Learning outcomes
The aim of the course is to investigate the different areas of literary criticism, poetics, textual analysis and historical and cultural contexts in order to enable students to master an author, a genre or a period of literature in English.
Course contents
Late English Renaissance and the early Seventeenth century. The course will consider the main poetic production of the late Renaissance, with particular emphasis on Shakespeare's sonnets and the troubled imagery of Metaphysical poetry.
Reccomended or required readings
Primary sources:
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, ninth edition VOLUME B The 16th and Early 17th Centuries
Further suggested reading (for Introduction, Notes and translations):
Shakespeare’s Sonnets, edited by Katherine Duncan-Jones. The Arden Shakespeare, 1998
Shakespeare, Sonetti, testo inglese a fronte. A cura di Alessandro Serpieri, Biblioteca universale Rizzoli 1995
John Donne. Poesie. A cura e con traduzione di Alessandro Serpieri e Silvia Bigliazzi, Testo inglese a fronte. Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli 2007
More information on critical bibliography will be provided at the beginning of the course, with details on first and second year programs.
Secondary sources:
The Cambridge Companion to English Poetry. Donne to Marvell, ed. T.Chorus, CUP 1993 (chapters 1,5,6)
Helen Vendler, “Shakespeare's Sonnets: Reading for Difference”, Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 47, No. 6 (Mar., 1994), pp. 33-50 JSTOR
Further suggested reading:
M.H. Nicolson , The Breaking of the Circle, Columbia University Press, New York, 1960
M. Pagnini, "Sulle funzioni semiologiche della poesia di John Donne", in Critica della funzionalità, Einaudi, Torino, 1970, pp. 95-120.
Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500-1800, Harper and Row, 1977
R.Tuve, Elizabethan and Metaphysical Imagery, Chicago University Press, 1947
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