OVERVIEW

The writer is closest to the world whenever he carries chaos within her/himself (…) s/he does not appreciate it at all, s/he does not feel at ease in chaos (…) s/he hates chaos and hopes to dominate it for others and therefore also for her/himself. Elias Canetti

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The discipline's primary aim is to prepare students for the development of a personal, historically competent, and epistemologically aware thought in relation to some specific, fundamental problems in the humanities field: the complex and diachronically changing notion of literature, the non-linear relationship between theory and literary practice, the functions and main methodologies of criticism, such as reading models, analysis, and interpretation. The comparison of texts from different languages, cultures, and semiotic systems defines, from this perspective, a privileged tool for the exercise of methodological reflection in its comparative dimension.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of the course the students will be able to

• know the main critical methodologies developed to define the status of the literary phenomenon in its complex richness and develop models of possible relationships (historical, ideological and morphological) among literary texts of different origins, languages ​​and poetics, in comparison with each other and with other systems semiotics (iconic and musical)

• apply the different methodologies to the concrete practice of analyzing the literary text, knowing how to evaluate the specific scope of the critical model applicative choice

• express the salient characteristics of a literary text in a full awareness of the critical language, developed by the main methodologies (from ancient rhetoric to linguistics, from narratology to gender studies), thus increasing one's abilities for abstract reflection and argumentative ability, sensitive to contexts

• demonstrate the historical awareness of the deep historical relationships between the texts of the Western tradition, both from a thematic and morphological point of view, proposing personal paths of interpretation of the most contemporary literary phenomena in the critical comparison with their past models

PREREQUISITES

No specific prerequisites are required.

TEACHING METHODS

The teaching consists in 60 hours of lessons. The teaching method provides for a close and continuous interconnection between frontal lessons (in the presentation of analytical methodologies and synoptic historiographic frameworks) and participatory activity of students (theoretical models’ critical discussion of analytic practice on texts). Active participation in lessons is very important for the full achievement of the learning objectives.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The long battle of Order and Adventure. Poetry as  Revolution (1800-1900).

«We want to give you strange and boundless territories where flowers of mystery offer itself to those who want to pick it, where unseen colors vibrate, imponderable ghosts to which to give reality, we always fight at the frontiers of the unlimited and the future», wrote Apollinaire one of the artistic chiefs of his visionary generation. Art could be conceived as an instrument of struggle, of liberation from the constraints of tradition, of discovery of the new, of impetus from the known to the imaginable: Art as Avant-garde.

The teaching will compare some of the most significant moments of development of this conception of Poetry from the first (German and English) Romanticisms, to the most extreme experimentations of the second half of the 20th century (Modernism, Expressionism, Dadaism, Futurisms and Surrealism). It will deep both in a theoretical and practical dimension, how read and analyzed text express their attempts in liberating readers and writers from every convention, from every debt and reverence towards the Past, in imaginating a future reality, through the redefinition of its own poetic identity.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. General handbooks

Stefania Sini, Franca Sinopoli, Percorsi di teoria e comparatistica letteraria, Pearson 2021

2. Theoretical and Critical Texts

Fausto Curi, Piccola storia delle avanguardie, Mucchi 2013

Walter Benjamin, Der Begriff der Kunstkritik in der deutschen Romantik Il concetto di critica nel Romanticismo Tedesco, in Scritti 1906-1922, Einaudi 2008

Walter Benjamin, Charles Baudelaire, a cura di Giorgio Agamben, Neri Pozza 2012

Walter Benjamin, Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit [ed. it. L’opera d’arte nell’epoca della sua riproducibilità tecnica, a cura di S. Cariati, V. Cicero e L. Tripepi, Bompiani, 2017 ]

Michael Löwy, Robert Sayre, Révolte et mélancolie. Le Romantisme à contre-courant de la modernité, Payot 1992

José Ortega Y Gasset, La deshumanización del Arte [ed. it. La disumanizzazione dell’Arte, Pgreco 2016]

Renato Poggioli, Teoria dell’arte d’avanguardia, Orfeo 2013

3. Fictional Texts:  

Novalis, An die Nacht [ed. it. Inni alla notte, a cura di S. Mati, Feltrinelli 2017]

Novalis, Blüthenstaub [ed. it. Polline, a cura di L. V. Arena, SE 2019]

Friedrich Schlegel, Phragmente [ed. it. Frammenti critici e poetici, a cura di M. Cometa, Einaudi 1998]

Samuel T. Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads, Penguin 2006

Victor Hugo, Theatre complet, Gallimard 1963

Apollinaire Calligrammes, Flammarion 2018

Georg Heym, Umbra vitae [ed. it.: trad. di Paolo Chiarini, Einaudi 1970]

Tristan Tzara, Manifeste Dada [ed. it. Manifesti del Dadaismo, Einaudi 1994]

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Teoria e invenzione futurista, Mondadori 1990

Gerardi Diego, Poesía española [Antologías], Catedra 2007

André Breton, Manifestes du Surrealisme [ed. it. Manifesti del Surrealismo, Einaudi 2003]

Ezra Pound, Cantos [ed. it. Canti I-VII, trad. di P. Valduga, Mondadori 2022; XXX Cantos, trad. di M. Bacigalupo, Guanda 2017]+

Alfredo Giuliani (a cura di), I novissimi, Einaudi 1997

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

LESSONS

LESSONS START

Lessons will start in the first semester.

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

The exam consists of (a) a written and (b) an oral part.

(a) a paper of a length appropriate to the chosen topic, previously agreed and discussed with the teacher, presented in its final form at least one week before the exam. One of the methodological models addressed during the course (to be chosen from the theoretical texts of section 2 of the Bibliography) will have to be applied, in a critical and personal way, to detect, describe and interpret the salient features of at least one of the literary texts of section 3 of the Bibliography (at least 1 for the 6 credits; at least 2 for the 9 credits).

(b) a critical discussion of the written paper, placing the chosen methodological paradigm in the context of the main analytical methodologies of the twentieth century (detailed with the help of one of the manuals indicated in section 1 of the Bibliography).

ASSESSMENT METHODS

The evaluation of the written paper will consider:

• the terminological property of the analysis [elocutio]

• the understanding of the critical model and the ability to personal re-elaboration of the studied contents [inventio]

• the formal organization [dispositio] in the presentation of the research results

• the effectiveness of the application of an analytical model to the reading of the literary text, in identifying its salient features (morphological, historical and content)

The evaluation of the oral discussion will consider:

• general knowledge of the contents of the discipline

• the degree of personal critical re-elaboration of the contents

• the ability for abstract reflection and argumentative ability, sensitive to the contexts of discourse

• the awareness of the essential historical relationships among the texts

FURTHER INFORMATION

All the students should contact the teacher (+39 345 455 8112)  in order to define their personal program related to their interests and curricula. There is no specific bibliography for non attending  students.

Erasmus students not proficient in Italian may request a substitutive bibliography, and take the examination in English (or in other Languages as Spanish or French).