ENGL 90342 - Literature and the Nation building process throughout European Romanticism

Institution:

University of Notre Dame

Subject:

English

Description:

The course aims at reconstructing and debating how, since the late eighteenth century, European literature has not just passively reflected the process of nation building, but rather has actively developed patterns of identification present in the idea of a nation. Novels from Fielding to Dickens in Great Britain, Manzoni and Nievo in Italy, various poems by Foscolo, Heine and Wordsworth will be analyzed in the light of Edward Said's, Homi Bhabha's and Benedict Anderson's works, and, more in general, of all theoreticians who have elaborated instruments appropriate for understanding the nation itself as a fiction. Far from weakening the original meaning of nation, the literary term "fiction" in fact encompasses and comprehends the different elements that are present in the concept of a nation. The history of European literature in the so called "Age of revolution" (1789-1848) reveals how nationalism has to be understood within those large cultural systems that preceded it, out of which - as well as against which - it came into being. Literature in particular shows how the representation of social life is the first step for acknowledging a common purpose and a collective identity as bases of a modern nation.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.nd.edu

Phone Number:

(574) 631-5000

Regional Accreditation:

North Central Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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