2015/2016

2017/2018

DM270

L-LIN/10 (ENGLISH LITERATURE)

DEPARTMENT OF HUMANITIES

MODERN LANGUAGES AND CULTURES

LINGUISTICO-FILOLOGICO-LETTERARIO

3°

2nd semester (26/02/2018 - 01/06/2018)

6

36 lesson hours

English

ORAL TEST

GUERRA LIA SIMONETTA (titolare) - 6 ECTS

A good knowledge of the English language is required. The lectures will be in English and Shakespeare's text will be analyzed in detail in the original.

The course is meant to provide a full reading of one of Shakespeare's texts as a case study for analysing the cultural political and literary dimensions of the theatre of the time. The language of Shakespeare's drama will receive full attention in its multifarious aspects including metaphors, images, rethorical figures and biblical allusions, etc, through which themes and crucial aspects of the English world are foregrounded.

Starting from the figure of Shylock in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, most of the themes connected to a rapidly changing society as the Elizabethan one will be addressed, such as the relationship parents/children, and the role of women, of money and of justice in a mercantile and precapitalistic society. Therefore a part of the lessons will be devoted to discussing the contexts where Shakespeare set his play, his literary and cultural sources, his audiences' expectations and the resonance these topics had in his own time.
A close reading of the text will provide many hints at many of these aspects and students will be asked to be familiar with it in the original.

Mainly lectures provided by the teacher. Eventually an expert will be invited to give a lecture during the course.

Primary sources:
William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice, 2004 Norton Critical Edition. Leah S. Marcus (Editor)ISBN-13: 978-0393925296 ISBN-10: 0393925293
The Norton critical edition provides a reader of the main critical approaches to the text. If a different edition is chosen, the critical apparatus must be retrieved somehow.

Secondary sources:
Maria Jones, "Defining the alien in The Merchant of Venice", in Shakespeare's Culture in Modern Performance Palgrave 2003, pp.57-100.
Giorgio Melchiori, “Le commedie romantiche” e “The Merchant of Venice” in Shakespeare, genesi e struttura delle opere, Bari, Laterza, 1998, pp.325-343.
Alessandro Serpieri, “Contratti d’amore e di morte in The merchant of Venice, in The Merchant of Venice. Dal testo alla scena, a cura di Mariangela Tempera, Bologna, CLUEB, 1994, pp.9-21.

Students who cannot attend the lessons are requested to follow the program above plus the following:
Harold Bloom, Shakespeare, the invention of the Human, London, 1999: “The Merchant of Venice”, pp.171-191;
Giuseppina Restivo, “Favola, economia monetaria e logica dei codici in The Merchant of Venice”, in M. Angela Tempera ( a cura di ) The Merchant of Venice dal testo alla scena, Clueb, Bologna 1994, pp. 117-131.

Students will be tested orally. The interview will be in English and is meant to check on the comprehension of the primary source and on the capacity to discuss the critical suggestions provided by the Secondary sources.