30665 - Philology of Italian Literature (LM)

Learning outcomes

The student knows in detail the phenomenology and the problems of Textual Criticism of the Italian literary tradition and is able to use the acquired knowledge of specific textual questions and methodological debate in the context of contemporary philology

Course contents

A classic above all suspicion: Dei delitti e delle pene.

"Some curious readers may wonder what really happened in the small community of writers who thought and wrote in the eighteenth-century, industrious Austrian Milan, a city  traveled by moods, "strange" ideas, fears. And it could also be asked why we should disturb the idyllic picture of the Accademia dei Pugni and the friendship of young intellectuals who, between 1764 and 1766, gathered around the Caffè. [...] Over two centuries ago, in Milan, a literary case perhaps imploded (I don't know any other analogues in our literary history).
His echo (never really dormant, so much so as to reach us) was, however, deprived of sound both by the protagonists and by those few contemporaries who knew about it, and then by many historians and philologists for whom the exact attribution of a text is not essential with respect to the historical importance and the cultural location of the text itself. So that the literary case from one that was beginning was then double; while the implosion remained dull and muffled. And indeed, what can the fact that Pietro Verri, or his young collaborator and pupil Cesare Beccaria, author or author, add or subtract to the importance of a courageous, acute, precious writing such as Dei delitti e delle pene?" With these words Lucio Villari posed a problem that was not easy to solve. The course aims to examine the question with philological tools.

Readings/Bibliography

Materials (stats, reproductions, etc.) will be provided during class.
Bibliography:

Bibliografia di riferimento:

Cesare Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene: con una raccolta di lettere e documenti relativi alla nascita dell’opera e alla sua fortuna nell'Europa del Settecento, a cura di Franco Venturi. 5a ed., Torino, Einaudi, 1981.

Cesare Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene [edizione critica e commento], in: Id., Dei delitti e delle pene, a cura di Gianni Francioni, con Le edizioni italiane del «Dei delitti e delle pene» di Luigi Firpo, Milano, Mediobanca, 1984, pp. 13-214.

Gianni Francioni, Nota al testo, in: Cesare Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene, a cura di Gianni Francioni, con Le edizioni italiane del «Dei delitti e delle pene» di Luigi Firpo, Milano, Mediobanca, 1984, pp. 215-368; Id., La prima redazione del «Dei delitti e delle pene», Napoli, Bibliopolis, 1981; Id., Notizia sul manoscritto della seconda redazione del «Dei delitti e delle pene» (con una appendice di inediti di Pietro Verri relativi all’opera di Beccaria), «Studi settecenteschi», vol. 7-8, 1985-1986, pp. 229-96; Id., Diamo a Cesare…, in: «la Repubblica», XVIII, n. 291, 18 dicembre 1993, p. 28; Id., Sulla violenza testuale. La “volontà dell’autore” fra libera espressione e assenso “coatto”, in: Pubblicare il Settecento. Edizioni e ricerche in corso, a cura di Alberto Postigliola, Roma, Società italiana di studi sul secolo XVIII, 1991, pp. 66-81; Id., Il cantiere Beccaria (1984-2014), in: Omaggio a Cesare Beccaria a conclusione dell’Edizione Nazionale delle Opere, Atti del convegno (11 novembre 2015), Milano, Mediobanca, 2016, pp. 24-36.

Lucio Villari, Un Caffè per due, «La Repubblica», 2 dicembre 1993, p. 37; Id., Cesare l’idiota, «La Repubblica», 22 dicembre 1993, p. 22.

Teaching methods

Frontal lessons. Lectures and analyses of literary texts.

Assessment methods

The evaluation of the students' competencies and abilities acquired during the course consists of an oral test, i.e. an oral interview which has the aim of evaluating the critical and methodological ability of the students. The students will be invited to discuss the texts on the course programme. The student must demonstrate an appropriate knowledge of the bibliography in the course programme.

Those students who are able to demonstrate a wide and systematic understanding of the issues covered during the lessons, are able to use these critically and who master the field-specific language of the discipline will be given a mark of excellence.

Those students who demonstrate a mnemonic knowledge of the subject with a more superficial analytical ability and ability to synthesize, a correct command of the language but not always appropriate, will be given a ‘fair' mark.

A superficial knowledge and understanding of the material, a scarce analytical and expressive ability that is not always appropriate will be rewarded with a pass mark or just above a pass mark.

Students who demonstrate gaps in their knowledge of the subject matter, inappropriate language use, lack of familiarity with the literature in the programme bibliography will not be given a pass mark.

Office hours

See the website of Leonardo Quaquarelli