ITALIAN LITERATURE
Academic year and teacher
If you can't find the course description that you're looking for in the above list,
please see the following instructions >>
- Versione italiana
- Academic year
- 2022/2023
- Teacher
- GIOVANNA RIZZARELLI
- Credits
- 12
- Didactic period
- Secondo Semestre
- SSD
- L-FIL-LET/10
Training objectives
- Aim of the class is to provide the students with a good knowledge of the history of the Italian literature from the 13th to the 16th century.
Prerequisites
- Good knowledge of the Italian language. Ability to study independently elementary knowledge of literary history relating to 13-16th centuries.
Course programme
- The class will unfold in two parts:
1) The first, general part will provide the outlines of the history of Italian literature from the 13th to the late 16th century, with the aim of sketching the general context of the literary works that will be considered. The class shall focus on exemplary texts of that age in Italian literary history, which will be analyzed and commented. In analyzing the texts, elements of metrics, rhetoric and literary genres will be provided.
2) The second part shall offer a specific focus on Dante's Commedia. After a brief introduction to the genre of the work, the class will first present the genesis and the structure of Dante's masterpiece. Then the class will examine the main themes, characters and features of the parts in which the work unfolds by commenting selected cantos. Didactic methods
- Frontal lessons, with PowerPoint presentations, mainly focused on introducing and commenting the texts included in the course programme.
Classes will be in presence only (unless stated otherwise). For non-attending students, recordings of introductory classes will be made available on Classroom. Learning assessment procedures
- The exam includes one preliminary mandatory written test focusing on the general knowledge of the history of Italian literature from the 13th century to Tasso, which the students will have acquired during the course and through independent study. No texts or handbooks can be used during the test. The test, which will be carried out through Moodle, includes a first part with closed answers dedicated to metrics, rhetoric and literary history from the 13th to the 16th century; students who achieve a sufficient score in this first part will access to a second part dedicated to the paraphrase and comment of a poetic or prose text. The overall duration of the test is 60 minutes (30 minutes for each part). The grade given to the written test on a 30 points scale will be calculated in average with the grade given to the oral exam. To access the oral exam, it is necessary to pass the written exam.
The oral exam will include some questions on the specific part of the course. The students will be evaluated as to their capacity to contextualize historically and critically the text at issue and the capacity to paraphrase and comment the selected cantos. Reference texts
- The programme is valid for both attending and non-attending student starting from the exam sessions in Summer 2023.
GENERAL PART
- The history of Italian literature from the 13th century to Tasso can be studied on a good handbook. (Recommended: Giancarlo Alfano, Paola Italia, Emilio Russo, Profilo di letteratura italiana. Dalle origini a fine Ottocento, Firenze, Mondadori università, 2021).
- Besides the study of the history of Italian literature, accurate knowledge and paraphrase of the following texts:
13th and 14th Century: Iacopo Mostacci, Pier delle Vigne e Giacomo da Lentini, cosiddetta "Tenzone sulla natura dell'amore"; Guido Guinizzelli, Al cor gentile rempaira sempre amore; Io voglio del ver la mia donna laudare; Guido Cavalcanti, Biltà di donna e di saccente core; Chi è questa che vèn ch'ogn'om la mira; Dante Alighieri, Vita nova (the extracts examined in class and included in the class materials); Francesco Petrarca, Canzoniere (the poems examined in class and included in the class materials); Giovanni Boccaccio, Il Decameron (the extracts examined in class and included in the class materials).
15th Century: Angelo Poliziano, Stanze per la giostra (the extracts examined in class and included in the class materials); Luigi Pulci, Morgante (the extracts examined in class and included in the class materials); Matteo Maria Boiardo, Inamoramento de Orlando (the extracts examined in class and included in the class materials).
16th Century: Niccolò Machiavelli, Il principe (chaps. I, VII, XXV, XXVI); Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando furioso (the extracts examined in class and included in the class materials); Torquato Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata (the extracts examined in class and included in the class materials).
The required texts are available either in the text selections included in the recommended handbooks or in a pdf document that will be made available in Classroom.
SPECIFIC PART
1. Dante Alighieri, La Divina Commedia, (Inf. canti I, II, V, VI, X, XIII, XXVI, XXXIII; Purg. canti I, III, V, VI, X, XXI, XXX; Par. I, III, VI, XV, XVI, XVII, XXXIII); si consigliano le seguenti edizioni:
Commedia; con il commento di Anna Maria Chiavacci Leonardi, Milano, A. Mondadori, 2006;
Commedia. Opera completa. Revisione del testo e commento di Giorgio Inglese; a cura di Giorgio Inglese, Roma, Carocci, 2016.
2. Giuseppe Ledda, Dante, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2008.
3. Giorgio Inglese, Dante: guida alla Divina Commedia, Roma, Carocci, 2012; oppure Giuseppe Ledda, Leggere la «Commedia», Bologna, Il Mulino, 2016.
