02609 - Contemporary Italian Literature (O-Z)

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course the student: has a non-abstract and non-manualistic awareness of the main lines of development of Italian literary culture from National Unity to the present day; knows how to apply appropriate methods of analysis to the literary text in prose and verse, distinguishing its relations with different linguistic, artistic and cultural traditions; is able to read the literary text as an open form, in dialogue with the ideological and social horizon of his time, against the background of the wider European context.

Course contents

Main topic:

From Literature to History.
Mask and literary consciousness between the 19th and 20th centuries

Through the examination of meaningful literary works from the past two centuries, the course will assume the notion of literary character as an utterance of a specific point of view on the world. Attributes and functions of the character of a particular literary work (as well as the perceptual, linguistic, behavioral and cultural codes of which it is the expression) will be related to the cultural codes, the evaluation criteria and the ideological systems embodied by other characters of the the same or another work, in order to represent the literary "system" as a place of conflicts, crossed by colliding tensions and unresolved contradictions.

We will then compare the practice of "disguise" performed by the authors of the early twentieth century - as the «camaleontico» Andrea Sperelli (d'Annunzio), the «coso con due gambe / detto guidogozzano», the «inetto» Zeno Cosini (Svevo), the «girovago» (Ungaretti) - with the practice of the "unveiling" caused by the eruption of History in literary consciousness, from the «primavera hitleriana» (Montale) to the Shoah (Levi, Rosselli), from the explosion of the atomic bomb and the destruction of the ecosystem (Zanzotto), to the economic boom and the advent of mass media (Sanguineti, Porta).

 

Lessons will be held in in-person mode.

 

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 the course, program and assessment methods will be provided in class and during Office hours (not by email).

Readings/Bibliography

1) Full reading of:

• Gabriele d’Annunzio, Il Piacere, a cura di F. Roncoroni, Milano, Mondadori, 2008 (or other annotated edition).
• Italo Svevo, La coscienza di Zeno, a cura di C. Benussi, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2014 (or other annotated edition).
• Primo Levi, Se questo è un uomo, Torino, Einaudi, 2005.

2) Below are listed only the books from which the texts will be chosen. The 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.

• Gabriele d’Annunzio, Alcyone, Milano, Oscar Mondadori, 1995.
• Guido Gozzano, La signorina Felicita ovvero La Felicità, in ID., Poesie e prose, introduzione di P.P. Pasolini, a cura di L. Lenzini, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2011.
• Giuseppe Ungaretti, Il Porto Sepolto, in N. Lorenzini-S. Colangelo, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Firenze, 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, Tutte le poesie, a cura di S. Dal Bianco, Milano, Mondadori, 2011.
  
• Amelia Rosselli, 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. 3-189.
• Antonio Porta, Tutte le poesie (1956-1989), a cura di N. Lorenzini, Garzanti, Milano, 2009.

 

Recommended reading

The texts marked with an asterisk (*) will be available on the platform Teaching resources on Virtuale since the beginning of the lectures. The others are available at the Department of Classical Philology and Italian Studies Library.

• G. Guglielmi, La vita originale di Zeno, in ID., La prosa italiana del Novecento. Umorismo Metafisica Grottesco, Torino, Einaudi, 1986, pp. 30-55 (*).
• F. Carbognin, Svevo e Saba tra Trieste e la Mitteleuropa, in N. Bonazzi, A. Campana, F. Giunta, N. Maldina [a cura di], Itinerari nella letteratura italiana. Da Dante al web, Roma, Carocci, 2013, Cap. XXIX, pp. 357-366 (*).
  
• Luigi Blasucci, Percorso di un tema montaliano: il tempo, in ID., Gli oggetti di Montale, Il Mulino, Bologna 2002, pp. 87-111 (*).
• E. Testa, Montale, Torino, Einaudi Tascabili, 2000, pp. 1-77 (*).
• M. Barenghi, Perché crediamo a Primo Levi?, Torino, Einaudi, 2013 (edizione bilingue), pp. 3-79.
• F. Carbognin, Linguaggio (1956 – 1969), in N. Lorenzini – S. Colangelo [a cura di], Poesia e Storia, Milano, Bruno Mondadori, 2013, pp. 195-239 (*).
  
• N. Lorenzini, Postfazione, in A. Porta, Poesie 1956-1988, Milano, Mondadori, 1989, pp. 179-195 (*).
• 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 about the Authors discussed in class) will be available on 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.

 

Program for non-attending students

Students who are not going to attend our classes are also requested to acquire a basic knowledge of 20th Century Italian Literature. Suggest reading:

• A. Casadei, Storia della letteratura italiana. Vol. 6: Il Novecento, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2014.
• L. Chines, C. Varotti, Che cos'è un testo letterario, Roma, Carocci, 2015.

