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02609 - Contemporary Italian Literature (O-Z)

Academic Year 2021/2022

                
                        Docente:
                        Francesco Carbognin
                    
                        Credits:
                        12
                    
                        Language:
                        Italian
                    
                        Teaching Mode:
                        Traditional lectures
                        
                            Campus:
                            Bologna
                        
                            Corso:
                            First cycle degree programme (L) in
                            Drama, Art and Music Studies (cod. 0956)

                                Also valid for
                                
                                    First cycle degree programme (L) in
                                    
                                        Drama, Art and Music Studies (cod. 5821)
                                    
                            Teaching resources on Virtuale

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, the student: - will have a non-abstract or manual awareness of the main lines of development of Italian literary culture from the national unity to today; - will know how to apply appropriate methodologies of analysis to the literary text in prose and in verse, distinguishing its relationships with different linguistic, artistic and cultural traditions; - will be able to read the literary text as an open form, in dialogue with the ideological and social horizon of their time, within the context of a wider European landscape.

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 and poetry 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 the novel, comparing the Rome of d'Annunzio's Il Piacere to the Trieste of Svevo's La coscienza di Zeno. The outcome of this investigation into the forms of representing space in narrative prose in the first half of the 20th century is represented by the Lager in Se questo è un uomo.

Subsequently, it will explore the historical metamorphosis of the image of "lyrical landscape" in Italian poetry between the first and second half of the 20th 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 (Rosselli, Porta) to «nessunluogo, gnessulógo (avverbio)», grammatical relic of an idea of landscape dissolved in the Era of Globalization (Zanzotto).

Classroom-based mode attendance is managed by the presente.unibo.it service. Students will be able to attend all classes online (Microsoft Teams).

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

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 in the Teaching resources section on Virtuale platform at the beginning of the course. The others are available at the Department of Classical Philology and Italian Studies Library.

M. Jakob, Paesaggio e letteratura, Firenze, Olschki, 2017 (capitolo primo, pp. 7-49)*.
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 (the last paragraph on Saba is optional) (*).
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 (*).

Please note

Additional Resources (pages from critical essays on D'Annunzio, Svevo, Montale, Levi, Rosselli and Zanzotto) will be available on the Teaching resources section 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 (pdf) 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.

Teaching methods

Classes (60 hours) involving text analysis with a strong interaction between students and the professor.

Attendance is managed by presente.unibo.it platform. It will be possible to attend the lessons in live streaming through the Microsoft Teams platform.

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

31 January 2022

End of the lessons

13 April 2022

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). The evaluation (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 5-10 page essay on a topic agreed in advance with the professor. They will have to enroll in a written exam session; they will have to participate (online) in that exam and deliver the essay (via teams or via e-mail) when requested, 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) 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-video resources.

Office hours

See the website of Francesco Carbognin