OVERVIEW

The course is part of the Basic Learning Activities for the Degree Course of Modern Languages and Cultures, and bestows 9 ECTS, corresponding to 54 hours of classroom teaching and 171 hours reserved for personal study. It introduces the student to the study of major authors, most significant works, main poetics and most relevant cultural movements of Italian Literature history, from its origins to the 20th century.

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course aims at providing students with an exhaustive overviewing of the Italian literary tradition and its relations with foreign cultures; this outcome will be reached by analyzing exemplary texts, cultural contexts, forms, genres

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course aims to provide students with knowledge and skills related to the study of Italian Literature. At the end of the course students should be able to:

- demonstrate some acquaintance with main movements and authors of particular relevance of the Italian literary panorama from the origins to the 20th century, also in relation to the major works of other European and extra-European literatures

- to use the analytical knowledge acquired to paraphrase and analyze texts in verse and in prose, contextualizing them in their own historical period and literary genre, and illustrating the content, stylistic, metric and rhetorical elements.

- critically discuss (in written and oral form) the learned contents clearly and with language property.

PREREQUISITES

Basic knowledge (at high school level) of the history of Italian literature

TEACHING METHODS

Lectures (with computer and projector). It is strongly recommended to attend classes with the books the teacher will indicate for every lesson. Students participation will be encouraged through questions and interventions. The course also provides students with learning tools (such as slides used during classes, supplementary or support materials) available in AulaWeb.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

Syllabus for attending students

Written exam

For the written test, it is required the autonomous study of an anthology of about twenty texts, contained in a series of handouts that will be made available at the beginning of the course in AulaWeb, the e-learning portal of the University of Genoa. The texts – accompanied by short introductions and analysis cards – range from Dante to early 20th century literature. In addition to these handouts, students can deepen their study of the anthologized authors by using a textbook of Italian literature.

Oral exam

The oral test will focus on the topics taught in class. The course will be divided into three parts:

- Part 1. Characters in Dante's Divine Comedy: selected readings from Inferno

- Part 2. Characters in Torquato Tasso's Jerusalem delivered: selected readings

- Part 3. Italian Novel in the second half ot the 19th century: Nievo, Verga, De Roberto

Syllabus for non-attending students

Written exam

For the written test, it is required the autonomous study of an anthology of about twenty texts, contained in a series of handouts that will be made available at the beginning of the course in AulaWeb, the e-learning portal of the University of Genoa. The texts – accompanied by short introductions and analysis cards – range from Dante to early twentieth century literature. In addition to these handouts, students can deepen their study of the anthologized authors by using a textbook of Italian literature.

Oral exam

For the oral test, it is required the study of the following literary works (pay attention to the annotated editions suggested in the bibliography section) and critical essays:

- Dante, Divina Commedia: Inferno, cantos V, X, XIX, XXVI; Purgatorio, cantos III, VI

- Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron, choice of 5 novellas from Sixth Day (with the study of a critical essay by Michelangelo Picone: see the bibliography)

- Niccolò Machiavelli, La Mandragola (unabridged)

- Giacomo Leopardi, L’Infinito (with an introduction and comment by Luigi Blasucci: see the bibliography)

- Giovanni Verga, I Malavoglia (unabridged)

- Eugenio Montale, Mottetti, from Le occasioni

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bibliography for attending students

Written exam

- handouts in AulaWeb

Oral exam

- Dante Alighieri, Inferno, a cura di A.M. Chiavacci Leonardi, Milano, Mondadori; or a cura di Giorgio Inglese, Roma, Carocci; or a cura di Bianca Garavelli, Milano, Bompiani (only the passages read in class)

- Torquato Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata, a cura di Franco Tomasi, Milano, Rizzoli (BUR), 2009 (only the passages read in class)

- A novel to be chosen between: Ippolito Nievo, Confessioni di un italiano (any edition); Giovanni Verga, Mastro-don Gesualdo (any edition); Federico De Roberto, I Viceré (any edition)

- possible supplementary readings proposed in class, which will be made available on AulaWeb during the course

Bibliography for non attending students

Written exam

- handouts in AulaWeb

Oral exam

- Dante Alighieri, Divina Commedia, a cura di A.M. Chiavacci Leonardi, Milano, Mondadori; or a cura di Giorgio Inglese, Roma, Carocci; or a cura di Bianca Garavelli, Milano, Bompiani

- Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron, a cura di Amedeo Quondam, Maurizio Fiorilla e Giancarlo Alfano, Milano, Rizzoli (BUR), 2013

- Michelangelo Picone, Leggiadri motti e pronte risposte: la sesta giornata, in Introduzione al “Decameron”, a cura di Michelangelo Picone e Margherita Mesirca, Firenze, Franco Cesati Editore, 2004, pp. 163-186

- Niccolò Machiavelli, La Mandragola, introduzione e note di Gennaro Sasso, nota al testo e appendici di Giorgio Inglese, Milano, Rizzoli (BUR), 1997, or the edition annotated by Rinaldo Rinaldi, Milano, Rizzoli (BUR), 2010

- Luigi Blasucci, Per un progettato commento leopardiano: L’infinito, in «Nuova Rivista di Letteratura Italiana», XI, 1-2, 2008, pp. 183-195

- Giovanni Verga, I Malavoglia, testo critico e commento di Ferruccio Cecco, Torino, Einaudi, 2014

- Eugenio Montale, Mottetti, a cura di Dante Isella, Milano, Adelphi, 1988, or in E. Montale, Le occasioni, a cura di Tiziana de Rogatis, con un saggio di Luigi Blasucci e uno scritto di Vittorio Sereni, Milano, Mondadori (Oscar poesia del Novecento), 2011, pp. 85-156

NB: non-attending students are asked to contact the teachers before starting to study for the exam.

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

Exam Board

MATTEO NAVONE (President)

LUCA BELTRAMI

DUCCIO TONGIORGI

LESSONS

LESSONS START

2 October 2018

Class schedule

ITALIAN LITERATURE B

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

The exam consists of a written and an oral test.

The written test focuses on the texts in the handouts available for the students in AulaWeb.

The oral exam focuses on the program carried out during the lessons (parts 1, 2, 3).

It is necessary to take the written test in order to access the oral exam. Each exam session (winter, summer, autumn) includes one written exam session and two oral exam sessions; further dates may be added during the year at the discretion of the teacher, in accordance with the regulations of the department and with the needs of the other courses. The student can participate in the oral exam from the first session following the publication of the results of the written exam. It is not possible to attend written and oral exams on the same session. The final grade is given by comparing the results obtained in the two tests.

To take part in the written and oral tests, the student must register within two days before the exam date on the website https://servizionline.unige.it/studenti/esami/prenotazione. Further information about the exams will be provided during the lessons.

ASSESSMENT METHODS

The written test includes some open-ended questions (with the request to paraphrase and comment on a literary text) in order to evaluate the skill of comprehension and analysis of a text in poetry or prose, the skill to write in a correct Italian language and the basic knowledge of the Italian literary history.

The oral exam consists of an interview on the topics discussed during the lessons, in order to evaluate the skills to contextualize a literary text in the frame of the Italian cultural history; to illustrate its metric-stylistic features; to make connections and comparisons among Italian and foreign literatures; to expose the contents with an appropriate language and to discuss the topics learned during the lessons.

Exam schedule

FURTHER INFORMATION

Non-attending students, as well as attending ones, are requested to register for the course in AulaWeb.