LEARNING OUTCOMES

The Latin literature course (I year), in the three-year degree course no. 10 aims to give students a good knowledge of the history of Latin literature from the archaic period to the 5th century AD by directly reading texts; knowledge of the themes of Latin literature and the fundamental range of literary genres with their formal characteristics and content together with the capacity to move between genres applying suitable interpretation techniques; the capacity to identify the elements of continuity and innovation in this literature with respect to the great Greek experience that preceded it; the capacity to analyse texts in the language proposed during the course and, in general, any text in Latin.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The Latin literature course (I year), in the three-year degree course no. 10 has the following objectives:

• to give students a good knowledge of the history of Latin literature in its diachronic evolution from the archaic period to the 5th century AD by directly reading texts;
• to give students knowledge of the themes of Latin literature and the fundamental range of literary genres with their formal characteristics and content; capacity to move between genres applying suitable interpretation techniques;
• to give students knowledge and understanding of the evolution of the Latin language over about eight centuries of history (with particular attention to the awareness of various registers and levels of the language, the selection of which is tied naturally to the literary genre);
• to give students the capacity to identify elements of continuity and innovation in this literature with respect to the great Greek experience that preceded it;
• to give students understanding of and capacity to analyse (at least at an initial level) texts proposed during the course and, in general, any text in Latin;
• mastery of Latin reading and consequently excellent knowledge of prosody and metrics.

To this end a selection of texts in Latin commented by teaching staff will be studied. Various other texts will be added to this anthology which must be read by students. The last part of the course (approximately 12 hours) may be organised in seminars so that students can learn the technique of interpretation and the philological method of enquiry from the beginning by directly carrying out the analysis of a text

TEACHING METHODS

The exam consists of an oral test on the theme of the monographic course as well as the history of Latin literature. Students will also be asked to read and translate one or more passages from the texts in the programme and to demonstrate mastery of grammatical, linguistic and stylistic analysis of the passages in question. 

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The best fairy tale in the world. Most of the viewers of the film Beauty and the Beast do not know that what they have seen this year is not only the live action remake of a very lucky animated film by Disney. It is, in fact, only the latest remake of perhaps one of the most famous and luckiest fairy tale in western literature. The original that inspired the story (a French 18th century fairy tale) is an old fairy tale from the 2nd century AD contained in the only Latin novel that has reached us in its entirety, Apuleius’s Metamorphosis: it is in fact the Cupid and Psyche fable which occupies a large part of the novel (more than two books) and is also a crucial moment as it depicts a sort of reflection on the main adventure and a suggestion to decipher its complex meanings. The story of the beautiful princess, cruelly fated to marry a mysterious monster and the vicissitudes to which her curiosity brings her, has a greater weight than any other narrative piece in Metamorphosis. But its ultimate meaning is not made explicit by the author: during the centuries the tradition and exegesis of this part of the novel has enjoyed great independent and parallel popularity and has been remade, imitated, transposed in every possible way, even crossing the limits of literature to break overbearingly into the history of figurative art. After a first institutional part that focuses on the characteristics and contents of the novel literary genre, the general context of Apuleius’s Metamorphosis and the issues tied to it (with an analysis of the history of tradition), the course consists of reading and commenting the novel. Particular attention is given to some of the author’s peculiar linguistic quirks and the peculiarities of his style.