00562 - Italian Literature (M-Z)

Learning outcomes

The course aims at fostering the understanding of Italian literature as part of the Cultural Heritage to be preserved and enhanced, also in its relationships with other forms of art. On complention of the course students will be able to comment and assess ancient and modern texts of the Italian literary tradition in their historical background, and will enanche his/her written and oral skills.

Course contents

The course is divided up into two parts

A. GENERAL: Foundations of Italian Literature

Students will be asked to read Dante's Inferno and to demonstrate their understanding of the main authors and texts of Italian literary canon trough the study of two anthological volumes, as well as by reading two works from the Italian literary canon.

B.  FOCUSED: Dante's Vita nova: an introduction

The course aims at introducing Dante Alighieri's Vita nova by reading and commenting some of its chapters. The course will introduce and discuss the main philological and exegetical questions related to the Vita nova, and will provide a general interpretation of the libello.

Readings/Bibliography

A. GENERAL: Foundations of Italian Literature

1. Dante Alighieri, Inferno

Recommended edition: a cura di Emilio Pasquini e Antonio Enzo Quaglio, Milano, Garzanti, 1982 (or reprints).

N.B. Other editions that can be used: Anna Maria Chiavacci Leonardi (Bologna, Zanichelli); Umberto Bosco - Giovanni Reggio (Firenze, Le Monnier); Natalino Sapegno (Firenze, La Nuova Italia); Riccardo Merlante - Stefano Prandi (Brescia, La Scuola); Giorgio Inglese (Roma, Carocci); Saverio Bellomo (Torino, Einaudi, solo l’Inferno e il Purgatorio, quest'ultimo con Stefano Carrai); Roberto Mercuri (Torino, Einaudi). Should you wish to use a different edition, please do get in touch with the Tutor.

2. History of Italian Literature

- Giancarlo Alfano, Paola Italia, Emilio Russo, Franco Tomasi, Profilo di letteratura italiana. Dalle origini a fine Ottocento, Milano, Mondadori, 2021 (o successive ristampe)

3. Students must read two works, chosing from the following lists one text from the "Medieval-Renaissance" list and one from the "Modern-Contemporary" list; these works can be read in any available edition:

Medieval-Renaissance

Guido Guinizzelli, Rime; Guido Cavalcanti, Rime; Dante Alighieri, Commedia; Francesco Petrarca, Canzoniere; Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron; Matteo Maria Boiardo, L’innamoramento de Orlando o Amorum libri tres; Angelo Poliziano, Stanze per la giostra; Jacopo Sannazzaro, Arcadia; Baldassarre Castiglione, Il libro del Cortegiano; Niccolò Machiavelli, Il principe o Madragola; Francesco Guicciardini, Ricordi; Pietro Bembo, Asolani; Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando furioso o Satire; Giovanni della Casa, Rime; Torquato Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata o Aminta; Giovan Battista Marino, Adone; Galileo Galilei, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo

Modern-Contemporary

Giovanbattista Vico, La scienza nuova; Carlo Goldoni, La locandiera, oppure La bottega del caffè; Giuseppe Parini, Il giorno, oppure Le odi; Vittorio Alfieri, Vita, oppure Saul e Mirra; Ugo Foscolo, Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis; Giacomo Leopardi, Canti, oppure Operette morali; Alessandro Manzoni, I promessi sposi, oppure Adelchi; Ippolito Nievo, Le confessioni di un italiano; Giovanni Pascoli, Myricae, oppure Canti di Castelvecchio; Gabriele d’Annunzio, Il piacere, oppure Alcyone; Giovanni Verga, I malavoglia, oppure Mastro Don-Gesualdo; Luigi Pirandello, Il fu Mattia Pascal, oppure Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore; Italo Svevo, La coscienza di Zeno; Giuseppe Ungaretti, L’allegria ; Eugenio Montale, Ossi di seppia; Carlo Emilio Gadda, Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana, oppure La cognizione del dolore; Italo Calvino, Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno o I nostri antenati

N.B. Alongside Dante's Inferno and the two anthological volumes, students who will not attend classes will be asked to study also the volume Giulio Ferroni, Prima lezione di letteratura italiana, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2009.

B. FOCUSED: Dante's Vita nova: an introduction

Dante Alighieri, Vita nova

Recommended edition: a cura di Stefano Carrai, Milano, Rizzoli-BUR, 2009 (o successive ristampe);alternatively, students can use also one of the following editions: a cura di Luca Carlo Rossi, Milano, Mondadori, 1999 (o successive ristampe); a cura di Guglielmo Gorni, in Dante Alighieri, Opere, edizione diretta da Marco Santagata, vol. I, Milano, Mondadori, 2011.

N.B. please do get in touch with the Tutor should you wish to use an edition of the Vita nova different from those outlined above.

Background readings:

- Saverio Bellomo, Filologia e critica dantesca, Brescia, La Scuola, 2012, pp. 55-89.

- Giuseppe Ledda, Dante, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2008, pp. 9-28.

On top of this, students will be aked to study four essays to be chosed from the followingi

- Paola Allegretti, Dante geremiade: un modello per la «Vita nova», in «L’Alighieri», XXIX, 2012, pp. 5-18.

- Atti degli incontri sulle opere di Dante, vol. I (Vita nova, Fiore, Epistola XIII), a cura di Manuele Gragnolati, Luca Carlo Rossi, Paola Allegretti, Natascia Tonelli, Alberto Casadei, Firenze, Sismel-Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2019 (uno o più capitoli a scelta tra quelli di E. Ardissino, F. Brugnolo, M. Gragnolati, E. Lombardi, D. Pirovano, R. Rea, N. Tonelli).

