Introduction to italian literature

The course is a basic subject in the bachelor degree of 'Ancient Civilizations for the Contemporary World', and belongs to the literary-linguistic area. It aims to provide the students with a substantial knowledge of Italian literature and culture in their historical development, as prominent case-studies of heritage and re-coding of the classical world to shape modernity. Since the Middle Ages, indeed, the Italian literature had to interact as much with a system of models and influences of wide Mediterranean circulation (Greek, Jewish, Arab world) as with the great Latin model, itself a collector of peoples and civilizations.

Through some Italian masterpieces from a literary genre, the course will provide the tools for understanding the philosophical and literary foundations of Italian culture from the Classics, and more specifically will offer an insight into how a genre gets remoulded by different epochs, cultures and issues.

Through the analyses of literary texts and the study of the history of a literary genre as response to specific challenges of its times, the course, scheduled for the third years, also aims to consolidate the students' inclusion within the Italian language and culture.

The study of literary texts will be mainly conducted on English translations, with particular attention to contents, topics, and the historical context. Some space will be given nevertheless to their Italian form and the evolution of the history of Italian language through the centuries.

1. Knowledge and understanding:
knowledge of the basic tools for the literary analysis of texts (technical terms, methods, digital tools); understanding the prominent literary and cultural issues in the analysed texts; knowledge of the main turning point of Italian culture; recognizing classical elements and roots in Italian culture; understanding of the Latin origin of the Italian language and of the role played in its configuration by the reflection on Latin as a learned model; although the texts will be analysed in translation, understanding, through highly readable passages in the original language (consistently with the third year of stay in Italy), the difference between everyday and literary Italian.

2. Ability to apply knowledge and understanding:
Use of a proper critical terminology in all the processes of application and communication of the acquired knowledge; ability to gather, select, understand, and take profit of modern scholarship on the topic; ability to read and to analyse Italian masterpieces in their historical framework and cultural tradition; recognise connections between texts distant in age, culture and language, as well as identify their distinctness.

3. Making judgments:
Express critical judgements autonomously on different interpretative hypotheses on a single text; facing texts and themes objectively, with an approach based on the understanding of their historical context.

4. Communication skills:
- ability to synthesise and rework acquired knowledges in autonomous discourse (written and oral) with proper terminology

5. Learning skills:
autonomous reading, understanding, and interpreting of the Italian texts in translation; ability to autonomously develop and integrate relevant knowledges and skills; ability to consult critical bibliography.