00562 - Italian Literature (M-Z)

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course, student will have the tools for textual exegesis (ancient and modern, edited and unpublished) within our secular literary tradition, seen as a cultural heritage and a monument to our national identity.They will know how to judge and use methods of historical analysis applied to documents of Italian literature, keeping a diachronic perspective. They will be able to logically expound and organize complex data and information, so as to formulate independent conclusions and opinions. They will organize information logically and outline it with methodological rigour, care and precision.

Course contents

MODULE A. Italian literature. Reading and commenting texts from Dante to the Nineteenth century.

The first module intends to retrace the fundamental steps of Italian literature through a selection of exemplary pages by the major authors, belonging to different eras and genres, from the Origins to the Nineteenth century, which will be inserted in their historical and literary context. The aim of the course is to provide some university-level reading and commentary models, to allow students to develop a method of analysis of the literary text that is also useful in a didactic perspective; on the other hand, the module A aims to reconstruct, by starting from the texts themselves, the main characteristics of the historical-literary periods examined, in order to insert the study of historical periods in the cultural and literary dimension.

After an introduction to the literary text and an illustration of the "main tools of the scholar of Italian Literature " (i.e. philology, rhetoric, metrics...), texts by the following poets of our literary tradition will be read and commented on: Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio, Alberti, Ariosto, Machiavelli, Tasso, Foscolo, Leopardi, Manzoni.

 

MODULE B: Writers and Power: Seven Landmark Cases from Dante to Sciascia

This course explores the complex relationship between Italian writers and political power, from the origins of Italian literature to the second half of the twentieth century. Through the reading of major literary works, students will examine the different ways in which writers have interpreted, supported, challenged, or resisted political, religious, economic, and cultural authority. Beginning with Dante, who conceived poetry as an intervention in history and reflected on the relationship between Empire and Church, the course moves to Petrarch, a leading figure of civic humanism and diplomatic culture, and then to Poliziano, whose career exemplifies the role of the court intellectual in Medicean Florence. With Machiavelli, the interplay between literature and politics becomes the object of an unprecedented theoretical reflection, while Alfieri places the struggle against tyranny at the heart of his literary vision. The course concludes with two major twentieth-century voices: Leonardo Sciascia, whose works investigate the mechanisms of power, justice, and truth, and Luciano Bianciardi, whose novel La vita agra (It's a Hard Life) offers an ironic and radical critique of industrial capitalism, informed by a libertarian and anarchist sensibility. By tracing these authors across seven centuries, the course highlights how Italian literature has continually engaged with power, redefining the role of the intellectual through participation, dissent, and civic commitment.

 

Readings/Bibliography

Module A

1. G. Alfano, P. Italia, E. Russo, F. Tomasi, Profilo di letteratura italiana. Dalle origini a fine Ottocento, Milano, Mondadori, 2021 (pp. 1-24; 42-56; 142-158; 410-425; 647-703 can be skipped);
2. L. Chines, C. Varotti, Che cos'è un testo letterario?, Roma, Carocci, 2015 (Recommended for doing a good text analysis)
   

 

Module B

Attending students will study for the oral exam the texts and the 'conspiracy' pathway covered by the teacher in class, which will span the following works:

1. Dante Alighieri, lettera a Enrico VII (Epistola VII, in Dante Alighieri, Opere, a cura di M. Santagata, vol. II, Milano, Mondadori, 2014);
2. Francesco Petrarca, Pietas pastoralis (Ecloga V del Bucolicum carmen, ed. L. Canali, Lecce, Manni, 2005, pp. 81-95);
3. Angelo Poliziano, Gentile Becchi, La congiura della verità. Introduzione, commento e cura di M. Simonetta, La Scuola di Pitagora, 2012, pp. 56-85;
   
4. Niccolò Machiavelli, Il principe, capp. XV-XVIII (suggested edition: ed. del cinquecentennale con traduzione a fronte in italiano moderno di Carmine Donzelli; introduzione e commento di Gabriele Pedullà, Roma, Donzelli, 2013); Delle congiure (in Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio, III 6, suggested edition: G. Sasso and G. Inglese, Bur, 2000 or subsequent reprints);
5. Vittorio Alfieri, Fino a qual punto si possa sopportare la tirannide in Della tirannide, II 5 (edited by Marco Cerruti; note di Ezio Falcomer, 2a ed., Milano, Bur, 2000, pp. 176-180);
   
