NEW YORK UNIVERSITY AT LA PIETRA
ITALY AND ITALIANS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE FROM THE ROMANTICS TO MODERNISM PROF. DOROTHEA BARRETT Thursdays 10.30 – 1.15
PROFESSOR: DOROTHEA BARRETT (cell phone 3487295602; e-mail addresses: [email protected] and [email protected]) Ph.D. Cambridge University 1987. Dorothea Barrett has taught at Beijing Normal University (China), Glasgow University (Scotland), and the University of Florence. She is the author of Vocation and Desire: George Eliot's Heroines and various articles; she has edited works by George Eliot, Oscar Wilde, E. M. Forster, James Joyce, Katherine Mansfield, and others.
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Romantic, Victorian, and Modernist writers in both Britain and the United States were fascinated by Italy. Shelly and Byron were inspired by the hope of a new political dawn in the Italian Risorgimento. Robert Browning, George Eliot, and E. M. Forster saw the transition from Medieval to Renaissance culture in Florence as mirroring and offering an example for their own struggles to free themselves from the repression and religious orthodoxy of Victorian England. Henry James and Edith Wharton saw Italy as beautiful and dangerous in equal measure and used it as the setting of stories about the clash of old world and new world cultures. T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound were both profoundly influenced by Dante. Hemingway, like the Italian poet Montale, was an ambulance driver in the Italian army during WWI; both writers rejected the use of high rhetoric, because of their disgust with the way rhetoric was used in the war. Absurdist playwrights Pirandello and Beckett both wrote about alienation and paralysis in a world abandoned by God. As you can see, the "Italy and Italians" of the title refers not only to images and characters in the works of the British and American authors we will be reading but also to their affinities with Italian literature. Recurring themes in the course will be history and its uses in literature, gender and sexuality, democracy and aristocracy, language and power, and religion as an instrument of sexual repression.
THE BOOKS WE’LL BE READING THIS SEMESTER
The books are available at Feltrinelli International, Via Cavour 12r (phone: 055 292 196; fax.: +39 055 282183; e-mail: [email protected]. Other readings are in the electronic course pack on the Blackboard site. Henry James, Daisy Miller and The Portrait of a Lady E. M. Forster, A Room with a View Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot WRITTEN REQUIREMENTS: The written requirements of the course are two exams and two essays. Exams: Each exam will consist of a series of quotations from texts we have read. Identify all the passages, naming the author and the text and giving the date of publication. Then choose four passages and write a paragraph of commentary on each. The final exam will only deal with texts read in the second half of semester. Your comments do not have to be original, but they must be detailed, accurate, and show a good grasp of the deeper issues raised in each passage as they relate to the text as a whole. Essays: IN THE INTERESTS OF SAVING A FEW TREES, PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR PAPERS AS WORD DOCUMENTS ATTACHED TO E-MAILS. The essays (2000 words max each) can be on any of the authors we have studied, and the subject is entirely up to you, but it is a good idea to send me your title and thesis statement before you begin to write, so that I can warn you of likely problems. Each essay will count for 25% of your final grade. It can be as broad or as narrow as you wish. For example, you can write about one idea or image that runs through A Room with a View or you can analyze one scene or character from the novel. Grading: When marking the essays, I reserve A-range grades for work that is interesting, original,1 complex, convincing,2 and written in good English prose. I only give Fs in cases of plagiarism or failure to submit. Your final grade will be calculated as follows: midterm exam 20% final exam 20% essay 1 25% essay 2 25% class participation 10%
ATTENDANCE AND CLASS PARTICIPATION: Attendance is mandatory. Any absence that is not excused by an e-mail to me from Lisa Cesarani in the Office of Academic Support will entail a dock of one increment off your final course grade. Lively intelligent class participation will earn you an A for class participation, which counts as 10% of your final grade. Absolute silence, sleeping in class, whispering to your neighbor, or reading or writing something else during lectures or seminar discussion will result in a poor grade for class participation. Good participation is not only a matter of talking but also of listening and responding to what others have to say.
