Portuguese Literary Canon
Objectives
The main objective of this seminar is to provide the masters' students with a better understanding of the notion of canon applied to the field of literary studies.The following are some of the goals:
• to familiarize the students with works of Portuguese Literature of the 20th and the 21st centuries;
• to problematize the notions of canon and the literary institution, bearing in mind the study of the works and authors of the program;
• to discuss the fundamental concepts of literary studies, such as authorship, genre, tradition, and influence;
• to promote the attentive reading of the texts and the critical discourse about them;
• to stimulate the debate in the classroom, identifying and discussing the issues raised by the texts;
• to present a literary analysis, both orally and in writing. This analysis should be linguistically accurate and done autonomously;
• to know the instruments for and the routines of research in literary studies.
General characterization
Code
722091123
Credits
10.0
Responsible teacher
Joana Rodrigues Meirim da Silva
Hours
Weekly - 3
Total - 280
Teaching language
Portuguese
Prerequisites
N/A
Bibliography
- AAVV, O Cânone, ed. António M. Feijó, João R. Figueiredo e Miguel Tamen, Lisboa, Tinta da China, 2020.
- AAVV, Século de Ouro. Antologia Crítica da Poesia Portuguesa do Século XX, org. Osvaldo Manuel Silvestre e Pedro Serra, Lisboa, Angelus Novus & Cotovia, 2002
- Aguiar e Silva, Vítor, "Em busca de um cânone literário para a língua portuguesa", Colheita de Inverno. Ensaios de teoria e crítica literárias, Lisboa, Almedina, 2020.
- Bloom, Harold, "An Elegy for the Canon", The Western Canon. The Books and School of the Ages, New York, London: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1994, pp. 15-40.
- Smith, Barbara Herrnstein, "Contingencies of Value," Critical Inquiry, 10, No. 1, 1983, pp. 1–35.
- Felski, Rita, Literature after feminism, Chicago/London, The University of Chicago Press, 2003.
- Guillory, John, Cultural Capital. The Problem of Literary Canon Formation, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1993.
- Lauter, Paul, Canons and Contexts, New York/Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1991.
Teaching method
The teaching method will mainly consist of presenting the contents and discussing, in class, the texts that the students should read and prepare for each session.
Evaluation method
Continuous Assessment - Discuss one of the texts of theoretical/critical nature(20%), The students should do a close reading exercise(10%), Write an essay on one of the topics of the program(70%)
Subject matter
In literary criticism, one of the meanings of "canon" is a list of texts by authors considered culturally fundamental. They are regarded as classical because of their aesthetic value and their capacity for innovation (among other reasons). This seminar intends to study a group of authors from 20th and 21st centuries Portuguese literature, mainly poets who disturb and question this definition of canon as well as the canonizing instances (the history of Portuguese literature, literary awards, publishing houses, academia, etc.). We will also analyze the usual expectations regarding concepts like the institution of literature, aesthetic value, tradition, classic, and influence.
1. Alexandre O'Neill: "modest poems";
2. Fernando Assis Pacheco: "the minor tone of literature";
3. Jorge de Sena and the canon of the ingrata patria;
4. New Portuguese Letters: "the discomfort of literary tradition";
5. Adília Lopes spanks the literary edifice;
6. Alberto Pimenta: "the sarcastic ethics".