Italian Literature
A.Y. 2022/2023
Learning objectives
By the end of the course the student will have gained knowledge of the fundamental aspects and issues of Italian literature from its origins to the early nineteenth century, with a particular focus on the relationship between Italian literature and the political and cultural history of our country, also within the variety of geographical expressions found throughout the peninsula. The student will then be able to place genres, themes, poetics, authors and works against the background of the historical context, according to a correct periodization, and will have to become familiar with the tools (metric elements, rhetoric, theory of styles and narratology) and methodologies that allow them to analyze and interpret the texts, taking into account the modalities in their transmission and the main issues related to their philological definition
Expected learning outcomes
Among the skills that the student will have to acquire will include the ability to understand literary texts; correctly grasp their thematic and formal aspects; place them in their respective contexts; read and understand contributions of literary nonfiction, focusing on critical and interpretive issues; communicate with clarity and fairness in oral and written exposition, making appropriate use of the lexicon of the discipline. These skills will be acquired through a direct and continuous meeting with the instructor in the classroom. Participation in meetings and seminars organized within the Department of Literature, Philology and Linguistics will also be of great importance. Students opting not to attend the lessons will be able to make use of the educational tools provided by the instructor on Ariel, in addition to procuring the material expressly indicated within the program or eventually put on Ariel, must contact the instructor preferably during office hours.
Lesson period: Second semester
Assessment methods: Esame
Assessment result: voto verbalizzato in trentesimi
Single course
This course cannot be attended as a single course. Please check our list of single courses to find the ones available for enrolment.
Course syllabus and organization
Single session
Lesson period
Second semester
All lessons will be conducted remotely, streamed on Teams and recorded. All recorded lessons will be made available on Ariel.
All lessons will take place at the scheduled time for face-to-face lessons and can be downloaded.
Students will be able to find all the information to access the lessons (links, etc.) and any notices on Ariel.
There will be no differences between attending and non-attending students.
All lessons will take place at the scheduled time for face-to-face lessons and can be downloaded.
Students will be able to find all the information to access the lessons (links, etc.) and any notices on Ariel.
There will be no differences between attending and non-attending students.
Course syllabus
Course title: The Italian literary civilization: textual and historical-critical paths.
Part A: From the Origins to XVth-XVIth Century
the main works on which the study will have to be concentrated are indicated in brackets):
- The poetry of the thirteenth century from the Sicilian school to the Dolce stil novo;
- Dante (Vita nova and Commedia);
- Petrarch (Secretum, Rerum vulgarium fragmenta);
- Boccaccio (Decameron):
- The literature of the fifteenth century: Humanism, Laurentian Florence, Boiardo;
- The Renaissance: Bembo (Prose della volgar lingua), Petrarchism, Castiglione (Il Cortigiano), Machiavelli (Letter to Francesco Vettori, The Prince).
Part B: From XVth Century to the beginning of XIXth Century
Ariosto (Orlando furioso);
- Guicciardini (Storia d'Italia, Ricordi);
- Tasso (Gerusalemme liberata);
- La poesia del Barocco (Marino, Adone);
- Galileo and the scientific revolution (Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi);
- XVIII Century: Goldoni;
- Lombard Enlightment and Parini (Il giorno);
- Vittorio Alfieri (Vita);
- Beginning of XVIII Century: Foscolo (Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis, Dei sepolcri, Rime);
- Leopardi (Canti, Operette morali);
- Manzoni (Adelchi, Promessi sposi).
Part C: The discovery of America in the texts of the Italian explorers.
Part A: From the Origins to XVth-XVIth Century
the main works on which the study will have to be concentrated are indicated in brackets):
- The poetry of the thirteenth century from the Sicilian school to the Dolce stil novo;
- Dante (Vita nova and Commedia);
- Petrarch (Secretum, Rerum vulgarium fragmenta);
- Boccaccio (Decameron):
- The literature of the fifteenth century: Humanism, Laurentian Florence, Boiardo;
- The Renaissance: Bembo (Prose della volgar lingua), Petrarchism, Castiglione (Il Cortigiano), Machiavelli (Letter to Francesco Vettori, The Prince).