6. Luciano Bianciardi, La vita agra, Milano, Feltrinelli (any edition);
7. Leonardo Sciascia, L'affaire Moro, Milano, Adelphi, 1994 (any edition)

 

In addition to these texts, non-attending students will need to prepare three of the following essays (only the indicated parts are mandatory):

1. Alessandro Barbero, Dante, Bari, Laterza, 2020, capp. 18-19 (pp. 206-242);
2. Lorenzo Geri, La sposa adorna di ricchezze. Petrarca e i papi, Bologna, il Mulino, 2026, cap. 9 (pp. 141-173);
   
3. Marco Geuna, Machiavelli e il problema delle congiure, "Rivista storica italiana", 127 (2015), n. 2, pp. 355-410 (disponibile su Academia.edu);
   
4. Arnaldo Di Benedetto, Vincenzo Perdichizzi, Alfieri, Salerno 2014, pp. 84-113 (capp. V e VI);
   
5. P. Tincani, Leonardo Sciascia e il potere. Su L'Affaire Moro, "Teoria e Storia del diritto privato", n. speciale 2022 "Il lato oscuro della legge", pp. 1-29 (disponibile su Academia.edu)
6. Carlo Varotti, Luciano Bianciardi. La protesta dello stile, Roma, Carocci, 2017, cap. 6, pp. 133-174.
   

Teaching methods

Frontal lesson and use of power points that will be made available on the IOL platform.

Assessment methods

MODULE A

The exam of MODULE A consists of a written test on EOL platform, a test of 20 closed single-answer questions (max 20 points) and a paraphrase with a brief analysis of a literary text (max 12 points) among those texts included in the file "Testi_Parafrasi_commenti" uploaded on "Virtuale". The proof will last 2 hours. During the course, specific training will be carried out on the exam and a facsimile of the test will be made available in the course materials on the IOL platform.

MODULE B

The knowledge of MODULE B will be verified instead through an oral interview lasting about 20 minutes (max 30 points). The final evaluation will be given by the average of the two tests.

It is strongly recommended to take module A first and then module B. The result of the written examination does not expire.

During the academic year, written exams are scheduled in the months of January, March, May, July, September, and November. Oral exams, on the other hand, are held monthly, except in August.

Students with learning disorders and\or temporary or permanent disabilities: please, contact the office responsible (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students ) as soon as possible so that they can propose acceptable adjustments. The request for adaptation must be submitted in advance (15 days before the exam date) to the lecturer, who will assess the appropriateness of the adjustments, taking into account the teaching objectives.

Artificial intelligence (AI) can be a valuable tool to support independent study by providing additional insights, summaries, and opportunities for self-assessment. With regard to the assessment of learning, the use of AI during the in-person examination is strictly prohibited. Any use of AI during the exam constitutes a violation of academic integrity.

 

The Criteria of Evaluation

The oral exam consists of a discussion (approx. 20 minutes) about the monographic section about Princes and Letters. Students are required to show the ability to discuss and interpret the assigned texts clearly and persuasively, relating them to their cultural context. Also the student's ability to express himself with clarity and language properties will be evaluated. The standard of oral expression will also be assessed.

• The lack of ability to orientate itself in the literary panorama of Italian culture and to recognize the fundamental characteristics of the major texts of the late 15th and 16th centuries of the program will entail negative voting;
• The student who will grasp the fundamental aspects of the works and authors proposed during the course and will recognize the fundamental questions and the salient features of the most important literary works proposed by professor and its protagonists will achieve a positive evaluation (vote: 26-28);
• An in-depth knowledge of the literary texts will imply a very good (29-30) and even excellent (30L) evaluation. To achieve excellence evaluation a complete understanding of all the topics covered is required, and also the firm possession of the literary chronology (the dates of the major works' output of the authors treated are important), the use of precise technical terminology (in the rhetorical and philological-literary domain, etc). For istance, it is very important that the student is able to say the precise literary genre to which the examined works belong, or to indicate the chronological range of composition in the case of very famous works, and, moreover, a personal critical elaboration of the acquired contents.

Teaching tools

Projection of texts and images, sharing of teaching materials on the platform.

Office hours

See the website of Andrea Severi