Comparative Literature

From the 1790s to the 1840s, a Berlin-based network of artists and intellectuals developed novel ways of writing, thinking, feeling, and living under the conceptual banner of the ‘romantic.’ Drawing on key texts by Ludwig Tieck, Friedrich and Dorothea Schlegel, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Novalis, Henriette Herz, Rahel Levin Varnhagen, Bettina and Achim von Arnim, Clemens Brentano, E. T. A. Hoffmann, and the brothers Grimm, the class explores the central areas and practices of their romantic discourse of radical aesthetic, philosophical, political, and sociocultural modernity. Students critically examine how the romantics manifested and confronted the defining conflicts of their political and cultural present as these crystallized in Berlin, the capital of Prussia, 19th century Germany’s emerging hegemonic power. The course also surveys influential contemporary critiques of the romantic movement (Goethe, Hegel, Heine) and follow its legacies in the 20th century. Art history is another focus of the class, which includes a museum visit.

The course explores the relationship between history, fiction, and collective memory through the study of literature and film. Students examine how societies construct narratives about the past and how those narratives influence contemporary understandings of identity, politics, and social change. Topics include war and violence, gender, migration, human rights, power, resistance, and historical memory. Through readings, film analysis, and discussion, students develop a critical perspective on the ways cultural representations contribute to the interpretation and reconstruction of modern history.  

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. The course provides students with the most up-to-date methods of analysis of the literary text. In particular, it focuses on the reception of authors and works that have gained success through international circulation and on the cultural impact of the images and models of “Italianness” that they promote. Italian literary and audio-visual products circulate in various markets, spreading – at national and international levels – images and models (stereotypes and/or counter-stereotypes) of “Italianness”. Such images of Italy are tightly connected to the processes through which cultural products reiterate certain privileged aspects of Italian life: politics, crime, religious institutions, landscapes, cultural heritage, food, lifestyle, fashion, the entertainment industry, etc. The student possesses in-depth knowledge of Italian women's literature and is able to apply practical methodologies for the analysis and the interpretation of the literary text. 

The course examines gender and violence in Spanish literature and cinema from the Middle Ages to the present. Students analyze representations of gender, power, violence, and social norms through literary and film analysis, with attention to changing cultural perspectives.

Gardens and parks embody particular ways in which humans interact with nature, perceive it, and shape it: they are places of origin and retreat; they can serve both to sustain human life and to fulfill our need for beauty. They offer the potential for profound experiences, yet they also symbolize humanity’s creative impulse and represent dominion over both humanity and nature. These particular orders have frequently been taken up and imbued with symbolic meaning in literature. Using selected examples from poetry and narrative literature spanning the 18th century to the present, students explore the thematic complex of literary gardens and parks and strengthen their text-analytical skills with regard to these two genres.

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.