OVERVIEW

The course is part of the Basic Learning Activities for the Bachelor’s course in 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 illustrate (in a historical-critical perspective) a selection of significant works and authors of Italian literature, providing students with the essential conceptual and methodological tools to understand the poetic language and analyze a literary passage from a content and metric-stylistic perspective.

At the end of the course the student will be able to:

a) recognize and explain the most important moments of the Italian literary tradition

b) interpret, paraphrase and analyse autonomously literary passages in poetry and prose, recognising their structural aspects (genre, metric form, rhetorical apparatus) and linking them to the historical-cultural contexts in which they were composed

c) make appropriate use of literary criticism terminology

d) compare passages from different periods and authors

e) explain and discuss the topics discussed in class with clarity and language properties, both in written and oral form

PREREQUISITES

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

TEACHING METHODS

The course will be delivered via distance learning using the Microsoft Teams platform (team "Letteratura italiana B 2020-21 (Navone)", access code ehn7279) and with the aid of supplementary teaching tools (slides, PowerPoint audio, study support materials) that will be made available in a special section of the e-learning portal AulaWeb. During the lessons, examples of textual interpretation and analysis will be proposed, and the active participation of students will be encouraged, with questions and interventions.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

Syllabus for attending students

 Module 1

Autonomous study of an anthology of texts, representative of the most important authors of Italian literature from the thirteenth to the early twentieth century. These excerpts – accompanied by short introductions and analysis sheets – will be available on the e-learning portal of the University of Genoa (AulaWeb) from the beginning of the course. In addition to these handouts, students can deepen their study of the anthologized authors by using a textbook of Italian literature.

This part of the program will be verified through a written test (see "Exam description” and “Assessment methods").

Module 2

The lessons of the course will be dedicated to the following topics:

a) Anticlerical controversy and satire in Dante and Boccaccio: selected readings from the Divine Comedy and the Decameron

b) The epic chivalric poem: selected readings from Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando furioso

c) The representation of World War I in Italian fiction of the early twentieth century: Luigi Pirandello, Federico De Roberto, Giani Stuparich, Emilio Lussu

This part of the program will be verified through an oral test (see "Exam description” and “Assessment methods").

Syllabus for non-attending students

Module 1

Autonomous study of an anthology of texts, representative of the most important authors of Italian literature from the thirteenth to the early twentieth century. These excerpts – accompanied by short introductions and analysis sheets – will be available on the e-learning portal of the University of Genoa (AulaWeb) from the beginning of the course. In addition to these handouts, students can deepen their study of the anthologized authors by using a textbook of Italian literature.

This part of the program will be verified through a written test (see "Exam description” and “Assessment methods").

Module 2

- Dante, Divina Commedia: Inferno, cantos V, X, XIX, XXVI; Purgatorio, cantos III, VI; Paradiso, cantos VI, XVII (paraphrase and comment)

- Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron: choice of 5 novellas from Sixth Day

- Niccolò Machiavelli, La Mandragola (unabridged)

- Giacomo Leopardi, L’Infinito

- Giovanni Verga, I Malavoglia (unabridged)

- Eugenio Montale, Mottetti, from Le occasioni

This part of the program will be verified through an oral test (see "Exam description” and “Assessment methods").

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bibliography for attending students

Module 1

- handouts in AulaWeb

Module 2

- Dante Alighieri, Divina Commedia, edited by Anna Maria Chiavacci Leonardi, Milano, Mondadori; or edited by Giorgio Inglese, Roma, Carocci; or edited by Bianca Garavelli, Milano, Bompiani (only the passages read in class)

- Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron, edited by Amedeo Quondam, Maurizio Fiorilla and Giancarlo Alfano, Milano, BUR-Rizzoli, 2013 (or another recent annotated edition of the work) (only the passages read in class)

- Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando furioso, edited by Emilio Bigi and Cristina Zampese, Milano, BUR-Rizzoli, 2012 (only the passages read in class)

- Emilio Lussu, Un anno sull’altipiano, Torino, Einaudi, 2014 (unabridged)

The bibliography of module 2 will be complemented by additional readings presented in class and made available on AulaWeb during the course

Bibliography for non attending students

Module 1

- handouts in AulaWeb

Module 2

- Dante Alighieri, Divina Commedia, edited by Anna Maria Chiavacci Leonardi, Milano, Mondadori; or edited by Giorgio Inglese, Roma, Carocci; or edited by Bianca Garavelli, Milano, Bompiani

- Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron, edited by 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, edited by Rinaldo Rinaldi, Milano, BUR-Rizzoli, 2010; or edited by Pasquale Stoppelli, Milano, Mondadori, 2016

- 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, edited by Ferruccio Cecco, Torino, Einaudi, 2014

- Eugenio Montale, Mottetti, edited by Dante Isella, Milano, Adelphi, 1988, or in E. Montale, Le occasioni, edited by Tiziana de Rogatis, Luigi Blasucci and 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)

DUCCIO TONGIORGI

LUCA BELTRAMI (Substitute)

LESSONS

LESSONS START

15 February 2021

Class schedule

ITALIAN LITERATURE B

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

Unless otherwise specified due to changes in the health situation, the examination consists of a written and an oral test: the written test covers module 1, the oral test module 2.

Students must have passed the written examination in order to sit the oral examination. Each examination session (winter, summer, autumn) consists of one written and two oral examinations; further examinations may be added during the year at the teacher's discretion and in accordance with the course regulations and the requirements of the other courses. It is not possible to take a written and oral exam on the same date.The final assessment is obtained by comparing the results obtained in the two tests.

If the health situation and the University's regulations do not allow the written tests to be conducted regularly, the syllabus of module 1 will be assessed orally in a single examination together with the syllabus of module 2.

In order to take part in the written and oral examinations, you must register at least two days before the date of the examination at https://servizionline.unige.it/studenti/esami/prenotazione.

Further information about the examinations will be provided during the course.

ASSESSMENT METHODS

The written test includes some open-ended questions (with the request to paraphrase and comment on a literary text) 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 test consists of an interview on the topics dealt with in class, and aims to assess the ability to paraphrase a literary passage, to contextualize it from a cultural-historical point of view, to illustrate its metric-stylistic characteristics, to establish links and comparisons between the topics dealt with, to use an appropriate and effective exposition.

Exam schedule

FURTHER INFORMATION

All students, whether attending or not, are kindly requested to enrol in AulaWeb in order to receive communications and notices regarding the course.

Erasmus students or non-native Italian speakers are kindly requested to contact the teacher to agree on the examination programme.