Università Roma Tre

Through the reading of a selection of novels written between the 1880’s and the present, and the vision of a selection of films, this course will explore the theme of the relations between generations. The exploration of the complex bonds between parents and children, or, more generally, between the old and the young, becomes in the chosen texts a lens through which to narrate the world, and to delineate the political, social and cultural features of an epoch. From Thomas Hardy to Alice Munro the topic of the relations between generations, now peaceful now turbulent, becomes a focal point of Anglophone literature.

Primary readings:
Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886);
Virgina Woolf, To the Lighthouse (1927);
Doris Lessing, The Fifth Child (1988);
Jackie Kay, The Adoption Papers, Bloodaxe Books, 1991;
J. M. Coetzee, Boyhood. Scenes from Provincial Life (1997);
Hanif Kureishi, "Goodbye, Mother" from The Body, faber and faber, 2002 (provided by teacher);
Alice Munro, selected stories from Dear Life, Chatto & Windus, 2012 (provided by the teacher);

Secondary readings:
Rachel Bowlby, A Child of One’s Own. Parental Stories, Oxford University Press 2013 (selected chapters, provided by the teacher);
Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born. Motherhood as Experience and Institution (1976) (selected chapters, provided by the teacher);
Other readings will be announced as the coourse unfolds.

History of Literature:
P. Bertinetti (a cura di), Breve storia della letteratura inglese (from chap. VII to the end), Einaudi, 2004.