Programme

The course explores the theme of psycho-emotional closure and the opposite desire for affective (re)connection with the world in works from different historical periods and literary genres. Starting with some early modern short poems by William Shakespeare and John Donne, in which the human need to be in loving communion with others is dealt with, the course focuses, first, on two works set on two physical islands, Shakespeare’ s drama The Tempest (1610), whose protagonist moves from physical and mental segregation to compassionate feelings, and Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe (1719), dedicated to a lonely castaway hungry for human company, then on the short drama by Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape (1958), which focuses on the conflict between life, affection and artistic narcissism, and Margaret Atwood’s novel Hag-seed (2016), a contemporary rewrite of The Tempest set in a real prison, in which the relationship between imprisonment and liberation (not only from one’s own demons) becomes literal. The very recent drama Girl in the machine (2017) by Stef Smith, describing the damages produced on a real love relationship by the immersive isolation in the virtual, will be considered within a workshop-based path.

Core Documentation

William Shakespeare, Sonetti 8, 29, 30, 62 [1594-1600], disponibili online.
John Donne, No Man Is an Island [1624], disponibile online.
William Shakespeare, The Tempest / La Tempesta [1610], Milano, Feltrinelli, 2019.
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe [1719], Milano, Feltrinelli, 2014.
E.M. Forster, "The Machine Stops" [1909], available online.
Samuel Beckett, L’ultimo nastro di Krapp [1958], disponibile online.
Margaret Atwood, Seme di strega, Milano, Rizzoli, 2016.

Attendance

Attendance is optional, but strongly recommended.

Type of evaluation

The examination will be oral. The course includes an ongoing assessment that is an integral part of the assisted teaching and final assessment.

Programme

Monstrous Bodies in English Literature from Shakespeare to Contemporary Fiction

This course examines key texts of English literature from the early modern period to the twenty-first century to explore the theme of the monstrous, understood as a privileged tool for decoding the culture that produces it. The course will focus in particular on the concept of the deviant body in its many forms, exploring how different historical and cultural contexts have produced – and subsequently marginalized – various types of ‘monsters’ through mechanisms of exclusion that literature has often articulated and brought to light. By analysing texts that span drama, the novel, and short fiction, the course will also provide an introduction to various literary genres.

Core Documentation

Students are required to read the primary texts for the course, preferably in the editions listed below:
- William Shakespeare, The New Oxford Shakspeare: The Tempest, Oxford World Classics, 2024.
- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, Penguin Classics, 2003.
- Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Penguin English Library, 2012 (Chapters 26–27, 36–38).
- Selections of poems by Charlotte and Emily Brontë from Anne, Charlotte, Emily Brontë, Poesie, a cura di Silvio Raffo, Mondadori, seconda edizione 2022 (Italian edition with facing-page translation; the texts will be uploaded to Moodle).
- Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, Penguin Classics, 2015 (the selected short story will be uploaded to Moodle).
- Ali Smith, Gliff, Hamish Hamilton, 2024 (or Penguin Books 2025 edition).

Students enrolled in the L-11 and L-12 degree programmes must read the original English versions of these texts, using bilingual editions where available and necessary. Students enrolled in other degree programmes may read the Italian translations. Recommended Italian editions are as follows:

- William Shakespeare, La tempesta, traduzione e cura di Agostino Lombardo, Feltrinelli, 2004 (o riedizioni successive).
- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, traduzione a cura di Luca Lamberti, Einaudi, 2016.
- Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, edizione Feltrinelli, BUR o Einaudi.
- Selections of poems by Charlotte and Emily Brontë from Anne, Charlotte, Emily Brontë, Poesie, a cura di Silvio Raffo, Mondadori, seconda edizione 2022 (Italian edition with facing-page translation; the texts will be uploaded to Moodle).
- Angela Carter, “Lupo-Alice”, in Angela Carter, Nell’antro dell’alchimista, traduzione di Susanna Basso e Rossella Bernascone, Fazi Editore, 2019, pp. 362-73.
- Ali Smith, Gliff, traduzione a cura di Federica Aceto, SUR, 2025

Attendance

Attendance is not compulsory but strongly recommended.

Type of evaluation

Final assessment will be through an in-person oral examination. Additional midterm assessments, either written or oral, may be introduced during the course at the instructor’s discretion.

