Mutua da "Letteratura dell'area - Letterature anglo-americane" della LM in Lingue e letterature europee ed extraeuropee, LM-37

Denominazione insegnamento in inglese: Anglo-American Literature

Lingua dell'insegnamento: inglese

Crediti e ore di lezione: 6 CFU - 40 ore

Settore scientifico disciplinare: L-LIN/11

Docente

Daniela Daniele daniela.daniele@uniud.it danadaniele@libero.it

Prerequisiti e propedeuticità

Buona conoscenza della lingua inglese e disponibilità a rispondere in maniera creativa alle sollecitazioni della docente

Conoscenze e abilità da acquisire

Lo/la studente/essa dovrà:

-      conoscere una parte consistente e rappresentativa della lingua e letteratura anglo-americana

-      sapere orientarsi, a partire da un caso esemplare, nei testi canonici del periodo in esame fornendo riflessioni adeguante sui loro caratteri distintivi letterari e linguistici.

Capacità relative alle discipline:

-       Conoscenza e comprensione di un periodo fondante della tradizione letteraria anglo-americana.

-       Capacità di applicare conoscenza e comprensione nelle forme di un breve saggio o di una traduzione dall’anglo-americano

Capacità trasversali /soft skills

-       Autonomia di giudizio. Capacità di stilare una relazione scritta fondata su una ricerca relativa all’area di discorso affrontata. Capacità di tradurre testi appartenenti al periodo in esame.

-       Abilità comunicative. Capacità di partecipare in maniera attiva alla discussione in classe in lingua inglese. Capacità di applicare le regole stilistiche introdotto dalla docente a partire del manuale di stesura della Modern Language Association.

-       Capacità di apprendimento di mitemi fondanti che la cultura angloamericana ha sviluppato nel tempo in forme verbo-visive e audiovisive.

Programma/Contenuti dell’insegnamento

Juvenile Allegories: Fairy Tales and Fantasy Stories in Victorian America

During the American Renaissance, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow reshaped Greek myths in the Romantic guise of native and colonial allegories. They inspired the creations of American literary sculptors at home and abroad, and circulated in the form of fairy tales. Nathaniel Hawthorne notably “modernized, and perhaps gothicized” classical myths in his Wonder Book and Tanglewood Tales for Girls and Boys, “so that they may be felt by children of these days”. In this production, he added a moral to the “classic coldness” of the original myths, filling a void in the book market which enabled him to earn a living. Jacob Aboott’s Rollo’s stories were “histories” much appreciated by Lincoln for popularizing the knowledge of past men and events. Louisa May Alcott’s stories served to illustrate her father’s ideas on education, but also to revive the ideals of the American Revolution and the fears and threats of colonial time. Through Gothic magic and terrors, she cast light on the grim realities of vanishing Indians, enslaved blacks and immigrant orphans. By embracing the socially didactic purposes of Maria Edgeworth’s Moral Tales (1818) and of The Juvenile Miscellany edited by Lydia Maria Child, Alcott added to them the dark pathos of German romances and of Hans Christian Andersen’s fables. These juvenile allegories are the focus of this class as historical sketches designed for children, and relying on the pedagogical tradition of the American almanac. In balancing didacticism with amusement, like the illustrated  Peter Parley’s Universal History that Hawthorne contributed to ghost write, this vastly unexplored bulk of popular American literature offers a vivid representation of colonial and Victorian times, entertaining the readers with fictionalized biographies of famous composers, travel narratives from remote lands, and flower poems, adaptations from literary classics, and dedication tales to homage acquaintances and benefactors. The numerous engravings contribute to make of  this popular genre a mix of fact and fiction firmly located at the roots of Modern Fantasy.

Attività di apprendimento e metodi didattici previsti

Discussione in inglese dei testi trattati in classe; studio e traduzione di materiali inediti.

Modalità di verifica dell’apprendimento

A final paper written in the MLA or Chicago Style on a topic related to children’s fiction in Victorian America and officially approved by the instructor. Translation students might replace their final research paper with a translation of stories not yet available in Italian. Even this assignment should be negotiated in advance with the instructor.

Testi/Bibliografia

Bibliography

Samuel Goodrich, Parley’s Book of Fables. Hartford: White, Druier, 1836.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, Peter Parley’s Universal History, on the Basis of Geography, for the Use of Families, 2 vols. New York: Coleman, 1839.

---. A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys, 1851.

---. The Snow-Image, and Other Twice-Told Tales, 1852.

----. Tanglewood Tales for Boys and Girls, 1853.

Lydia Maria Child, “The Christ-Child and the Poor Children” e “Musical Children,” in Flowers for Children, Boston, Francis, 1854, vol. I, pp. 9-48;  vol. II, pp. 52-93.

---. Rose Marian and the Flower Fairies_ (1850).

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Paul Revere’s Ride” and “The Children’s Hour”, in Tales of a Wayside Inn,  Boston,  Ticknor & Fields, 1863, pp. 18,25; 209-11.

Louisa May Alcott, Fairy Tales and Fantasy Stories, Daniel Shealy, ed., Knoxville, Tennessee U.P., 1992.

Suggested readings

Brian Attebery, The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature. Bloomington: Indiana U.P., 1980.

Susan R. Gannon, Suzanne Rahn and Ruth Anne Thompson, St. Nicholas and Mary Mapes Dodge. The Legacy of Children’s Magazine Edtior, 1873-1905. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2004.

Paul Binding, Hans Christian Andersen: European Witness, New Haven : Yale U. P., 2014.

U. C. Knoepflmacher, Ventures into Childland: Victorians, Fairly Tales, and Femininity. Chicago U.P., 1998.

Laura Laffrado, Hawthorne’s Literature for Children. Athens: Georgia U.P., 1992.

Mary Loeffelholz, From School to Salon. Reading Nineteenth-Century American Women’s Poetry, Princeton-Oxford, Princeton U. P., 2004.

Karen Sanchez-Eppler, Dependent States. The Child’s Part in Nineteenth-Century American Culture. Chicago U.P., 2005.

Anne Scott MacLeod, A Moral Tale: Children’s Fiction and American Culture, 1820-1860. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1975.

Marianne Thalmann, The Romantic Fairy Tale: Seeds of Surrealism. Engl. Trans, Mary B. Corcoran, Ann Arbor: Michigan U.P., 1964.

Mark West, ed., Before Oz: Juvenile Fantasy Stories for Nineteenth-Century America. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1989.

Strumenti a supporto della didattica

Materiali fotografici, video e documenti storici, repertori on-line presentati durante il corso o in bibliografia

Tesi di laurea

Ogni aspetto rappresentativo della lingua e della letteratura anglo-americana, dalle origini al presente