Aims

The course aims to show how different strains of European literature progressively come to rely on one another, creating both a unified network and interactive diversities. We focus particularly on literary movements and tendencies that spanned all of Europe.
By the end of the course, the student should be able to discern the continuities and discontinuities that mark the key moments of European literature. They should likewise be able to situate their literary specialization within the global literary perspective to which their specialization belongs. And finally, the students should be able to see how European language literature written outside of Europe relates to the literature of the Old Continent, both in what they share and in how they differ.

Main themes

Content and method :
We shall study European authors who have privileged relationships with, or have made decisive contributions to, literature in the three orientations to be studied (Classical, Romance, and Germanic). The aim is to show the student how the influential movements, the great trends, and the network which constitutes the tissue and history of European culture are constituted. For instance: the links to the Renaissance, in Classical literature, Italian literature, and other kinds of European literature; trans-linguistic meaning and influence; the trans-historical and trans-national character of key European themes, like Don Juan or Faust; the links between the emerging American literature and the literature of the Old Continent (Poe and the fantastic, R. Darío and modernism, etc.).
The course will put to work the methods proper to the history of European literatures, to its themes, and to comparisons. The lecture course will be supported by texts of the works studied; as well as the lectures, a folder of readings will be provided: to some extent, the student will be able to choose what he or she reads.

Content and teaching methods

This course completes the outline of the European literary Heritage partially discussed during the course FLTR1510, which is a prerequisite. Students are required to read a series of texts on which they will be examined.

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Assessment:
The final exam will cover two aspects: verification of knowledge acquisition for the course; paper by the student on texts not covered in class, but chosen from the proposed reading folder.

Course material:
Reading folder

Course holder:
This lecture course may be given by a team of lecturers.

Other credits in programs