10547 - Germanic Philology (1)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, the student will possess the theoretical and technical instruments which allow him/her to know those languages, literatures (which must be intended as texts' corpora without any opinion on their literary value) and, in conclusion, cultures which the Germanic ethnic groups created since Prehistory. The chronological extension in which the discipline pursues its investigations is restricted to the Middle Ages. In that age, the common cultural Germanic matrix is more directly perceivable thanks to the large amount of sources and documents produced in the old Germanic languages and literatures. The knowledges, which the student will acquire, will enable him/her to translate and  to give a linguistic and philological commentary to a passage in an Old Germanic language.

Course contents

Unit A: The cultural peculiarities of the Germanic peoples will be taken into account: the oral transmission of knowledge, law, religion, social structure and the role of women inside the Germanic society. Part of the module will be devoted to the analysis of the literary genres of the Germanic literature of the Middle Ages (heroic poetry, sagas, skaldic poetry, religious poetry). During the module the main phonetic and morpho-syntactical characteristics of the old Germanic languages will be examinated. After having tackled the concepts of re-constituted language, comparative system and reconstruction of the Indo-european consonantic system, some lessons will focus the Germanic languages. In particular, the consonantic peculiarities (Grimm's and Verner's laws), the verbal system (strong, weak, and preterite-present verbs, the verb to be) and the noun declension will be examined.

Readings/Bibliography

 Students of theFacoltà di Lettere e Filosofia

Atlante Storico Garzanti - Cronologia della Storia Universale. Milano: Garzanti Editore, 1994: 1-21, 32-33, 88-151, 154-157, 160-181, 186-191, 194-195, 198-205.

MOLINARI, Maria Vittoria: La filologia germanica. Seconda edizione. Bologna: Zanichelli, 1987.

TODD, Malcom: I Germani. Dalla tarda repubblica romana all'epoca carolingia. Genova: ECIG, 1992: 11-140.

PAGE, Raymund Inn: Runes. London: The British Museum Press, 1987.

RISARI, Elisabetta, (a cura di): Tacito, Germania. Milano: Mondadori, 1991 (= Oscar Classici Greci e Latini, 1).

LEHMANN, Winfred P: “La linguistica indoeuropea”. In: LEHMANN, Winfred P.: La linguistica indoeuropea. Storia, problemi e metodi. Bologna:  Il Mulino, 1999: 31-67.

POLOMÉ, Edgar C.:  “Germanic Religion”. In: ELIADE, Mircea: The Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 5. New York: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1987: 520-536.

LUISELLI FADDA, Anna Maria: L'arte della filologia. Firenze: Franco Cesati Editore, 2007.

PARKES, Malcolm: “Le pratiche di lettura”. In: CAVALLO, Guglielmo, LEONARDI, Claudio, MENESTÒ, Enrico, (direttori), 1994: Lo spazio letterario del medioevo. 1. Il medioevo latino. Volume II. La circolazione del testo. Roma: Salerno Editrice: 465-486.

PÀROLI, Teresa: "La metrica germanica".  In: BOITANI, Piero, MANCINI, Mario, VARVARO, Alberto, (direttori), 1999: Lo spazio letterario del medioevo. 2. Il medioevo volgare. Volume I. La produzione del testo. Tomo I. Roma: Salerno Editrice: 555-584.

BRUNETTI, Giuseppe, (a cura di): Beowulf. Roma: Carocci, 2003 (reading of the whole text).

 

 

Students of the Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature Straniere

 Part A:

Atlante Storico Garzanti - Cronologia della Storia Universale. Milano: Garzanti Editore, 1994: 1-21, 32-33, 88-151, 154-157, 160-181, 186-191, 194-195, 198-205.

Maria Vittoria MOLINARI: La filologia germanica, Bologna, Zanichelli, 1987 (II edizione)

Malcom TODD: I Germani. Dalla tarda repubblica romana all'epoca carolingia, Genova, ECIG, 1992, pp. 11-140

 Raymund Inn PAGE: Runes, London, The British Museum Press, 1987

Tacito, Germania, a cura di Elisabetta Risari, Milano, Mondadori, 1991 (Oscar Calssici Greci e Latini, 1)

Paolo Ramat, Le lingue germaniche, in P. Ramat, A. Giacalone Ramat, Le lingue indoeuropee, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1997, pp. 409-436 (escluso § 9).

 Winfred P. Lehmann, La linguistica indoeuropea, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1999, pp. 31-67.

Edgar C. Polomé, Germanic Religion, in Mircea Eliade, The Encyclopedia of Religion,  vol. 5 , New York, MacMillan Publishing Company, 1987, pp. 520-536.

LUISELLI FADDA, Anna Maria, 2007: L'arte della filologia. Firenze: Franco Cesati Editore.

PARKES, Malcolm, 1994: "Le pratiche di lettura". In: CAVALLO, Guglielmo, LEONARDI, Claudio, MENESTÒ, Enrico, (direttori), 1994: Lo spazio letterario del medioevo. 1. Il medioevo latino. Volume II. La circolazione del testo. Roma: Salerno Editrice: 465-486.

PÀROLI, Teresa, 1999: "La metrica germanica". In: BOITANI, Piero, MANCINI, Mario, VARVARO, Alberto, (direttori), 1999: Lo spazio letterario del medioevo. 2. Il medioevo volgare. Volume I. La produzione del testo. Tomo I. Roma: Salerno Editrice: 555-584.

 

Part B:

 

- Brights Old English Grammar & Reader, a cura di F. G. Cassidy e R. N. Ringler, 3° edizione, New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971, pp. II-XIV, 1-101, 264-287;

 

 - Kemp MALONE (a cura di), Deor, Exeter, Exeter UP, 1977;

 

 - Roberta FRANK, Germanic Legend in Old English Literature, in The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature, a cura di M. Godden e M. Lapidge, Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 1991, pp. 88-106;

 

 - Christine FELL, Perceptions of Transience, in The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature, a cura di M. Godden e M. Lapidge, Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 1991, pp. 172-189;

 

 - Anne Lingard KLINCK, The Old English Elegies. A Critical Edition and Genre Study, Montreal, Mc Gill-Queen's UP, pp. 9-30, 90-91; 158-168 e tavole XXI – XXII;

 

 - J. R. J. NORTH, Jeu d'esprit in Deor: Geat and Maedhild, «Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik», 40 (1994), pp. 7-20;

 

 - Marco MOSTERT, Remembering the Barbarian Past: Oral Traditions about the Distant Past in the Middle Ages, in The Medieval Chronicle, IV, a cura di Erik Kooper, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 2006, pp. 113-125;

 

 - Andrew James JOHNSTON, The Riddle of Deor and the Performance of Fiction, in Language and Text: Current Perspectives on English and Gemanic Historical Linguistics and Philology, a cura di A. J. Johnston, F. von Mengden e S. Thim, Heidelberg, Winter Universitätsverlag, 2006, pp. 133-150;

 

 - Andy Orchard, Not What It Was. the World of Old English Elegy, in The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy, a cura di K. Weisman, Oxford, Oxford UP, 2010, pp. 101-117.

Teaching methods

Lectures

Assessment methods

The final exam is written

Office hours

See the website of Giulio Garuti Simone