Hispanic Narrative Fiction

Description This course is part of the area of Hispanic Literature and contributes to the instruction of students registered in the degree of Modern Language. It aims at preparing students both in narrative genre and its stylistic characteristics, and in the Spanish novel production from the 16th century to the present day. The novel is the most open and flexible genre, and has today an unquestionable relevance. Furthermore, from its origins, with different forms and formulas, and even if it was absent from the Classical poetics, it has achieved to connect with the audience and to become a valuable indicator of social changes. The analysis of its characteristics in terms of contents, structure and formal devices will provide the students helpful resources both from a historical and literary perspective. After studying the genre’s features and the main authors in the international context, the course will focus in the analysis of the most important trends and works in Hispanic literature, from the novels of Cervantes and the picaresque novels to the experimentalism of the 20th century.

Contents
1. Introduction to the narrative genre: novel and short story.
a. Background.
b. Tentatives to define the genre.
c. Characteristics
d. Evolution.
e. Typology.

2. How to analyze a narrative text: theoretical and practical approach
a. Plot and characters
b. Point of view and narrative styles
c. Space and time
d. Text semantics

3. Origins of modern novel: picaresque and Cervantes’ narrative
a. Historical background
b. Renaissance and Humanism
c. The Lazarillo and the picaresque novels
d. Cervantes’ novels

4. The recognition of the genre in the 19th century: Galdós and Clarín
a. Historical background
b. Realism and Naturalism
c. Realist and naturalist novel in Spain
d. Galdós and Clarín

5. From the narrative fiction of the Grupo del 98 to the experimentation of the 20th century: Baroja y Delibes
a. Historical background
b. The Generación del 98 and the renewal of the novel
c. Baroja
d. Novecentism and lyric novel
e. Post-war novel
f. Social realism in the 50s
g. Experimentation in the 60s and 70s
h. Delibes
6. Tradition, renovation and commercialization of the novel from 1975 to the end of the century
a. Historical background
b. Culture in democratic Spain
c. Novel: trends and generations of novel writers

Methodology
The development of competences will take place through an active methodology in which students become the center of their learning process through the fulfillment of different tasks inside and outside the classroom. Those tasks will focus on the students’ reading experience, as the starting point for readings’ study, analysis and assessment with the help to the professor and the discussion in class.

Assessment
Assessment system:
-Participation in debates and discussions in the classroom, and individual or group activities: 15%
-Fulfillment of academic assignments (in group or individually) and oral and /or written presentation: 30%
-Fulfillment of a final exam with a theoretical and a practical part: 55%. In order to pass the course, students need to get 5/ 10 in this exam.