Interculturality and Exchange in Medieval Latin Literature

The course offers a general approach to the Latin Literature of the Middle Ages, based on the reading of texts in English translation. The first part will be devoted to a general introduction to the history, the topics, the genres, and the main authors of this literary domain. Within this framework, a special focus will be placed on two aspects. The first one is the continuity with classical Latin literature. The second one is the contributions that other cultural and literary domains have brought to the formation of the corpus, and of the mentality it conveys. Foremost vehicles of this process have been the translations from Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew into Latin, as well as the journeys undertaken by traders and missionaries in Asia, and multicultural milieux such as Sicily, Constantinople, and Spain. Such an exchange had a decisive impact on the development of religious texts, narratives, travel accounts, and science. In the second part, the course will focus on an exemplary literary piece that testifies to such an intercultural background: the Disciplina clericalis (The Education of the Scholars) by Peter Alfonsi. Born a Jew under the Arabic domination in Spain, Peter converted to Christianity. By collecting tales of Western, Arabic, and Hebrew origin, his book is intended to provide mankind with a knowledge of universal value, regardless of the professed faith.
Under the guidance of the lecturer, the students will engage in the reading of the texts, and in understanding their construction; will learn how to place them within the history of Latin literature and discern the various sources, their environment of production, and how they are reframed in a new context.