 

 

Program for International Students

1) Full reading of:

• Italo Svevo, La coscienza di Zeno, a cura di C. Benussi, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2014 (or other annotated edition).
• Primo Levi, Se questo è un uomo, Torino, Einaudi, 2005.

2) The texts of the poems to be prepared for the exam will be available in the Teaching resources section on Virtuale platform. Below are listed only the books from which the texts will be chosen.

• Guido Gozzano, La signorina Felicita ovvero La Felicità, in ID., Poesie e prose, introduzione di P.P. Pasolini, a cura di L. Lenzini, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2011.
• Giuseppe Ungaretti, Il Porto Sepolto, in N. Lorenzini-S. Colangelo, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Firenze, 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.
  
• Amelia Rosselli,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. 3-189.

Recommended reading

• F. Carbognin, Svevo e Saba tra Trieste e la Mitteleuropa, in N. Bonazzi, A. Campana, F. Giunta, N. Maldina [a cura di], Itinerari nella letteratura italiana. Da Dante al web, Roma, Carocci, 2013, Cap. XXIX, pp. 357-366.
  
• E. Testa, Montale, Torino, Einaudi Tascabili, 2000, pp. 1-77.
  
• F. Carbognin, Linguaggio (1956 – 1969), in N. Lorenzini – S. Colangelo [a cura di], Poesia e Storia, Milano, Bruno Mondadori, 2013, pp. 195-239.
• E. Testa, Amelia Rosselli, in Dopo la lirica: Poeti italiani 1960-2000, Torino, Einaudi, 2005.
• E. Tandello, Doing the splits. Language(S) In Amelia Rosselli's Poetry, “Journal of the Institute of Romance Studies”, I, 1992.

Teaching methods

Classes (60 hours) involving text analysis with a strong interaction between students and the professor. Attendance: in-person mode.

 

Course timetable

Monday, 11.00 - 13.00
Aula C, via Centotrecento 18.

Tuesday, 11.00 - 13.00
Aula C, via Centotrecento 18.

Wednesday, 11.00 - 13.00
Aula C, via Centotrecento 18.

 

Start of the lessons

29 gennaio 2024.

Assessment methods

The final exam consists of 1) a written test and 2) an oral test, which the student will have access after passing the written test (not necessarily in the immediately following session).The final evaluation will consider the evaluation of the two different tests.

The program to be prepared for the two tests is the one relating to the year actually attended, even if different from the current one.

Any further information will be provided in class, during office hours and at the beginning of each exam session (not by email).

1) The written test (held 4 times a year) consists of 2 questions that require answers of 25 lines. Short analyzes of texts discussed in class may be requested. The test will take 2 hours (in addition to about 10 minutes useful for illustrating the test). After checking attendance, students will be given the preformatted Word file containing the questions to answer, which should be returned (as explained on the day of the test) at the designated time.

The evaluation of the written test (expressed as "insufficiente", "sufficiente", "discreto", "buono", "ottimo") will be determined by the level of linguistic-grammatical skills and historical-literary skills acquired by the student during the course.

The outcome of the written test is not preclusive: it will be possible to access the oral exam even after a written test evaluated as "insufficiente", unless rated "unclassifiable" due to a writing with severe grammatical and content lacks. The evaluation of the written exam will appear in AlmaEsami at least one day before the oral exam.

International students will replace the written test with a 5 page essay on a topic agreed in advance with the professor. They will have to enroll in a written exam session and to deliver the essay by e-mail during the exam.

2) The oral exam consists of an interview on the topics of the course. During the exam, the student will be asked to comment on one or more texts analyzed in class.

A positive or excellent score (27 to 30/30, with possible distinction) will be given to those who have passed the written test with a fully satisfactory judgment (from "decent" to "excellent") and have demonstrated, during the oral exam, a full mastering of technical, theoretical, historical-critical and terminological resources useful for the analysis and commentary of literary texts and a significant ability to make connections between individual aspects of the course contents; deserving of distinction is the student capable of undertaking personal critical paths, engaging in dialogue with the general trends of criticism through the use of appropriate critical vocabulary.
An average evaluation (23/30 to 26/30) will involve students who have shown uncertainties in making connections between the individual aspects of the course.
Students who have significant lacks in one or more topics, resulting in them making approximate interpretations of the provided textual examples, will receive a barely passable evaluation (18/30 to 22/30). Finally, students who struggle to grasp the main concepts of the subject matter and lack the necessary skills to properly analyze a literary text will receive an unsatisfactory evaluation and be required to retake the oral exam.

Teaching tools

Audio-video resources.

Office hours

See the website of Francesco Carbognin