AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course aims to provide students with in-depth knowledge, through direct reading of the texts, of the history of Latin literature from the Archaic age to the 5th century. A.D., developing the ability to relate the literary fact with its historical, cultural and artistic context; the ability to grasp the elements of continuity and innovation of this literature compared to the great Greek experience that preceded it; the ability to identify the formal and content characteristics of the various literary genres, applying suitable interpretation techniques; the ability to analyze the texts in the language proposed during the course on the most varied levels (including poetic ones, adding to the previous skills on dactyl metrics also those on lyric metrics) and, more generally, of any Latin literary text.

At the end of the course, the student must have acquired the methodologies and tools to deal directly, at a specialist level, with the interpretation and analysis of Latin texts, on a linguistic, metric, stylistic, rhetorical, thematic and historical-literary level, with particular with regard to the evolution of literary genres in the history of Latin literature.

PREREQUISITES

A sound knowledge of Latin and dactylic metrics (hexameter and pentameter)  and - since are following the Master's course those students who intend to teach Latin in the school  - the passing of a written preparatory Latin translation test of the Master's course (at a higher level than the three-year test) is required.

Please note that to facilitate the preparation of solid grammatical bases and for the preparation of the Preliminary written Translation Test, during the first and second semester Latin Lectorates for intermediate and advanced are activated, open to all students, (see more details in the field FURTHER INFORMATION).

All students on the course are required to enroll in Aulaweb.

TEACHING METHODS

Lectures, and possibly seminar discussion based on papers produced by the students.

Lessons will take place in person. Attendance, although not compulsory, is highly recommended.

Only those who attend lessons in presence will be deemed attending students.

The teacher, upon specific  e-mail request by single students, could allow them to attend lessons remotely and to access the recordings of the lessons via Teams.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The Xenia of Martial between the tradition of gastronomic poetry and the epigrammatic tradition

The thirteenth book of Martial's epigrams (actually the second collection we have received from his first production) is entitled Xenia, or gifts of food: and this long list of foods, divided into 124 plus 3 introductory epigrams, present homogeneous series of foodstuffs , organized roughly according to the courses of a dinner. On the one hand, Martial was influenced by the tradition of gastronomic poetry , which in the wake of the Greek gastronomic epos had already produced in Rome Ennio's Hedyphagetica , and by the comic gastronomy that had given rise to lists of delicacies both in comedy and in satire. On the other hand, the epigrammatic tradition acts, and in particular the anathematic (or dedicatory) epigram. To all this is added the fruitful relationship with the visual arts, where the representations of food represent a peculiar and virtuosistic pictorial genre, what we moderns call 'still life'.

A short cycle of 4 lessons will be dedicated to the lyrical metrics scheduled for the institutional part.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Texts/Bibliography:

1) Monographic course: Marziale, Epigrammi, intr. di M. Citroni, trad. di M. Scàndola, note di E. Merli, Milano, BUR, 2000 (only the Xenia and any other epigrams read in class, of which a precise list will be given at the end of the course); Martial Book XIII, The Xenia, Text with introduction and commentary by T. J. Leary, London 2001.

Supplementary texts (individual preparation by the students; there will be a series of introductory lessons on lyrical metrics):

2) Orazio, Satire,a cura di Mario Labate, BUR 1994 (Book I, satire 1; Book II, satires 2; 3; 4; 8).

3) Catullus, a choice of carmina:

1; 3; 5; 13; 42 = Phalaecian endecasyllable

4 = Iambic trimeters

8 = Choliambs

11; 51 = Sapphic stanza

Bibliography:

Catullo, I Canti, intr. e note di A. Traina, trad. di E. Mandruzzato, Milano, BUR; or Catullo, Le poesie, a cura di F. Della Corte, Milano, Mondadori (Fondazione Lorenzo Valla) 1977.

4) Horatius, a choice of Odes:

1,1 = Minor Asclepiads

1,11 = Greater Asclepiads

4,1= Glyconic + Asclepiad

2,3; 4,9; 4,15 = Alcaic stanza.

Bibliography: Orazio, Odi ed epodi, intr. di A. Traina, Milano, BUR 1985.

Non-attending students will integrate the program with S. Boldrini, La prosodia e la metrica dei Romani, Roma, Carocci, 1998, and with the material uploaded on Aulaweb.