Programme

The Art of Words: Enchantment, Artifice, Satire, Remedy
Starting with an introduction to literature and the literary text, the course aims to provide a historical and cultural overview of English literature through the contextualization and analysis of selected canonical texts in the fields of drama, narrative, and poetry. From the dramatic and sonnet-writing art of William Shakespeare, through the satirical universe of Jonathan Swift, the visionary lyricism of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, to the remedial writing of Virginia Woolf, the course seeks to analyze the specificity of the literary code and to show how literature represents reality while also reflecting on itself and its meanings.
The examination of contexts, contents, and formal strategies related to each text aims to demonstrate how such representations are also, and always, marked by epistemological significance.

Core Documentation

PRIMARY SOURCES
All the volumes and articles indicated below (primary and secondary sources) are compulsory reading and will be discussed during the final exam. Students should buy the following editions of the texts and are expected to have them in class and, possibly, to read them before the beginning of the course.
1. William Shakespeare, “The Tempest/La tempesta”, introduzione e traduzione di Alessandro Serpieri, note di Clara Mucci, con testo a fronte, Marsilio, Venezia, 2006, ISBN: 9788831789837; a selection from Shakespeare’s “Sonnets” will be provided as learning materials in Moodle.
2. Jonathan Swift, “A Modest Proposal/Una modesta proposta”, a cura di Luciana Pirè, Marsilio, Venezia, 2019, ISBN: 9788831722537.
3. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner/La ballata del vecchio marinaio”, a cura di Rocco Coronato, con testo a fronte, Marsilio, Venezia, 2018, ISBN: 9788831749893.
4. Virginia Woolf, “To the Lighthouse/Al faro”. English edition: Penguin classics, edited by Stella McNichol with an Introduction and Notes by Hermione Lee; OR Wordsworth Classics, with Introduction and Notes by Dr Nicola Bradbury. Italian translation by Nadia Fusini in: “Al faro”, in “Romanzi”, a cura di N. Fusini, Mondadori, Milano, 2005, pp. 401-610 (notes pp. 1312-1340); or in Feltrinelli edition.

Attendance

Non-mandatory attendance. Students who do not attend are kindly invited to contact me during the year.

Type of evaluation

Oral exam in person. If needed oral and/or written tests might be assigned during the course. The exam will cover all issues and is aimed to assess expected learning outcomes. In the exam students will have to show that they have become proficient in understanding and analysing works, and relating literary texts to their historical and cultural contexts.

Programme

The course explores the theme of psycho-emotional closure and the opposite desire for affective (re)connection with the world in works from different historical periods and literary genres. Starting with some early modern short poems by William Shakespeare and John Donne, in which the human need to be in loving communion with others is dealt with, the course focuses, first, on two works set on two physical islands, Shakespeare’ s drama The Tempest (1610), whose protagonist moves from physical and mental segregation to compassionate feelings, and Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe (1719), dedicated to a lonely castaway hungry for human company, then on the short drama by Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape (1958), which focuses on the conflict between life, affection and artistic narcissism, and Margaret Atwood’s novel Hag-seed (2016), a contemporary rewrite of The Tempest set in a real prison, in which the relationship between imprisonment and liberation (not only from one’s own demons) becomes literal. The very recent drama Girl in the machine (2017) by Stef Smith, describing the damages produced on a real love relationship by the immersive isolation in the virtual, will be considered within a workshop-based path.

Core Documentation

William Shakespeare, Sonetti 8, 29, 30, 62 [1594-1600], disponibili online.
John Donne, No Man Is an Island [1624], disponibile online.
William Shakespeare, The Tempest / La Tempesta [1610], Milano, Feltrinelli, 2019.
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe [1719], Milano, Feltrinelli, 2014.
E.M. Forster, "The Machine Stops" [1909], available online.
Samuel Beckett, L’ultimo nastro di Krapp [1958], disponibile online.
Margaret Atwood, Seme di strega, Milano, Rizzoli, 2016.

Attendance

Attendance is optional, but strongly recommended.

Type of evaluation

The examination will be oral. The course includes an ongoing assessment that is an integral part of the assisted teaching and final assessment.

Programme

Monstrous Bodies in English Literature from Shakespeare to Contemporary Fiction

This course examines key texts of English literature from the early modern period to the twenty-first century to explore the theme of the monstrous, understood as a privileged tool for decoding the culture that produces it. The course will focus in particular on the concept of the deviant body in its many forms, exploring how different historical and cultural contexts have produced – and subsequently marginalized – various types of ‘monsters’ through mechanisms of exclusion that literature has often articulated and brought to light. By analysing texts that span drama, the novel, and short fiction, the course will also provide an introduction to various literary genres.

