Course Description:

Starting from the rules and laws of poetics, this course aims to approach the
answers to the questions of how a text signifies and what a text signifies. We
will attempt to investigate, analyze the basic units, sets, operations and
relations that define the production of meaning. We will also attempt to see how
the modern studies of poetics might be applied to language teaching, with a
particular emphasis on the topics related to analysis of the structure of the
texts, figures and genres.

Poetics has been generally considered as “the theory of literary discourse” that
offers a systematic understanding of literary discourses and related activities
and phenomena. This course will selectively introduce the major modern English,
European currents of poetics and examine the main aspects and concerns on which
these currents are built. Each lecture will be divided into two parts: the first
will be focused on the key elements and concepts that characterize the poetics
that is being introduced, in an attempt to see how the approaches and models
that it suggests can be applied to the reading and understanding of the literary
texts, and to the exploration of the literary potentiality; the second will be
on the analysis of selected literary texts, with a particular emphasis on the
English, European fiction of the 19th and 20th centuries.

1. Poetics of the prose
2. The art of fiction
3. Aspects and principles

Tentative Schedule:
Week 1 Introduction and orientation
Week 2-4 Beginnings and (Re-)Definition; Poetics and its major modern currents
1. Poetics by Aristotle
2. Poetics of the prose and the Art of Fiction; selected readings
Week 5-8 The Art of Fiction
1. How to read a novel
2. Aspects and principles; selected readings
Week 9-10 Midterm Oral Reports (oral and written)
Week 11-12 The Art of Fiction
1. Analysis of the literary text
2. Aspects and principles; selected readings
Week 13-15 Aspects and principles
1. Analysis of the literary text
2. Theories and practices
3. Poetics and Aesthetics
Week 16 Presentations; term paper due
*This schedule is susceptible to change.

Evaluation:
Attendance, participation and individual reading reports 50%
Midterm report and term paper 50%

Main Readings:
Introduction to Poetics by Tzvetan Todorov, trans. Richard Howard (Minneapolis:
the University of Minnesota).
Poetics by Aristotle
Aspects of the Novel by E. M. Forster (London: Penguin).
The Art of Fiction by David Lodge (London: Penguin).
References:
Poetics by Aristotle
Introduction to Poetics by Tzvetan Todorov, trans. Richard Howard (Minneapolis:
the University of Minnesota).
Aspects of the Novel by E. M. Forster (London: Penguin).
The Art of Fiction by David Lodge (London: Penguin).
The Rhetoric of Fiction by Wayne C. Booth (London: Penguin).

Poétique by Tzvetan Todorove (Paris: Seuil).
Poétique de la Prose by Tzvetan Todorove (Paris: Seuil).

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