Comparative Literature

This course examines the main directions of contemporary literary movements. It analyzes the relationship between literature and the primary artistic manifestations of contemporary culture, with special attention to audiovisual media. Topics include: writing, gender and identity; identity and images of the other; memory of harm and its representation.

The close analysis of novels, texts, and poems develops an understanding of the social novel in the contexts of American and British literature. This course introduces key authors, concepts, and critical tools in modern British and American literary studies. It provides the historical, cultural, and theoretical frameworks necessary to understand “The Poetics of Subversion” in both traditions. The British component focuses on Romantic poetry through selected works by Blake, Shelley, and others, using Stanley Appelbaum’s ENGLISH ROMANTIC POETRY: AN ANTHOLOGY as the primary text. The American component examines forms of poetic subversion in 20th‑century U.S. literature, with readings from Adrienne Rich, Sylvia Plath, Audre Lorde, and other major voices; a curated selection of poems IS made available to students. Students acquire analytical tools specific to the study of literary texts, become familiar with essential concepts in critical terminology, and practice applying these tools through guided exercises based on the program’s texts. Through this combined methodological and analytical approach, students deepen their understanding of the social and aesthetic stakes of British and American literature while strengthening their argumentative, interpretive, and communicative skills.

This course focuses on the novels of Jane Austen, four published in her lifetime (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma), two published posthumously (Persuasion, Northanger Abbey), and one unfinished fragment (Sanditon). It examines key themes in Austen’s novels, such as the roles of family and femininity, of class, manners, status and authority, and teaches about Austen’s pioneering and distinctive narrative techniques, including her use of free indirect discourse, epistolary narration, and natural dialogue. This course provides a thorough introduction to the life, works, and influence of Jane Austen, and is perfect for students seeking to develop their knowledge of this popular author and their skills of literary analysis.

This course focuses on the major issues raised by the literature of the so-called “classical” period, a time that saw the invention of the principles of modern science (Descartes) and the establishment of the French language, with the first grammar and dictionaries of the vernacular developed within the Académie française. It examines the material and sociopolitical conditions of the development of cultural and intellectual life during this period, and studies its transformations, with the growing openness to new authors, including female authors, and to new audiences, with the publication of the first literary journals. Works studied: Pierre Corneille’s LE CID; Molière’s LES FEMMES SAVANTES; Antoinette Deshoulières’s POÉSIES; Racine’s PHÈDRE; Madeleine de Scudéry’s ARTAMÈNE OU LE GRAND CYRUS.

The course traces a history of the fantasy genre's formation and crystallization, from its medieval beginnings to the present. It looks at the story-telling and world-building literary devices used by Geoffrey of Monmouth, who wrote his medieval bestseller about King Arthur in Oxford Castle, and the authors of Renaissance Romance fantasies. It also explores Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World, a forerunner of science fiction, and 18th-century Gothic fantasies which paved the way for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The course follows Oxford's own Lewis Carroll, Scottish fantasy author George Macdonald, and the pre-Raphaelite William Morris through to Tolkien and Lewis and beyond. It also considers recent critical approaches to the fantasy genre as well as discusses whether these pre-21st century texts lend themselves with ease to the modern media of cinema, TV serialization, or computer games, and which adjustments have been made or are still to be made to make them relevant to our own times.

The course is structured around the question of the formation of a so-called “Spanish literature” and its place in the republic of letters. In an exercise of situated criticism, from the Southern Cone, a panoramic and transversal view of Spanish literature is offered from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, with a special emphasis, on the one hand, on the topics that predominate in the self- and hetero-characterizations of what is recognized as “Spanish literature” and, on the other hand, in those texts that have been a milestone both in the peninsular literary scene and in the Hispanic cultures on the other side of the Atlantic.

This is a survey of a century of Anglophone literature from the mid 19th to the mid-20th century. Since this period covers a challenging range of texts and authors from various backgrounds and nationalities, a central focus is on writers who, until a few decades ago, were hardly considered to be part of the canon: female or queer-identifying authors, writers of color, outsiders, exiles. In the case of the well-established authors, the focus is on texts that frame the impact of industrialization and mechanization; that represent landscapes of war, imagined or real; that explore technologies of time, that problematize gender and sexuality; and on less explored themes, such as the occult and the surreal. The course considers the distinctive characteristics of a range of literary genres; identify the historical and cultural movements specific to each period; and read the themes and formal elements of poetry, prose and essays against the social and political backgrounds that compose the ‘Brave New Worlds’ of the era.

This course is part of the “ethical turn” in literary studies. It posits that reading great works of fiction offers us a vicarious moral and political experience that can be discussed collectively. Learning to debate fiction means confronting our interpretations of the characters' motivations, analyzing the effects of narrative devices on us, and comparing our spontaneous judgments. It means using great works as a vehicle for genuine democratic conversation about our political disagreements and differences in moral sensibilities. The theme that serves as the guiding thread is the dilemmas faced and choices made by fictional characters. Because literature is also an archive of moral sensibilities that are no longer our own, the effort to comment on and give meaning to dilemmas that we no longer understand can shed light on our own values.

This course introduces students to the study of comparative literature through plays written in the 20th and 21st century from France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Russia, Spain, the UK, and the USA. All texts are read in English translation. The course introduces students to a representative and canonical range of fictional works, with focus on one literary genre - drama - and one over-arching theme. The theme is currently "Staging the Political," but may change depending on staff availability. 

This course examines how a transnational poetic and artistic movement emerged in response to the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). The assassination of Federico García Lorca catalyzed a broad mobilization of Spanish poets and, soon after, of international writers and artists such as Pablo Picasso, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Pablo Neruda, W. H. Auden, Louis Aragon, and Paul Éluard in support of the Republican cause. Through close readings of works by García Lorca, Miguel Hernández, Rafael Alberti, and Neruda—written within or in reaction to the conflict—the course analyzes how poetry confronts historical crisis and transforms political events into aesthetic expression. In parallel, it studies the formation of institutions and networks that united artists worldwide, using this “artistic international” as a framework to reflect on the historical role of poets, translators, and visual artists.