Core Documentation

Students are required to read the primary texts for the course, preferably in the editions listed below:
- William Shakespeare, The New Oxford Shakspeare: The Tempest, Oxford World Classics, 2024.
- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, Penguin Classics, 2003.
- Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Penguin English Library, 2012 (Chapters 26–27, 36–38).
- Selections of poems by Charlotte and Emily Brontë from Anne, Charlotte, Emily Brontë, Poesie, a cura di Silvio Raffo, Mondadori, seconda edizione 2022 (Italian edition with facing-page translation; the texts will be uploaded to Moodle).
- Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, Penguin Classics, 2015 (the selected short story will be uploaded to Moodle).
- Ali Smith, Gliff, Hamish Hamilton, 2024 (or Penguin Books 2025 edition).

Students enrolled in the L-11 and L-12 degree programmes must read the original English versions of these texts, using bilingual editions where available and necessary. Students enrolled in other degree programmes may read the Italian translations. Recommended Italian editions are as follows:

- William Shakespeare, La tempesta, traduzione e cura di Agostino Lombardo, Feltrinelli, 2004 (o riedizioni successive).
- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, traduzione a cura di Luca Lamberti, Einaudi, 2016.
- Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, edizione Feltrinelli, BUR o Einaudi.
- Selections of poems by Charlotte and Emily Brontë from Anne, Charlotte, Emily Brontë, Poesie, a cura di Silvio Raffo, Mondadori, seconda edizione 2022 (Italian edition with facing-page translation; the texts will be uploaded to Moodle).
- Angela Carter, “Lupo-Alice”, in Angela Carter, Nell’antro dell’alchimista, traduzione di Susanna Basso e Rossella Bernascone, Fazi Editore, 2019, pp. 362-73.
- Ali Smith, Gliff, traduzione a cura di Federica Aceto, SUR, 2025

Attendance

Attendance is not compulsory but strongly recommended.

Type of evaluation

Final assessment will be through an in-person oral examination. Additional midterm assessments, either written or oral, may be introduced during the course at the instructor’s discretion.

Programme

The Art of Words: Enchantment, Artifice, Satire, Remedy
Starting with an introduction to literature and the literary text, the course aims to provide a historical and cultural overview of English literature through the contextualization and analysis of selected canonical texts in the fields of drama, narrative, and poetry. From the dramatic and sonnet-writing art of William Shakespeare, through the satirical universe of Jonathan Swift, the visionary lyricism of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, to the remedial writing of Virginia Woolf, the course seeks to analyze the specificity of the literary code and to show how literature represents reality while also reflecting on itself and its meanings.
The examination of contexts, contents, and formal strategies related to each text aims to demonstrate how such representations are also, and always, marked by epistemological significance.

Core Documentation

PRIMARY SOURCES
All the volumes and articles indicated below (primary and secondary sources) are compulsory reading and will be discussed during the final exam. Students should buy the following editions of the texts and are expected to have them in class and, possibly, to read them before the beginning of the course.
1. William Shakespeare, “The Tempest/La tempesta”, introduzione e traduzione di Alessandro Serpieri, note di Clara Mucci, con testo a fronte, Marsilio, Venezia, 2006, ISBN: 9788831789837; a selection from Shakespeare’s “Sonnets” will be provided as learning materials in Moodle.
2. Jonathan Swift, “A Modest Proposal/Una modesta proposta”, a cura di Luciana Pirè, Marsilio, Venezia, 2019, ISBN: 9788831722537.
3. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner/La ballata del vecchio marinaio”, a cura di Rocco Coronato, con testo a fronte, Marsilio, Venezia, 2018, ISBN: 9788831749893.
4. Virginia Woolf, “To the Lighthouse/Al faro”. English edition: Penguin classics, edited by Stella McNichol with an Introduction and Notes by Hermione Lee; OR Wordsworth Classics, with Introduction and Notes by Dr Nicola Bradbury. Italian translation by Nadia Fusini in: “Al faro”, in “Romanzi”, a cura di N. Fusini, Mondadori, Milano, 2005, pp. 401-610 (notes pp. 1312-1340); or in Feltrinelli edition.

Attendance

Non-mandatory attendance. Students who do not attend are kindly invited to contact me during the year.

Type of evaluation

Oral exam in person. If needed oral and/or written tests might be assigned during the course. The exam will cover all issues and is aimed to assess expected learning outcomes. In the exam students will have to show that they have become proficient in understanding and analysing works, and relating literary texts to their historical and cultural contexts.