1 Here "original" does not mean that no one has ever come up with the idea before; it means that the idea was not discussed in class or found on the internet or in the recommended reading; it means, in short, that you thought of it yourself.
2 Here "convincing" does not mean that I agree with it; it means that your argument was supported with evidence from the text that an opponent would have trouble refuting.
COURSE CALENDAR There are supplementary readings in the authors' folders on the Blackboard site.
SESSION 1: Romanticism and Revolution: Shelley and Byron in Pisa. At the beginning of the session, we will introduce ourselves and discuss the syllabus. We will then begin the course proper with a short Power Point presentation on Shelley and Byron and seminar discussion of poems they wrote in and on Italy, which will be read aloud in class (Byron, "When a Man Hath No Freedom"; Shelley "Ode to the West Wind").
SESSION 2: Love and Death: Keats and The Brownings Continuing our discussion of Romantic poets in Italy, we will compare and contrast a story by Boccaccio and Keat's poetic reworking of that story nearly five centuries later. We will then discuss several poems written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning when they lived in the Casa Guidi in Florence. Required readings: Dante, Inferno, Canto 1; Boccaccio Decameron, Day 4, Story 5; Keats, "Isabella, or the Pot of Basil." Elisabeth Barrett Browning, "Casa Guidi Windows," excerpts from "Aurora Leigh," selections from "Last Poems"; Robert Browning, "My Last Duchess," "Fra Lippo Lippi," "Andrea Del Sarto."
SESSION 4: Lions, Christians, and Gladiators: Henry James and Edith Wharton The session will open with a brief Power Point presentation on James and Wharton, followed by seminar discussion of Daisy Miller and "Roman Fever." Required reading: James, Daisy Miller and excerpts from Italian Hours; Wharton, "Roman Fever."
SESSION 5: Woman as Art Object: The Portrait of a Lady Required reading: James, The Portrait of a Lady, chapters 1-30. Required writing: First essay due.
SESSION 6: The Portrait of a Lady: The novel and the film Viewing of the film, followed by seminar discussion of the film as an interpretation of the novel. Required reading: James, The Portrait of a Lady, chapters 31-55.
SESSION 7: Dante's Dark Influence: T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound Required reading: Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," "The Waste Land"; Pound, "Canti"; Dante, Inferno, Cantos 26 and 27. Review for exam 1.
SESSION 8: MIDTERM EXAM.
SESSION 9: Escapes from Sexual Repression: E. M. Forster and D. H. Lawrence The session will open with a Power Point presentation on Forster and Lawrence, followed by seminar discussion of the reading. Required reading: Forster, the first half of A Room with a View; Lawrence, "Snake" and excerpts from Aaron's Rod, Twilight in Italy, Etruscan Places, and Sea and Sardinia.
SESSION 10: A Room with a View: The Novel and the Film Viewing of the film, followed by seminar discussion of the film as an interpretation of the novel. Required reading: Forster, the second half of A Room with a View. Two essays on the book and the film (in the Forster folder on the Blackboard site).
SESSION 11: Rejecting Rhetoric: Hemingway, Montale, and World War I. A Power Point presentation on Hemingway and Montale, followed by seminar discussion of Hemingway's novel and group work on Montale's poems. Required reading: Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms; Montale, selected poems.
SESSION 12: Abandoned by God: Beckett and Pirandello Power Point presentation and seminar discussion of the two plays, followed by Review for exam 2. Required reading: Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author; Beckett, Waiting for Godot.
SESSION 13: Field trip to the Historic Center of Florence This is a walking tour of the historic center, focusing on places of particular interest to the course: Convent of San Marco (where Savonarola lived and several scenes in George Eliot's Romola are set): Casa Guidi (where the Brownings lived); Piazza della Signoria (described by E. M. Forster and D. H. Lawrence); and the Caffè Giubbe Rosse (where Montale and other anti-Fascist poets used to meet).
SESSION 14: FINAL EXAM. Required writing: Second essay due.