss the themes proposed in the lecture and the primary (novels and poems) and secondary (the critical essays and the historical and cultural contextualisation) materials listed in the bibliography.
It is important to be able to make critical connections between the proposed readings and the authors' contribution to their own time.
The teacher will provide all the guidance during or at the end of the course.
Erasmus students are asked to contact the teacher at the beginning of the course.
Examination arrangements:
Examinations are oral.
You must bring to the examination paper or computer copies of all the texts in the syllabus.
The exam consists of four questions:
1. A topic of your choice on general cultural history from the Elizabethan period to the first decade of the 1800s.
2. Reading and commenting on a poem from the syllabus (relating to Section 1).
3. A question on the development of the novel (relating to section 2).
4. A question on a critical essay from among those proposed for the analysis of the various works in Sections 1 and 2.
Section 1:
William Shakespeare and Nature: Poetry and Tragedy.
Examples of Shakespeare's works in which the author gives symbolic value to nature. The concept of nature as a physical element will be addressed, as well as the nature of man according to 16th and 17th century canons.
The parts to be analysed will be indicated at the beginning of the course.
Section 2:
The development of the novel and the themes it deals with.
William Godwin passages from An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
M. Wollstonecraft, Mary, or the Wrongs of Woman
M. Hays, The Victim of Prejudice.
*J. Austen, Sense and Sensibility, any edition.
*J. Austen, Emma, any edition.
*J. Austen, Pride and Prejudice, any edition.
E. Gaskell, Ruth. Any edition (optional).
*Note: For Jane Austen only, students may choose 2 novels from those suggested.
Section 3
Critical essays relating to Sections 1 and 2 will be specified during the course.
