28997 - Italian Twentieth-Century Poetry (LM)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course: 1. The student has the theoretical knowledge to put 20th-century poetry in the context of the intellectual movements and history of ideas of European culture and civilization. 2. The student commands a methodology of analysis of 20th-century poetry characterized by rhetorical, stylistic, and linguistic viewpoints through an intertextual, interdisciplinary lens.

Course contents

Main topic:

Forms of enunciation in XXth-Century Italian Poetry

The course (30 hours) aims to:

1) elaborate a notion of "lyric enunciation" based on Benveniste's dinstinction between énoncé ed énonciation;

2) analyze the specific function assumed by the various devices (phonological, lexical, rhythmic-syntactic, rhetorical, metric) of a poetic text with reference to its particular circumstance of enunciation, spatially and historically situated within a "horizon of expectations" (Jauss), knowledge and literary experiences lived as a place of intersections, overlaps and collisions between codes and discourses embodying conflicting ideological orientations;

3) Examine from a diachronic perspective the various configurations assumed by the space of enunciation in XXth-Century Italian Poetry, comparing imitations, transformations and parodic alterations of certain thematic-structural elements of D’Annunzio’s Alcyone and Pascoli’s Myricae carried out by Guido Gozzano, Dino Campana, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Eugenio Montale, Andrea Zanzotto, Amelia Rosselli, Antonio Porta and the Novissimi.

 

It is strongly recommended to attend the first introductory lesson about the bibliography of the course and the assessment methods (explained in detail at the bottom of the page). Students are also invited to access the Teaching resources on Virtuale platform before the start of the course.

 

Further information about course, program and assessment methods will be provided in class and during Office hours .

Readings/Bibliography

Literary texts

Below are listed only the books from which the texts will be chosen. The (approximately 50) texts of the poems to be prepared for the exam (pdf) will be available on the platform Teaching resources on Virtuale since the beginning of the lectures.

• Giovanni Pascoli, Myricae, a cura di G. Lavezzi, Milano, BUR, 2015.
• Gabriele d’Annunzio, Alcyone, a cura di F. Roncoroni, Milano, Oscar Mondadori, 1995 (o altra edizione annotata).
• Guido Gozzano, La signorina Felicita ovvero La Felicità, in ID., Poesie e prose, a cura di L. Lenzini, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2008.
• Dino Campana, Canti Orfici, a cura di F. Ceragioli, Milano, Rizzoli, 2014; in alternativa, Canti Orfici e altre poesie, a cura di R. Martinoni, Torino, Einaudi, 2014.
• Giuseppe Ungaretti, Il Porto Sepolto, a cura di C. Ossola, Venezia, Marsilio, 1990; in alternativa: G. Ungaretti, Il Porto Sepolto, in N. Lorenzini-S. Colangelo, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Le Monnier, 2012.
• Eugenio Montale, Ossi di seppia, a cura di P. Cataldi e F. d’Amely, Milano, Mondadori, 2016; ID., Le occasioni, a cura di T. De Rogatis, Milano, Mondadori, 2011; ID., La bufera e altro, a cura di I. Campeggiani e N. Scaffai, Milano, Mondadori, 2019.
• Andrea Zanzotto, Le poesie e prose scelte, a cura di S. Dal Bianco e G.M. Villalta, Milano, Mondadori, 1999; ID., Erratici. Disperse e altre poesie (1937-2011), a cura di F. Carbognin, Milano, Mondadori, 2021.
• Amelia Rosselli, L'opera poetica, a cura di S. Giovannuzzi, con la collaborazione di F. Carbognin, C. Carpita, S. De March, G. Palli Baroni, E. Tandello, Milano, Mondadori, “I Meridiani”, 2012.
• Antonio Porta, Poesie 1956-1988, Milano, Mondadori, 1989, pp. 179-195.

 

Critical essays

Some of the following essays are available on the Teaching resources on Virtuale platform.

• Pier Vincenzo Mengaldo (a cura di), Poeti italiani del Novecento, Milano, Oscar Grandi Classici Mondadori, 2003 (Introduzione and the introductory sections devoted to the individual authors of the poems listed in the course syllabus).
  