Part B: From XVth Century to the beginning of XIXth Century
Ariosto (Orlando furioso);
- Guicciardini (Storia d'Italia, Ricordi);
- Tasso (Gerusalemme liberata);
- La poesia del Barocco (Marino, Adone);
- Galileo and the scientific revolution (Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi);
- XVIII Century: Goldoni;
- Lombard Enlightment and Parini (Il giorno);
- Vittorio Alfieri (Vita);
- Beginning of XVIII Century: Foscolo (Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis, Dei sepolcri, Rime);
- Leopardi (Canti, Operette morali);
- Manzoni (Adelchi, Promessi sposi).
Part C: The discovery of America in the texts of the Italian explorers.
Prerequisites for admission
There are no specific prerequisites other than those required for the access to the degree program.
Teaching methods
Attendance of the lessons is strongly recommended, even if not compulsory. The course will be structured with lessons aimed at acquiring fundamental knowledge and skills for the analysis of the literary text, as well as the language of the discipline. The lessons, hopefully, also include interaction with students, who will thus be able to directly apply the critical and exegetical skills gradually acquired during the course.
Also thanks to the projection of slides, the fundamental notions for historically locating the literary currents, the authors, the works covered by the course, as well as the main issues of a critical and interpretative nature for each of the topics covered (through citations of critical essays and comparisons between different positions); the basic elements in the transmission and reception of works and texts; the formal aspects of greatest interest in the texts examined. All screened materials will be made available on Ariel.
The lessons will gravitate around the texts, having as their primary objective that of their understanding and comment, in the light of the main linguistic, formal and rhetorical aspects. To this end, the fundamental theoretical nuclei of the analysis of the literary text will be explained from time to time.
In Module C we will read and comment selected passages from the reports of the sixteenth-century voyages of discovery of the New World undertaken by Michele de Cuneo, Amerigo Vespucci, Antonio Pigafetta, Alessandro Geraldini, Giovanni da Verrazzano, Girolamo Benzoni (all texts will be available on Ariel).
Also thanks to the projection of slides, the fundamental notions for historically locating the literary currents, the authors, the works covered by the course, as well as the main issues of a critical and interpretative nature for each of the topics covered (through citations of critical essays and comparisons between different positions); the basic elements in the transmission and reception of works and texts; the formal aspects of greatest interest in the texts examined. All screened materials will be made available on Ariel.
The lessons will gravitate around the texts, having as their primary objective that of their understanding and comment, in the light of the main linguistic, formal and rhetorical aspects. To this end, the fundamental theoretical nuclei of the analysis of the literary text will be explained from time to time.
In Module C we will read and comment selected passages from the reports of the sixteenth-century voyages of discovery of the New World undertaken by Michele de Cuneo, Amerigo Vespucci, Antonio Pigafetta, Alessandro Geraldini, Giovanni da Verrazzano, Girolamo Benzoni (all texts will be available on Ariel).
Teaching Resources
Part A-B:
Attending and non-attending students: for the historical-cultural framework, any history of Italian literature in use in high schools (for example, Langella-Frare-Gresti-Motta, Amor mi mosse, Bruno Mondadori; Giunta, Cuori Intelligente, Garzanti scuola ; Luperini-Cataldi-Marchiani-Marchese, Liberi di interpretare, Palumbo Editore; Baldi-Favatà-Giusso-Razetti-Zaccaria, Learning from the classics to design the future, Paravia; Iannaccone-Carnero, At the heart of literature, Giunti) or the universities (for example, Ferroni, History of Italian literature, Mondadori education; Alfano-Italia-Russo-Tomasi, Italian literature, Mondadori university).
Most of the texts read during the course can be found in the Anthology of Italian literature. From the Sicilian Poetic School to Alessandro Manzoni, edited by Baldassari-Barucci, Raffaello Cortina Editore.
