English Language And Literature 1 (First-Level Degree)

English Language and Literature 1 ( First-level D egree )

Prof. Arturo Cattaneo; Prof. Cristina Vallaro

Semester One: Professor Arturo Cattaneo

COURSE AIMS

The course sets out to develop the student’s basic knowledge of English poetry and prose through the analysis of particularly significant texts of the English literary tradition from the Renaissance to the 18th century. The textual analysis will incorporate both the technical aspects (metre, forms, structures, language, rhetorical figures and themes) and their historical evolution, also in relation to the great European cultural trends.

COURSE CONTENT

Poetry as a literary genre (this part of the course will be carried out directly on the course texts, the list of which is given below): basic principles of poetry metrics, forms and structures, the language of poetry, rhetorical figures and themes. The Medieval legacy: the ballad, courtly poetry. Definition of the idea of Renaissance and Humanism. Rediscovery of classic antiquity. The diffusion of printing. The role of the classics and the rhetoric in the formation of modern man. International characteristics of the Renaissance. The peculiarities of the English Renaissance. The legacy of Petrarch in England: the form of the sonnet in Wyatt and Surrey. The cult of the lady and passionate love in Western poetry. Convention and biography in the Elizabethan songbooks: Edmund Spenser and Sir Philip Sidney. The invention of the modern in poetry: the songbook of Shakespeare. Ambiguity of love, act and word, in the sonnets of Shakespeare. The poetry of John Donne: loving passion and philosophic reflection. New science and religion in the Songs and Sonnets of John Donne. Civil and religious poetry in 17th-century England. Andrew Marvell and John Milton: the theme of carpe diem and the Christian epic poem. Neoclassical equilibrium and satire in the 18th century: Alexander Pope.

The birth of modern English prose (this part of the course will be carried out directly on the course texts, the list of which is given below): from the first accounts of travel in the Americas (Thomas Hariot) to philosophical prose (Francis Bacon, John Locke) up to the birth of journalism and essay writing in the early 18th century (Jonathan Swift, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele).

Course texts (from The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. I, 8th edition):

16th century

Sir Thomas More, Utopia Book II, (sections: Their Occupations, Slaves).

Sir Thomas Wyatt, The long love that in my thought doth harbour; They flee from me .

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Love, that doth reign and live within my thought; Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book I, Canto I, stanzas 1-10; Amoretti (sonnet 75).

Sir Philip Sidney, Astrophil and Stella (son n et s 1, 31).

William Shakespeare, Sonnets, (sonnets 12, 18, 29, 55, 116, 130, 138, 144).

King James, The English Bible, The Authorized Version.

Thomas Hariot, A Brief and True Report of the Newfound Land of Virginia.

17th century

John Donne, Songs and Sonnets, “The Flea”; “The Sun Rising”; “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”; Holy Sonnets (sonnet 14 “Batter my Heart”), Meditation (sonnet 17 “For Whom the Bell Tolls”).

Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, (sections 19, 22, 38, 41, 42, 43, 44, 59, 60, 62, 68).

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan ( Chapter 13 “Of the Natural Condition of Mankind as Concern ing Their Felicity and Misery”).

Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mi stress.

John Milton: Sonnets, “When I Consider How My Light Is Spent”; Paradise Lost, Book I, II (from 1-26 and from 192-263).

Samuel Pepys, The Diary, “The Great Fire”.

John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, “The Epistle to the Reader”.

18th century

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, Part 1 (“A Voyage to Lilliput”); Part 4 (“A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhms”), A Modest Proposal.

Richard Steele, The Spectator’s Club (Spectator 2), Joseph Addison, The Aims of the Spectator (Spectator 10), The Royal Exchange (Spectator 69).

Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock, Canto I; An Essay on Criticism, Part I, II. 68-91; An Essay on Man, “Epistle 1”, II (pages 35-76).

Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, “Preface”;

– Geographic Nomenclature,

– Religions in England,

– Poetic Forms and Literary Terminology.

READING LIST

Basic reading list for the three-year programme:

AA. VV., The Norton Anthology of English Literature, ed. by Stephen Greenblatt, Norton & Company, New York and London, 8th Edition, vol. I

A. Cattaneo, A Short History of English Literature, Mondadori, Milan, 2011.

The novels dealt with in the Practical Classes (see “Teaching Method” below):

J. Austen, Pride and Prejudice , Ed. Oxford Classics (or any other complete English-language edition ).

N. Hornby, High Fidelity, Penguin, London.

TEACHING METHOD

This is a semester course made up of three hours of lectures per week. A series of Practical Classes on the analysis and translation of the course texts (poetry, prose and drama) not dealt with in the Special Subject part will be held by Dr. Giuliana Bendelli to support the Special Subject course. Photocopies of the hard-to-find texts and images will be handed out in class and published on Blackboard and the lecturer’s webpage.

ASSESSMENT METHOD

Final oral exams to qualify for which the student will take a written exam in the scheduled exam sessions.

NB: the written test will verify the student’s knowledge of the notions and concepts presented in class (found in A. Cattaneo, A Short History of English Literature) and the course texts and requires the student to translate short excerpts of the texts in question . Given that any serious literary and cultural knowledge is based on a knowledge of languages and that, today, this knowledge is considered an indispensable tool for the application of learning in the workplace, the exam will primarily test the student’s knowledge of the meanings and the exact pronunciation of the words of the course texts (the student will be asked to give the modern English equivalent of archaic or obsolete words), after which the student will be asked to analyse the texts in line with the basic principles of rhetorical and stylistic analysis. In addition, the student will need to demonstrate that they have a good grasp of the key aspects of the English civilisation from the late Middle Ages to the early 18th century.

NOTES

Attending students must comply with the conduct called for by the Università Cattolica Code of Ethics, accepted at the time of their enrolment and which they are required to read (the Code is available online).

The course is for Foreign Languages and Literature students of the Faculty of Language Sciences and Foreign Literature.

It is also open to students of the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy whose curriculum comprises a one-year course in English Language and Literature (in Semester 1 while in Semester 2 said students will attend the course held by Prof. Cristina Vallaro).

Students must obtain the course reading list texts before classes commence (in particular The Norton Anthology).

Further information can be found on the lecturer's webpage at catt.it/unicattolica/docenti/index.html or on the Faculty notice board.

Semester Two: Professor Cristina Vallaro

COURSE AIMS

The course will introduce the students to the Elizabethan world by studying two major figures of late 16th century English culture: William Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth I. The study of Elizabethan theatre and The Tempest will enable the student to learn not only an important work of the Shakespearian canon, but also the world of theatres, journeys of discovery, music and the magic of this text.

The Progresses of Queen Elizabeth I will enable the student to get acquainted with one of England’s greatest historical figures and the English court and to understand the important role played by the symbols and the allegories in the portraiture of the era.

COURSE CONTENT

William Shakespeare and Elizabethan theatre. The Tempest: dating, sources and their manipulation, printed texts, analyses of the texts, characters and places. Elizabeth I: the Propaganda and the Progresses, the historical persona. Kenilworth and Elvetham: dating, the context, analyses of the texts, characters and places.

READING LIST

W. Shakespeare, The Tempest, ed. by S. Orgel, The Oxford Classics, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008.

C. Vallaro, Queen Elizabeth on Progress, Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 2011.

G. Melchiori, Shakespeare, Laterza, Bari, 1994 or later editions (in particular, the following chapters: Shakespeare e il mestiere del teatro, I drammi romanzeschi, “The Tempest”).