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 to provide a picture of the Italian literary tradition from its origins onwards using exemplary texts, with reference to the different styles and genres, to the analysis of texts and cultural contexts, and to relations with foreign cultures.

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 dealt with in written and oral form with clarity and language properties.

PREREQUISITES

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

TEACHING METHODS

The lessons will be held via Microsoft Teams, name “Lezioni di Letteratura italiana C (LCM) - a.a. 2020-2021”, code wah5kp6. The course will therefore include additional teaching tools (slides, audio PowerPoint, study support tools) that will be made available on a special section of the AulaWeb e-learning portal. During the lessons, questions and remarks by the students will be solicited.

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 focus on "Themes and forms of satirical-moral writing" and will be dedicated to the following topics:

(a) «L’altro è Orazio satiro che vene». Selected passages from Dante, Divina Commedia

(b) Ariosto, Satire (selected passages)

c) The satire between 19th and 20th centuries: Leopardi from "prosette satiriche" to Operette morali; Montale, Satura (selected passages)

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, ed. by Anna Maria Chiavacci Leonardi, Milano, Mondadori; or ed. by Giorgio Inglese, Roma, Carocci; or ed. by Bianca Garavelli, Milano, Bompiani (only the passages read in class)

- Ludovico Ariosto, Satire, ed. by Emilio Russo, Roma, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2019 (only the passages read in class)

- Giacomo Leopardi, Operette morali, ed. by Laura Melosi, Milano, Rizzoli BUR, 2008 (only the passages read in class)

- Eugenio Montale, Satura, ed. by Riccardo Castellana, with essays by Romano Luperini, Franco Fortini, Milano, Mondadori, 2018 (only the passages read in class)

- Additional readings 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

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

Exam Board

LUCA BELTRAMI (President)

DUCCIO TONGIORGI

MATTEO NAVONE (Substitute)

LESSONS

LESSONS START

15 February 2021

Class schedule

ITALIAN LITERATURE C

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

Unless otherwise stated due to changes in the health situation, the exam shall consist of a written test and an oral test: the written test shall be focused on module 1, the oral test shall be focused on module 2.

Students must have taken the written test in order to have access to the oral test. Each exam session (winter, summer, autumn) includes one written exam session and two oral exam sessions; further dates of exam may be added during the year at the teacher's discretion and in accordance with the regulations of the course of study and the requirements of the other courses. It is not possible to make written and oral tests on the same date.

The final grade is given by comparing the results obtained in the two tests.

If the health situation and the University's regulations won’t permit the regular conduct of the written tests, the program of module 1 will be assessed orally in a single examination together with the program of module 2.

To take part in the written and oral tests, students must register at least two days before the date of the exam at 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) 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.