OVERVIEW

The course is part of the Basic Learning Activities for the Bachelor’s course in 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 in the history of Italian literature; it contributes to the acquisition of knowledge and skills useful for the professional outlets envisaged by the bachelor degree course in Modern Languages and Cultures, and in particular for: 

• access to teacher training
• cultural services (publishing, journalism, radio and television, Italian and foreign cultural institutes and foundations, book heritage preservation)
• cultural tourism
• organization of artistic and cultural events and exhibitions.

This page relates to section C of Italian Literature (students P-Z).

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) identify and define the most significant movements and poetics in the history of Italian literature

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 in oral form the topics discussed in class with clarity and language properties.

PREREQUISITES

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

TEACHING METHODS

The course includes frontal lessons with the help of multimedia tools and materials. During the lectures there will be commented readings of literary excerpts and in-depth cultural studies aimed at contextualising the works examined: both the readings and the in-depth studies are to be understood as examples of work on the literary text, hopefully aimed at stimulating the reflections of the students, who will often be invited to actively participate with interventions and questions. The teacher will also make available to students, in a special section of the AulaWeb e-learning portal, the slides used in the classroom and other study support materials.

Students who wish to do so will also be invited to form groups, write a short paper on texts related to the course theme independently (under the guidance of the instructor), and present it in class.

Course attendance is not compulsory, but warmly recommended. Students who, for justified reasons, expect not to be able to attend at least 50% of the lessons (i.e. at least 27 of the 54 hours of classroom teaching) are required to contact the teacher by e-mail at the beginning of the course in order to agree on an alternative examination programme. It is also recommended to attend the first lesson, during which the teaching programme and the exam rules will be presented.

Lectures will be held in presence, unless stated otherwise.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

General Section

The general section covers the history of Italian literature from its origins to the twentieth century, limited to a selection of topics and authors that will be published on AulaWeb at the beginning of the course.

This section will be only partially covered in class and will otherwise be assigned as independent study.

Monographic Section

The monographic section is dedicated to the theme of autobiography in Italian literature, understood not as a simple record of lived experience but as a literary construction of identity. The course is structured into three units.

1. Dante: the new “novel of the self”

This unit focuses on selected cantos (in full or in part) from the Commedia in which the poet appears as both character and narrator. The aim is to reconstruct, through the text, a literary and implicit biography of Dante—shaped by confessions, omissions, and narrative reticence—along a path in which experience and invention are programmatically interwoven.

2. Foscolo and the fiction of the self

This unit centres on the narrative self in Ugo Foscolo’s work, from the Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis to the Notizia intorno a Didimo Chierico. It traces the transition from the autobiographical overlap between Ugo and Jacopo in the epistolary novel to the irony of the sixteen chapters of the Notizia, influenced by Sterne’s model. The works will be examined in relation to the renewed European interest in autobiographical forms between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

3. Gadda and Ginzburg: family as autobiography

Through two major twentieth-century novels—La cognizione del dolore and Lessico famigliare, both of which students are required to read in full—this unit explores forms of indirect, family-centered autobiography. In Gadda, this involves the unresolved relationship with his mother and the death of his brother, sublimated in the fictional setting of Villa Pirobutirro; in Ginzburg, it takes the form of a remembered language of domestic life, unfolding across the most dramatic decades of twentieth-century Italian history.

Class attendance is not mandatory but is strongly recommended.

Non-attending students must contact the instructor at the beginning of the course to agree on an alternative exam syllabus.

For further details, please refer to the sections on Reccomended Readings/Bibliography, Teaching Methods, and Assessment Methods.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bibliography for attending students

General section

- Ugo Dotti, Storia della letteratura italiana, Rome, Carocci, 2020
(Note: only the sections indicated by the instructor at the beginning of the course are required for study.)

Monographic section

All teaching materials used during the lessons and made available on AulaWeb.

- Dante Alighieri, Divina Commedia, edited by Anna Maria Chiavacci Leonardi, Milan, Mondadori (or the edition edited by Giorgio Inglese, Rome, Carocci, or that edited by Bianca Garavelli, Milan, Bompiani). Only the passages indicated during the course are required for study.

- Full reading (in any edition, including eBook) of the following novels:

• Carlo Emilio Gadda, La cognizione del dolore
• Natalia Ginzburg, Lessico famigliare

The reading list may be subject to change. It is therefore recommended to wait until the start of the course and the presentation of the syllabus by the instructor before purchasing or borrowing any texts. The bibliography for the monographic section may be supplemented with additional readings provided on AulaWeb during the course.

Non-attending students are required to contact the instructor by email to arrange an alternative reading list.

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

LESSONS

LESSONS START

Lessons will start on February 2026.

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

The exam consists of an oral interview, lasting approximately 30 minutes, covering the entire syllabus.

The grade communicated at the end of the interview may be declined; in case of refusal, the student must skip one exam session before retaking the test. If the exam is not passed, the student may retake it in the next available session. There is no limit to the number of attempts. The optional paper may lead to an increase in the final grade, according to the criteria established by the instructor and explained at the beginning of the course. Further details on the exam will be provided during the lessons.

Seven exam sessions are scheduled each academic year (three in the summer session, two in the autumn session, and two in the winter session), with the possibility of additional extraordinary sessions primarily intended for students who are behind schedule in their studies.

To take part in the tests, you must register at least five days before the date of the exam on the website https://servizionline.unige.it/studenti/esami/prenotazione.

Non-attending students must contact the teacher by email to arrange an alternative programme.

ASSESSMENT METHODS

The oral test consists of an examination on the topics included in the syllabus, and aims to assess the ability to:

• paraphrase and summarise a literary passage;
• contextualise the works studied from a historical and cultural point of view and illustrate their metrical and stylistic characteristics;
• make connections and comparisons between the topics covered in the course;
• use appropriate and effective exposition;
• develop a personal critical opinion on the topics covered.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Students who, for justified reasons, expect not to be able to attend at least 50% of the lessons (i.e. at least 27 of the 54 hours of classroom teaching) are required to contact the teacher by e-mail at the beginning of the course in order to agree on an alternative examination programme. It is also recommended to attend the first lesson, during which the teaching programme and the exam rules will be presented.

All students, whether attending or not, are kindly requested to enrol in AulaWeb to receive communications and notices regarding the course.

Erasmus students or non-native Italian speakers are kindly requested to contact the teacher to agree on the examination programme.

Students with a certified DSA, disability or other special educational needs are recommended to contact the prpfessor at the beginning of the course to agree on teaching and examination methods that, while respecting the teaching objectives, take into account individual learning methods and provide suitable compensatory tools. The same students are also invited to make use of the various services the University offers to support them (for further information see https://unige.it/disabilita-dsa). In e-mail communications to the teacher, please always copy the contact teacher, Prof. Dickinson (sara.dickinson@unige.it).