ITALIAN LITERATURE FROM 12TH TO 16TH CENTURY

This class, among the modules in the bachelor’s degree in Humanities, curriculum in Science of the Literary Text and Communication, is meant to furnish students not only with basic knowledge of the main trends of Italian literature in its first centuries (12th-16th), but moreover with the theoretical and methodological tools to face the specific problematics of the discipline.
The class thus has three main objectives: to trace the development of Italian literature in its first centuries, by way of specific examples; to foster the capacity of autonomous reflection on a literary text; to furnish the basic methodological tools of textual analysis. Particular attention is devoted to the centrality of the text, be it poetic or prose, as an indispensable starting point in any theoretical or critical discourse.

Knowledge and comprehension: Students should be able to trace the history of Italian literature in its first centuries; to know the major authors of the period and their works; to know and comprehend the forms of texts in prose and in verse (metrical, rhetorical, stylistic); to know and comprehend Old Italian.
Ability to use said knowledge: Students should be able to employ their historico-critical knowledge in the study of Italian literary history; to use correctly the specific terminology of the discipline, including with respect to meter and rhetoric; to analyse a literary text in its various aspects.
Judgment: Students should be able to autonomously formulate and argue hypotheses, as well as critically evaluate alternative hypotheses.
Communication skills: Students should be able to express the specifics of their thoughts on literature, with adequate terminology.
Learning skills: Students should be able to critically consult the assigned texts as well as the bibliography therein.

A good knowledge of the Italian language; standard reading abilities with texts in Italian; basic knowledge of the elements that characterize a literary text in prose and in verse. The knowledge of Italian literary history, and of its metrical, rhetorical, and stylistic forms acquired, respectively, in the modules Italian Literature 1 and Metrical Forms and Style should be a helpful preface to the material studied in this class.

The course is devoted to Boiardo's chivalric poem and its kaleidoscopic structure, the main features of which will be illustrated through focused textual explorations.
In the introductory part, the fundamental themes necessary to understand the complexity of the work will be addressed: the relationship between arms and love; entrelacement; the handling of the fiction of orality; the voice of the narrator; the perspective inherent in the "bella storia"; the relationship with the classics and novel texts; and the classicist nature of intertextuality.
Instead, the second part of the course will be devoted to the reading of the poem, and, in particular, some fascinating narrative nuclei, exemplary of Boiardo's compositional technique, will be closely analyzed:
1. The fairies and their kingdoms
2. The ogre and the folkloric tradition
3. Jealousy and eroticism
4. The novellas within the poem (from the noir one of Stella and Marchino to the courtly one of Iroldo, Prasildo and Tisbina)

M.M. Boiardo, Orlando innamorato / L'inamoramento de Orlando, edited by A. Canova, Milan Rizzoli, 2016 (2011 first ed.).

D. Delcorno Branca, Lo spazio delle fate nell’«Inamoramento de Orlando», in Ead., L’inchiesta di Orlando. Il «Furioso» e la tradizione romanza, Firenze, Sismel, 2022, pp. 151-172.
C. Montagnani, «Andando con lor dame in aventura». Percorsi estensi, Galatina, Congedo, 2004, pp. 65-87.
R. Galbiati, Il romanzo e la corte. L’«Inamoramento de Orlando» di Boiardo, Roma, Carocci, 2018.
M. Praloran, “Maraviglioso artificio”. Tecniche narrative e rappresentative nell’«Orlando Innamorato», Lucca, Pacini Fazzi, 1990
T. Zanato, Boiardo, Roma, Salerno editrice, 2015, pp. 145-223.

Further and specific critical guidance will be provided in the course of the lectures.
For an extensive critical bibliography see: http://boiardo.letteratura.it/bibliografia/

Oral exam. The colloquy, roughly a half hour in duration, 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 on 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. Those who have not attended class will be expected to talk about the texts, manual, and studies they have read. Students will be judged by their historico-literary competence and ability to formulate, with an adequate use of language, critically valid connections between the various problematics at hand.

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

Italian

oral

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