- Paolo Borsa, Immagine e immaginazione: una lettura della «Vita nova» di Dante, in «Letteratura & Arte», 16, 2008, pp. 139-157.

- Vittore Branca, Poetica del rinnovamento e tradizione agiografica nella «Vita Nuova», in Studi in onore di Italo Siciliano, Firenze, Olschki, 1966, vol. I, pp. 123-148.

- Stefano Carrai, Dante elegiaco. Una chiave di lettura per la «Vita nova», Firenze, Olschki, 2006 (uno o più capitoli a scelta).

- Domenico De Robertis, Il libro della «Vita nuova», Firenze, Sansoni, 1970 (uno o più capitoli a scelta).

- E. Fenzi, “Costanzia de la ragione” e “malvagio desiderio” (Vn., 28, 2): Dante e donna pietosa, in Id., Le canzoni di Dante. Interpretazioni e letture, Firenze, Le Lettere, 2017, pp. 83-110.

- “La gloriosa donna de la mente”. A commentary on the «Vita Nuova», edited by Vincent Moleta, Firenze-Perth, Olschki-University of Western Australia, 1994 (uno o più saggi a scelta).

- E. Malato, Dante e Guido Cavalcanti: il dissidio per la «Vita nuova» e il “disdegno” di Guido, Roma, Salerno Editrice, 1997 (uno o più capitoli a scelta).

- Nicolò Maldina, I Salmi e l’autobiografismo penitenziale di Dante, in «Rivista di letteratura religiosa italiana», III, 2020, pp. 11-36.

- Ronald Martinez, Mourning Beatrice: the rhetoric of threnody in the «Vita nuova», in «Modern language notes», vol. 113, n. 1, 1998, pp. 1-29.

- Paola Nasti, La memoria del Cantico nella «Vita nuova», in «The Italianist», 18, 1998, pp. 14-27.

- Michelangelo Picone, «Vita nuova» e tradizione romanza, Padova, Liviana, 1979 (uno o più capitoli a scelta).

- Donato Pirovano, Il dolce stil nuovo, Roma, Salerno Editrice, 2014, (uno o più capitoli a scelta tra quelli titolati La voce di Dante; Il dibattito intorno alla'origine e alla natura di Amore; La nobiltà spirituale e il pubblico).

- Donato Pirovano, Nota introduttiva, in Dante Alighieri, Le opere, vol. I («Vita Nuova», le rime della «Vita Nuova» e del tempo della «Vita Nuova»), a cura di Donato Pirovano e Marco Grimaldi, Roma, Salerno Editrice, 2015, pp. 3-35.

-Charles Singleton, Saggio sulla «Vita nuova», Bologna, Il Mulino, 1968 (uno o più capitoli a scelta).

N.B. Alongside Dante's Vita nova di Dante and the backgroung readings listed above, students who will not attend classes will be asked to study also the volume Stefano Carrai, Il primo libro di Dante. Un’idea della «Vita Nova», Pisa, Edizioni della Normale, 2020.

Teaching methods

- Lectures with readings and comments on prescribed texts

- Hisotorical contextualization of literary texts, also in their relationships with other arts

- Discussion of critical hypothesis

Assessment methods

The exam will consist of one written and one oral exam; specific dietes will be annunced on Almaesami.

For the written exam students will be asked to write an essay based on three questions (one will be related to the focused part, two to the general part). The written exam is compulsory and does not have an expiration date, but must be sat before the oral exam. Students can enroll onto the diet for the written exam through the dedicated page on Almaesami within the website www.unibo.it; should the written exam result in a fail, students can re-sit the exam, but the mark for the written exam - even if non-sufficient - does not prevent from sitting the oral exam. Erasmus and Overseas students will not be required to sit the written exam.

The oral exam (that can be sat only after having sit the written exam) entails the knowledge of texts prescribed in both the general and the focused part of the syllabus, and aims at evaluating 1) the understanding of topics covered in the general part of the syllabus; 2) the capacity to understand the problems discussed in class and on the prescribed texts; 3) the knowledge of Italian Literature in its diachronic development; 4) the capacity to contextualize texts and problems within their cultural background as well as to critically discuss them; 5) the quality of both written and oral skills as well as the capacity of develop a convincingly argued line of reasoning. Students can enrol onto the diet for the oral exam through the dedicated page on Almaesami, and must study the entire syllabus. Students who have studied only one of the two parts of the syllabus will not be allowed to sit the exam.

Witten and oral exam are weighted equally toward the final mark, but the final mark will not consist of the exact average of the two as it will take into account also other criteria such as the positive attendance to lecturer as well as the critical insight and the capacity to develop a clear and convincingly argued line of reasoning.

The final mark will be awarded according to the following marking scheme: 1) non-sufficient: lack of understanding of the basic notions and lack of capacity to correctly discuss texts and problems; 2) sufficient: positive understanding of the basic notions; adequate discussion of texts and problems, but lacking of precision and over-relying on lecture notes; 3) good: positive understanding of intermediate notions; correct discussion of text and problems, but at times not completely precise and over-relying on lecture notes; 4) excellent: full understanding of topics covered; discussion of texts and problems not only correct but also developed autonomously and precisely. Excellent oral skills.

Teaching tools

- Invited Lectures

- Slides, CD and DVD

- Online documents (virtuale.unibo.it)

Students who are affected by learning disability (DSA) and in need of special strategies to compensate it, are kindly requested to contact the Teacher, in order to be referred to the colleagues in charge and get proper advice and instructions.

Office hours

See the website of Nicolò Maldina