OVERVIEW

How have the texts of the surviving works of classical antiquity come down to us? How have they crossed the millennia and what damages has this long journey caused? The teaching of Textual criticism answers these questions and allows to understand the tools, methods and criteria that the discipline has developed to remove from the texts the alterations that arose during the transmission process and to restore the ancient works to a form as close as possible to that desired by their authors.

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The teaching of Textual criticism aims to transmit the fundamental philological knowledge and skills for the study of ancient Greek texts in the original language. Such knowledge and skills can be summarized as follows: (1) knowledge of stemmatic theory, the typology of variant readings, the physiology of scribe’s errors, the dynamics of the manuscript tradition; (2) ability to read and use critical apparatuses; (3) outlines of the history of classical philology. For this purpose it is considered useful that the courses are divided into two parts: the theoretical part, already illustrated above, will be followed by a practical part, in which the teacher, and possibly the students, will comment on an ancient Greek text both from a literary and a philological point of view, focusing in particular on the analysis of variants and the genesis of corruptions.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

Participation in the activities and / or individual study will allow the student to:

– be acquainted with the problems connected with the history of the tradition of classical Greek texts;

- know and understand the basic mechanisms and the theoretical aspects of text criticism applied to the texts of classical Greece (stemmatic theory, variant readings, typology of errors);

- know the technical terminology;

- be able to use critical apparatuses;

- know the main phases in the history of philology.

PREREQUISITES

Good command of ancient Greek language and literature.

TEACHING METHODS

Lectures with Powerpoint presentations and images (made available on Aulaweb) and exercises with active involvement of the students in the philological analysis of texts, in the comparison of manuscripts, in the reading of critical apparatuses and in the evaluation of textual variants. For the practical part, the teaching will benefit of the support of Dr. Valeria Bacigalupo.

Lessons will be held in presence.

Attendance at lessons and activities is highly recommended. Non-attending students are asked to contact the teacher to arrange a different program.

All the students are requested to register on the Aulaweb.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

1) History of tradition: the dynamics of the manuscript tradition of classical texts, forms of the book, sources and contexts.

2) Textual criticism: the concepts of recensio, stemma codicum, archetype, significant error, emendatio; typology of errors; the so-called Lachmann method and its limits; how a critical edition is made and how to read a critical apparatus; technical terminology.

3) Outlines on the history of philology.

4) Practical part: reading in Greek of passages from Aristophanes and of Aristotle’s Poetics, with analysis of the critical apparatuses and with basic information on the respective manuscript traditions.

For the first three parts, the various phenomena will be illustrate through the analysis of exemplifying or relevant passages.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

– P. Chiesa, Elementi di critica testuale, Pàtron, Bologna 2012 (2a ed.);

– S. Timpanaro, La genesi del metodo del Lachmann, Le Monnier, Firenze 1963 (o UTET-De Agostini, Torino-Novara 2004)

The texts that will be analysed will be made available on Aulaweb and in class.

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

Exam Board

LARA PAGANI (President)

VALERIA BACIGALUPO

SERENA PERRONE (Substitute)

LESSONS

LESSONS START

13 February 2023

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

Oral exam

ASSESSMENT METHODS

The exam will ascertain the acquisition of the theoretical and methodological aspects of text criticism, the awareness of the history of the tradition of Greek texts and the history of the discipline, as well as the ability to deal with the critical reading of some texts analyzed in class (or previously arranged with non-attending students) and to recall the fundamental elements of their respective traditions. It will also verify the ability to use the correct technical terminology.

The basic threshold is reached in cases where the students demonstrate that they have substantially understood the theoretical and methodological aspects, that they know, at least in the main lines, the aspects of the history of the tradition of Greek texts and the history of the discipline, that they know how to correctly approach a critical apparatus and to use the technical terminology necessary for the purpose.

The threshold of excellence is reached in cases in which the students demonstrate a profound command of theoretical and methodological aspects, they master the aspects of the history of the tradition of Greek texts and the history of the discipline, and read with confidence a critical apparatus, being able to independently deduce the reasons behind the editor’s choices, and they finally use with great command and deep acquaintance the technical terminology of the discipline.

Exam schedule