Literature and Society

Objectives

. To become aware of the importance and social power of literature;
. To recognize literature as an element of cohesion and of intensification of a feeling of belonging to a community;
. To increase the literary culture, integrating it in the student's personal relationship with the world;
. To fine tune criteria for aesthetical valuation, distinguishing literature from para-literature;
. To acquire methods and concepts proper to literary studies;
. To understand the literary works in their respective epochs and literary and historical circumstance, recognizing in the texts the markers of the author and the respective ideological context;
. To become aware of the possibilities of meaning offered by the literary code;
. To highlight the traces of originality of Portuguese literature;
. To critically meliorate the linguistic and expressive capacities of students.

Program

1. Literature, mimesis and fiction.
2. Literary history, art and culture.
3. Literature and social transformation.
4. The styles of an epoch; literature and other forms of artistic expression.
5. The dynamic of the literary periods.
6. The literary tradition and the modeling of the world.
7. Conventions, modes and literary genres.
8. The functions and objectives of literature.
9. Literature as cultural expression and element of social aggregation.
10. Regionalism; art for art’s sake.
11. Myths and their crystallization (formation or derogation) – the literary creation of parallel worlds and social combat.
12. Literature and nationality.
13. The affirmation of an epic history in the XVI century; the romantics and the “national soul”.
14. Literature and literary studies in society.
15. The construction of literary history.
16. The election of the can-on; the classics and their representation in society.

Teaching Methodologies

Whenever possible, theoretical exposition will be accompanied by examples through comments on texts, literary, critical or doctrinaire, and of documents from other forms of artistic expression. Excerpts from the recommended literary works will be subjected to analysis in class, in a work which will combine the Professor’s comment with individual or group work, under the Professor’s guidance. Evaluation: According to the university’s academic regulation; Participation in the undertaken activities; individual work in which one point of the program will be developed

Bibliography

1. Textos literários:
Vicente, Gil: O pranto de Maria Parda;
Camões, Luís: Os Lusíadas;

Fernão Álvares do Oriente: Lusitânia Transformada;
Brandão, Raúl: Húmus;
Côrtes Rodrigues, Armando: Planície Inquieta;
Será ainda disponibilizada uma antologia de textos literários na plataforma Moodle.
2 crítica/teoria (geral)
Bayard, Pierre: Comment parler des livres que l’on n’a pas lus?, Paris, 2007
Carvalho, Rómulo: O texto poético como documento social, Lisboa, 1995
Bloom, Harold: The Western Canon, New York, 1994
Cunha, Carlos: Escrever a Nação: Literatura e nacionalidade (uma antologia), Braga, 2011
Silva, Vítor Aguiar e : Teoria da Literatura, 5ª ed. Coimbra, 1983
Outra bibliografia será apontada, tendo em conta o estudo de cada obra.