This module aims to introduce students to the cultural climate of 18^th century Britain by conducting a close reading of significant works in prose.

All students read:

1)

a) D. Defoe, The Life and Strange Suprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe;

b) J.Swift, Gulliver’s Travels;

c) L. Sterne, A Sentimental Journey;

d) F. Burney, Evelina;

e) H. Walpole, The Castle of Otranto;

f) C. Reeve, The Old English Baron;

g) M. Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

2)

R. Loretelli, Dell’unità narrativa, ovvero la riflessione settecentesca inglese sul romanzo, in R. Loretelli e U.M. Olivieri (a cura di), La Riflessione sul Romanzo nell’Europa del Settecento, Franco Angeli, Milano, 2005, pp. 17-38

P. Nerozzi Bellman, Il Romanzo Inglese del Settecento. La poetica alle origini della narrativa moderna, Bruno Mondatori, Milano, 2008

c) R. Porter, Enlightenment. Britain and the Creation of the modern World, Penguin, London, 2000;

d) P. Goring, Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture, Continuum, London, 2008

e) L. Guerra, “Il Settecento”, Il romanzo fino al 1785, Il giornalismo e altra prosa, in L.M. Crisafulli e K. Elam (a cura di), Manuale di Letteratura e Cultura Inglese, B.U.P., Bologna, Settembre 2008

f) L. Bandiera, “Il Settecento”, Poesia, ibid

3) Students will also read three of the following poems: J. Swift, “A Description of a City Shower”; S. Johnson, “The Vanity of Human Wishes”; J. Thomson, from The Seasons, “Autumn”, ll. 1082-171; T. Gray “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College”; W. Collins “Ode to Evening” (they are all included in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. 1 – students may want to read also the part regarding “Poetic Forms and Literary Terminology”)

Non-attending students will have to contact me