02609 - Contemporary Italian Literature (O-Z)

Learning outcomes

The course intends to provide a critical and cultural awareness in contemporary Italian literature and civilization. For this purpose, literary texts are always analyzed as open shapes, focusing on the relationships among their tradition and cultural legacies. We will also read together and discuss a corpus of literary works through many examples of comparative analysis and practice on different methods.

Course contents

Main topic:
Literary description of space between the 19th and 20th centuries

The course (60 hours) aims to investigate the main modes of representing space in prose (1) and poetry (2) between the 19th and 20th centuries, in connection to the changing of the models of thought in different historical and ideological horizons.

The course will first analyze the triumph and the crisis of the Symbolist model of spatial description in novel, comparing the Rome of d'Annunzio's Il Piacere to the Trieste of Svevo's La coscienza di Zeno.

Subsequently, it will explore the historical metamorphosis of the image of "lyrical landscape" in Italian poetry between the first and second half of the XXth Century: from mythical-symbolic transfiguration (d'Annunzio) into figure of disenchantment (Gozzano), from biographical and psychological metaphor (Ungaretti) to allegory of a cultural-historical situation (Montale), from alienating transposition of ideological conflicts in neocapitalist society (Pagliarani) to «nessunluogo, gnessulógo (avverbio)», grammatical relic of an idea of landscape dissolved in the Era of Globalization (Zanzotto).

Readings/Bibliography

1) Students will fully read one of the following literary texts:

• Gabriele d’Annunzio, Il Piacere, a cura di F. Roncoroni, Milano, Mondadori, 2008 (o altra edizione annotata).
• Italo Svevo, La coscienza di Zeno, a cura di C. Benussi, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2014 (o altra edizione annotata).

Recommended reading: F. Roncoroni, Introduzione a Gabriele d’Annunzio, Il Piacere, Milano, Mondadori («Scrittori italiani di ieri e di oggi»), 1990, pp. VII-LIX; or, alternatively, G. Benvenuti (a cura di), Introduzione a I. Svevo, La coscienza di Zeno, Milano, Principato, 1985, pp. VII-XXXVIII. (See the platform "Insegnamenti OnLine")

 

2) The texts of the poems to be prepared for the exam (pdf) will be available on the platform "Insegnamenti OnLine". Below are listed only the books from which the texts will be chosen.

• Gabriele d’Annunzio, Alcyone, 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.
• Giuseppe Ungaretti, Vita d'un uomo. Tutte le poesie, Milano, Mondadori (Oscar), 2016.
• 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, Milano, Mondadori, 2011.
• Elio Pagliarani, La ragazza Carla, in ID., Tutte le poesie (1946-2005), a cura di A. Cortellessa, Milano, Garzanti, 2006.
• Andrea Zanzotto, Tutte le poesie, a cura di S. Dal Bianco, Milano, Mondadori, 2011.

Recommended reading (see the platform "Insegnamenti OnLine"):

• 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.
• Gozzano e Crepuscolari, in C. Segre, C. Martignoni, Testi nella storia. La letteratura italiana dalle origini al Novecento, vol. 4, Il Novecento, Milano, Bruno Mondadori, 1998.
• S. Colangelo, N. Lorenzini, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Firenze, Le Monnier, 2012.
• P. Cataldi, Montale, Palermo, Palumbo, 1991, pp. 11-58.
• F. Carbognin, Linguaggio (1956 – 1969), in N. Lorenzini – S. Colangelo [a cura di], Poesia e Storia, Milano, Bruno Mondadori, 2013, pp. 195-239.
• F. Carbognin, «Luogo preso in parola». Sul paesaggio lirico di Andrea Zanzotto, in AA.VV., Nel «melograno di lingue». Plurilinguismo e traduzione in Andrea Zanzotto, Atti del Convegno Internazionale (Université de Lorraine, Nancy, 13 –14 novembre 2014), a cura di G. Bongiorno e L. Toppan, Firenze, Florence University Press, 2018, pp. 97-134.

 

Additional Resources will be available on on the platform "Insegnamenti OnLine".

 

Students who are not going to attend our classes are 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.

Teaching methods

Classes with a strong interaction between students and teacher. 

 

Classes begin on Wednesday, 30th Januay, 2019, and go further with the following schedule:

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

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

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

Assessment methods

The final exam consists of 1) a written test (10 pages paper about one of the topics of the course, previuosly approved by the teacher) and 2) an oral appointment, which aims to verify some methodological, personally developed skills. It lasts approx. 15 minutes. Students must sign up at the AlmaEsami web site (https://almaesami.unibo.it).

A positive or excellent score (27 to 30/30, with possible distinction) corresponds to a full mastering of technical, theoretical, historical and terminological resources of Twentieth Century and Contemporary Italian literature, and to a proved ability to make connections among single aspects of the course contents, and to show awareness of textual features with appropriate language; an average score (23 to 26/30) goes to students who reveal some lacks in one or more topics or analytical proofs, or are able to use just mechanically their ability in interpretation; a pass or low score (18 to 22/30) to students with severe lacks in one or more topics or exercises, or not enough accurate while they use or quote notions and samples. A negative score is to be assigned to students who are not able to recall general notions in a sample of text and/or in general.

Teaching tools

Audio-visual resources.

Office hours

See the website of Francesco Carbognin