• G. Turchetta L'eterno ritorno dell'immagine e la resistenza della poesia, in D. Campana, L'opera in versi e in prosa, a cura di G. Turchetta, Milano, Mondadori, 2025, pp. XI-CVIII.
• E. Testa, Montale, Torino, Einaudi Tascabili, 2000, pp. 1-77.
• Francesco Carbognin, Linguaggio (1956 – 1969), in N. Lorenzini – S. Colangelo [a cura di], Poesia e Storia, Milano, Bruno Mondadori, 2013, pp. 195-239.
• Umberto Eco, Del modo di formare come impegno sulla realtà, in ID., Opera aperta. Forma e indeterminazione nelle poetiche contemporanee, Milano, Bompiani, 2000, pp. 235-290.
• Niva Lorenzini, Postfazione, in A. Porta, Poesie 1956-1988, Milano, Mondadori, 1989, pp. 179-195.
• Alfredo Giuliani (a cura di), Introduzione a I Novissimi. Poesie per gli anni ’60, Torino, Einaudi, 2003, pp. 3-32.
• Andrea Zanzotto, i saggi L’inno nel fango, Testimonianza, I «Novissimi», in ID., Scritti sulla letteratura, a cura di G.M. Villalta, Milano, Mondadori, 2001, vol. I, pp. 15-20 e pp. 87-98; vol. II, pp. 24-29.
  
• S. Dal Bianco, Il percorso dellla poesia di Andrea Zanzotto, introduzione a A. Zanzotto, Tutte le poesie, Milano, Mondadori, 2011.
• Francesco Carbognin, Variazioni Belliche, in A. Rosselli, L'opera poetica, a cura di S. Giovannuzzi, con la collaborazione di F. Carbognin, C. Carpita, S. De March, G. Palli Baroni, E. Tandello, Milano, Mondadori, “I Meridiani”, 2012, pp. 1292-1310.

 

Please note

Additional resources (pages from critical essays by Benveniste, Jauss, Benjamin, Contini...) will be available on the Teaching resources on Virtuale platform at the beginning of the course. These materials, whose knowledge is mandatory, even for non-attending students, are part of the exam program.

Not-attending students

Teaching materials and examination procedures are the same for both attending and non-attending students. Students who are unable to attend classes are strongly advised to read the following additional material:

• N. Lorenzini, La poesia italiana del Novecento, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1999 (o analogo profilo storico).
• Roland Barthes, Il mito, oggi, in ID., Miti d’oggi, Torino, Einaudi, 1994, pp. 191-238 (disponibile su Virtuale).
• Andrea Bernardelli, Il concetto di intertestualità, in ID. (a cura di), La rete intertestuale. Percorsi tra testi, discorsi e immagini, Morlacchi, 2010 (disponibile su Virtuale).

International students

International students will prepare a shorter program, to be agreed with the teacher during the office hours.

Teaching methods

Classes with a strong interaction between students and teacher. Lessons will be held in in-person mode.

Assessment methods

The final oral exam is an interview aimed at verifying in each student some argumentative and technical skills related to the theoretical matters and the poetic texts analyzed throughout the class. Students will be required to read and comment on selected poems included in the course programme, identifying their main thematic, linguistic, and stylistic features, as well as their relationship to the relevant historical and cultural context.

Assessment criteria:

28–30L: In-depth knowledge of the texts included in the course programme, of their thematic, stylistic, and conceptual features, and of their relationship to the socio-historical horizon of European modernity. Ability to place the texts in a dynamic and critically productive dialogue with the relevant scholarly literature, to pursue independent lines of inquiry beyond the lecturer’s indications, and to relate the works studied to contemporary issues.

23–27: Good knowledge of the texts included in the course programme, of their thematic, stylistic, and conceptual features, and of their relationship to the socio-historical horizon of European modernity.

18–22: Basic but adequate knowledge of the texts included in the course programme, of their thematic, stylistic, and conceptual features, and of their relationship to the socio-historical horizon of European modernity.

 

Students with SLD or temporary or permanent disabilities. It is necessary to contact the relevant University office (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en) with ample time in advance: the office will propose some adjustments, which must in any case be submitted 15 days in advance to the lecturer, who will assess the appropriateness of these in relation to the teaching objectives.

Teaching tools

PC, video projector, overhead projector, slides and digital scans of images and excerpts from poetic and critical texts.

Office hours

See the website of Francesco Carbognin