Literature as a Product: From Codex to e-Book

Thursday, 10:00-11:30

room 310, nám. Jana Palacha 2, third floor

BEGINS OCTOBER 10, 2013

The course it’s focused on the evolution of the concept of "literature" in the history of the Western culture. It will try to analyze some of the principal media, materials, genres and theories which have surrounded the "world of the book", until its last evolution: the eBook.

The instructor, Riccardo Burgazzi, is a Ph.D. student at the Institute of Greek and Latin Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague, dealing with medieval apocryphal literature (esp. Franciscus de Mayronis' Passion of Christ).

Requirements: active participation (max. 3 absences), occasional homeworks

3 ECTS credits

further information: Riccardo Burgazzi: riccardo.burgazzi@gmail.com

Part I: Form the caves to Gutenberg

01) Introduction

a) Presentation of the teacher, of the students and of the course (syllabus, rules and requirements).

b) The dividing line between Prehistory and History: the invention of writing.

c) Studying literature.

02) The oral tradition

a) The oral tradition in the antiquity: aoidos and rhapsodes.

b) When music and words were still together: the lyrical forms.

c) The Troubadours.

d) D. Fo, Mistero Buffo.

03) The book-form

a) Technical and cultural improvements in the evolution from the papyrus to the parchment.

b) The codex. (Practical aspects: materials, artisans and places of production).

c) Ecdotical techniques and philological aspects.

d) Johan Servando: example of a textual restoration.

04) The first printing offices

a) The print. (Practical aspects: materials, artisans and places of production).

b) Procedures and techniques.

c) Philological aspects.

d) The case of the Shakespeare’s First Folio.

Part II: The advent and the triumph of the Novel

05) The will of the public

a) The theory of the genres in the antiquity.

b) Poetry. Petrarchism: From Petrarca to Shakespeare (with examples).

c) Epic and trouvères. Chivalric romances.

d) Cultural background which lead to the birth of the Novel

06) From the roots to the first novels

a) Origin of the genre (Petronius, Boccaccio, Cervantes)

b) The historical novel (with examples).

c) The Anglo-American romanticism.

07) Kinds of novel

a) The colors of the novels (with examples)

b) R. Queneau, Exercices de style.

c) Artistic schools and examples.

d) The problem of the translation and the languages of the culture.

08) Narratology

a) Author and Narrator (1857 the trial to Madame Bovary).

b) Character.

c) Time and places.

d) Comparison between literature and cinema (Chatman) and various examples.

09) The text at the center

a) Kinds of text (literature and writing)

b) Theories and Scholars.

c) The postmodernism (U. Eco, The name of the Rose)

Part III: The modern institutions of literature

10) The author

a) The question of the relationship between words and things.

b) The authority of the author.

c) The death of the author.

d) Genetic editing (examples of critique génétique)

11) The reader

a) The difficulty of reading.

b) The narrative pact (with examples).

c) The critic-reader.

d) I. Calvino, Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore.

12) The publisher

a) Origin of the publishing activity: from the scriptoria to the print offices, from the courts to the literary cafes, from the newspapers to the great companies of press.

b) The book as a product.

c) Canon and best-sellers.

d) The slow disappearance of the poets (characteristics of modern poetry, with examples).

13) Multimedia publishing

a) The Society of the Communication and the "digital generation".

b) Self-publishing.

c) E-reader and eBook.

d) Example: Prospero Project.