Part C:
Attending and non-attending students: the selected passages of the reports by Michele de Cuneo, Amerigo Vespucci, Antonio Pigafetta, Alessandro Geraldini, Giovanni da Verrazzano, Girolamo Benzoni, which will be read and commented on during the lessons, will be made available on Ariel. It will also be necessary to study the chaps. XIII-XX of I. Luzzana Caraci, Al di là di altrove. Storia della geografia e delle esplorazioni, Milano, Mursia, 2009 (pp. 218-381), and L. Formisano, Tra racconto e scrittura: la scoperta dell'America nei viaggiatori italiani del primo Cinquecento, in L. Formisano, Filologia dei viaggi e delle scoperte, Bologna, Pàtron editore, 2021, pp. 13-35
Attending and non-attending students: for the historical-cultural framework, any history of Italian literature in use in high schools (for example, Langella-Frare-Gresti-Motta, Amor mi mosse, Bruno Mondadori; Giunta, Cuori Intelligente, Garzanti scuola ; Luperini-Cataldi-Marchiani-Marchese, Liberi di interpretare, Palumbo Editore; Baldi-Favatà-Giusso-Razetti-Zaccaria, Learning from the classics to design the future, Paravia; Iannaccone-Carnero, At the heart of literature, Giunti) or the universities (for example, Ferroni, History of Italian literature, Mondadori education; Alfano-Italia-Russo-Tomasi, Italian literature, Mondadori university).
Most of the texts read during the course can be found in the Anthology of Italian literature. From the Sicilian Poetic School to Alessandro Manzoni, edited by Baldassari-Barucci, Raffaello Cortina Editore.
Part C:
Attending and non-attending students: the selected passages of the reports by Michele de Cuneo, Amerigo Vespucci, Antonio Pigafetta, Alessandro Geraldini, Giovanni da Verrazzano, Girolamo Benzoni, which will be read and commented on during the lessons, will be made available on Ariel. It will also be necessary to study the chaps. XIII-XX of I. Luzzana Caraci, Al di là di altrove. Storia della geografia e delle esplorazioni, Milano, Mursia, 2009 (pp. 218-381), and L. Formisano, Tra racconto e scrittura: la scoperta dell'America nei viaggiatori italiani del primo Cinquecento, in L. Formisano, Filologia dei viaggi e delle scoperte, Bologna, Pàtron editore, 2021, pp. 13-35
Assessment methods and Criteria
Written test with open answers (on two questions: a question focused on one of the works or authors or schools in the program, and a question consisting in the recognition, paraphrase and short comment of one of the texts in the program) and oral question. The written test will last 90 minutes and will be held in late May / early June 2023, September 2023 and December 2023 / January 2024. There will then be three oral exam sessions in June / July 2023, one in September 2023, one in December 2023 and three in January / February 2024. Between the written end of May / beginning of June and the first oral exam there will be an interval of about ten days.
- The written test will be assessed on the basis of the criteria of relevance, completeness and correctness; the ability to elaborate an organic and coherent answer will be considered, to adopt the right formal register and use the appropriate specialized vocabulary. The oral exam consists of a critical discussion on the aspects of the traveller's works read during the course. The object of the evaluation will be the ability to critically and discursively organize the knowledge derived from the lessons and the study of the bibliography and the ability to exhaustively and effectively expose problems and issues using specialist language.
The written test, if positive, is evaluated with a judgment (sufficient, fair, good, excellent); at the end of the oral exam an overall grade is given in the exam out of thirty; the student who has not passed the written test can take the oral exam on parts A and B, if the test is not considered seriously insufficient or unclassifiable. Naturally, in this case, the overall grade will be rather low, given that both the written and the oral tests contribute to the final evaluation.
The results of the written test will be published on Ariel.
- The written test will be assessed on the basis of the criteria of relevance, completeness and correctness; the ability to elaborate an organic and coherent answer will be considered, to adopt the right formal register and use the appropriate specialized vocabulary. The oral exam consists of a critical discussion on the aspects of the traveller's works read during the course. The object of the evaluation will be the ability to critically and discursively organize the knowledge derived from the lessons and the study of the bibliography and the ability to exhaustively and effectively expose problems and issues using specialist language.
The written test, if positive, is evaluated with a judgment (sufficient, fair, good, excellent); at the end of the oral exam an overall grade is given in the exam out of thirty; the student who has not passed the written test can take the oral exam on parts A and B, if the test is not considered seriously insufficient or unclassifiable. Naturally, in this case, the overall grade will be rather low, given that both the written and the oral tests contribute to the final evaluation.
The results of the written test will be published on Ariel.
L-FIL-LET/10 - ITALIAN LITERATURE - University credits: 9
Lessons: 60 hours
Professor:
Mazzoni Luca