ENG 378 Italy in American and British Literature (Rome)
The course intends to bring students closer to the study of literature through the reading of some major works by American and British writers. The journey to Italy is at the center of the novels and poems which will be analyzed during the course. On the one hand we will concentrate on the discovery and transformation of the characters as narrated through their encounters with a different culture and social context. On the other, we will investigate changes in the attitudes and perspectives of the authors themselves due to their own journeys to Italy. We will begin with the reading of poetry from the 19th century, followed by the reading of three complete novels by three well known American and British writers: Henry James, Tennessee Williams and Edward Morgan Forster.
Due to its role as a methodological text that also unites the Italian and English-speaking cultures in a symbolic way, we will refer to Six Memos for the Next Millennium by Italo Calvino, which are a series of perceptive and evocative texts on literature that the Italian author intended to present in the form of lectures at Harvard University shortly before his death.