ITALIAN LITERATURE

This class, among the fundamental modules in the bachelor's degree, is meant to furnish students with a critical knowledge of Italian literature and moreover with the basic methodological tools to face textual analysis; moreover, it aims to accompany the student's progress toward a historically and philologically well-grounded analysis of literary texts.
Students will thus be enabled to pursue an in-depth learning experience of socio-cultural phenomena, while also developing skills of autonomous comparison and assessment.

By the end of the class, students are expected to be familiar with Italian literary history and the relevant cultural contexts, and to use the specific terminology of the discipline at a satisfactory level. They should be able to understand, analyze and interpret literary texts with correct tools and methodology, and to appreciate and analyze topics and ideas developed by the various authors; moreover, they should be able to synthetize the contents of literary texts developing cross-cultural comparisons and making appropriate assessments.

A standard reading-comprehension ability, an adequate knowledge of written and oral Italian language, and an acquaintance with the most significant authors of Italian literature (as provided at the level of higher secondary school) are required.

Trecento Italian literature and the Orient: Travels, meetings, and clashes.
The first part of this class is meant to offer a general view of Italian literature in the 14th century, with a special focus on the historico-cultural context in which vernacular literature was then developing, and on the authors whose works will be analysed in the second part. A specific topic, the image of the Orient in Italian Trecento literature, will be carefully investigated. Within this perspective the teacher will introduce and comment texts by Dante ("Inferno"), Boccaccio ("Decameron", "Filocolo"), Marco Polo ("Il Milione").

For a broad knowledge of the Trecento literature: G. Tellini, Letteratura italiana. Un metodo di studio. Seconda edizione, Firenze, Le Monnier, 2014 (most recent reprit: 2018), pp. 3-79; as an alternative, L. Surdich, Il Duecento e il Trecento, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2005 (ch. 4-9, pp. 43-156).

The texts related to the second part of the class are the following:
D. Alighieri, Inferno: any commented edition [in particular: A.M. Chiavacci Leonardi (Bologna, Zanichelli); E. Pasquini - A.E. Quaglio (Milano, Garzanti); U. Bosco - G. Reggio (Firenze, Le Monnier); G. Inglese (Roma, Carocci); S. Bellomo (Torino, Einaudi- Inferno only)].
G. Boccaccio, Decameron (recommended editions: ed. by A. Quondam - M. Fiorilla - G. Alfano, Milano, Rizzoli; ed. by V. Branca, Torino, Einaudi).
G. Boccaccio, Filocolo (recommended edition: ed. by A. E. Quaglio, Milano, Mondadori).
Marco Polo, Il Milione, ed. by V. Bertolucci Pizzorusso, Milano, Adelphi.

Other texts analysed in class will be made available on the e-learning platform <moodle.unive.it>.

Students who do not attend class must add the following studies:

B. D. Schildgen, Dante e L'oriente, Roma, Salerno ed., 2016, pp. 84-93 (L'Islam nella "Commedia").
J. Levarie Smarr, Altre razze ed altri spazi nel "Decameron", in Boccaccio geografo. Un viaggio nel Mediterraneo tra le città, i giardini e... il "mondo" di Giovanni Boccaccio, ed. by A. Cantile e R. Morosini, Firenze, Pagliai, 2010, pp. 133-158.
A. Barbieri, Dal viaggio al libro. Studi sul Milione, Verona, Fiorini, 2004 (a selection of chapters).

Written exam of 60 minutes in duration. The exam comprises a series of open ended questions and aims to test the student’s knowledge of the texts, of the problems involved in their interpretation, and of the problematics of their historico-literary context. Students who have attended class will be asked to reflect upon aspects analysed during the lessons, and they will be invited to integrate what they have learned in class with what they have learned from the assigned readings. As for those who have not attended class, the exam content will include the texts, manual, and studies they have read.


For the summer session - due to the epidemiological situation - the exam will take place online and in oral form.

Lessons combine lectures with active student participation. Didactic materials available on the e-learning platform moodle.unive.it.
These textual and critical materials offer cues for further study, with respect to the reference texts listed above.

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This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Cities, infrastructure and social capital" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development