Topics in Literary Theory
Objectives
This curricular unit has a monographic nature, reflecting the teacher's ongoing research. Topics in literary theory will be discussed in reference to a selection of texts that fall within this research, with the following learning objectives:
(1) To familiarize students with fundamental questions and concepts in literary theory, building upon textual analysis and interpretative problems raised by works of literature, criticism, and philosophy.
(2) To develop the student's analytical skills and to incentivize their theorizing on literary texts;
(3) To ensure that such theorization is grounded by the text and that it is congruent from a philosophical and literaryhistorical perspective;
(4) To ensure that the acquired skills and knowledge translate into clear, coherent, rigorous and relevant writing.
General characterization
Code
722091106
Credits
10.0
Responsible teacher
Golgona Luminita Anghel
Hours
Weekly - 3
Total - 280
Teaching language
Portuguese
Prerequisites
N/A
Bibliography
AGAMBEN, Giorgio. Bartleby, escrita da potência. Editora Assírio & Alvim: Lisboa,
2007.
BAPTISTA, Abel Barros. “Prática teórica”. in Conferências do cinquentenário da Teoria da Literatura de Vítor Aguiar da Silva. Braga: Universidade de Minho, 2020, pp. 49-66.
BAPTISTA, Abel Barros. “Sim, Bartleby”. in Autobibliografias: solicitação do livro na ficção de Machado de Assis. Tese de Doutoramento apresentada à FCSH-UNL, 1995, pp. 212-228.
BATAILLE, Georges. A Literatura e o Mal (1957). Lisboa: Letra Livre, 2017.
BECKETT, Samuel. À espera de Godot(1952). Lisboa: Cotovia, 2001.
___. Quad et autres pièces pour la télévision. Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1999.
BENJAMIN, Walter. Ensaios sobre Literatura. Trad. J. Barrento. Lisboa: Assírio & Alvim, 2016.
BERKMAN, Gisèle. L’Effet Bartleby. Philosophes lecteurs. Paris: Herman, 2011.
BLANCHOT, Maurice. O espaço literário(1955). Trad. A. Cabral, Rio de Janeiro: Editora Rocco, 1987.
___. L’Entretien infini. Paris: Gallimard, 1969.
DELEUZE, Gilles. « Michel Tournier ou le monde sans autrui », in Logique du sens. Paris : Minuit, 1969, pp. 350-372.
DELEUZE, Gilles. « Bartleby, ou la formule », in Critique et clinique. Paris : Minuit, 1993, pp. 89-115.
DIDI-HIBERMAN, Georges. Rabbia poetica. Note sur Pier Paolo Pasolini, Cairn, 2013/1 N° 143 | pp. 114- 124.
DURAS, Marguerite. « Écrire », in Écrire. Paris : Gallimard, 1993, pp. 11-55.
GROYS, Boris. Becoming an Artwork. Cambridge : Polity Press, 2023.
JAMES, Henry. A Fera na Selva. Traduzido por Ana Maria Pereirinha. Lisboa: Dom Quixote, 2023.
KAFKA, Franz,. Todos os Contos. Traduzido do alemão por Álvaro Gonçalves. Lisboa: Assírio & Alvim, 2023.
LAPOUJADE, David. Fictions du pragmatisme. William et Henry James. Paris: Minuit, 2008.
LOPES, Silvina Rodrigues. Literatura, Defesa do atrito. Lisboa: Vendaval, 2003.
MELVILLE, Herman. Bartleby, o escrivão (1853). Lisboa: Presença, 2009.
PASOLINI, Pier Paolo. “A raiva”. [“Gli anni della rabbia”, número 38, 1962, in revista Vie Nuove.] In: Le belle bandiere: Dialoghi 1960-1965. Roma, Riuniti, 1996, II ed., p. 222.
TOURNIER, Michel. Sexta-feira ou Os limbos do Pacífico (1967). Lisboa: Relógio d’Água, 2014.
Filmography
PASOLINI, Pier Paolo. La rabbia, 1963.
TRUFFAUT, François. La chambre verte, 1978.
Teaching method
Reading theoretical texts and literary texts, tracing lines of conceptualisation that build theories.
Analysing and discussing theses, constructing problems.
Evaluation method
The assessment will have two components:
1) an oral presentation, based on questions developed in class: 30%;
2) a written assignment on the subjects studied: 70%.
Subject matter
The poet finds joy in the "immense error of things and every fable is inspired by the principle of evil" - says Herberto Helder in his book Photomaton & Vox. The alliances between literature and the domain of evil and the diabolical, which Herberto claims, echo a horizon of reflection that has become persistent in Western literature since The Flowers of Evil, but whose symptoms have been noticeable since the ancient quarrel between poets and philosophy, to which the last book of Plato's Republic bears witness. This untimely journey of the figure of the poet and his unofficial trade was decisively marked by Georges Bataille's book, Literature and Evil. In his preface, Bataille starts from an unflattering premise, but one that prophesises the freedom and insubmission of literature in the face of the ends of a utilitarian society. As foolish as it may seem, it is this principle, "non serviam", that also guarantees the sovereignty of the "literary space", while legitimising a path of disproportion that goes beyond the values of good and evil and even, sometimes, of the human. Starting from this horizon of insubmission and resistance that haunts and simultaneously defends the autonomy of literature, the seminar will seek to propose a set of reading experiences in which theory is part of this process of experimenting with the text, thus raising different perspectives on the possibilities of literature, its power and its impotence.
Topics:
1. Violence as a power of freedom and a force for re-signifying literature (and the other arts)
2. Pasolini, from poetic fury as an act of language to anger as a gesture of the heart, of pathos (La Rabbia)
3. Melville, Bartleby and the performativity of the formula (Bartleby, the scrivener)
4. Melville, from the word-thing to the word-action (Bartleby, the scrivener)
5. Kafka, survival and aestheticisation of the artist's body ("The Hunger Artist")
6. Kafka and creation from the forbidden ("Josephine the Singer or the Rat People")
7. Beckett, the necessary failure (Waiting for Godot)
8. Beckett, tired of something, exhausted by nothing (Waiting for Godot, Quad et autres pièces pour la télévision)
9. James, celibacy as a condition of existence (The Beast in the Jungle)
10. James, the perception of the time of waiting, the too late (The Beast in the Jungle)
11.Tournier, living in limbo, the desert island and the world without the other (Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacific)
Programs
Programs where the course is taught: