CRITICISM AND LITERARY THEORY

The teaching falls within the educational activities of the Degree in Literature and is intended to provide students with basic analytical tools in the field of criticism and literary theory, from ancient times to the present day.
Objectives of the course are: to favor the learning of the main critical, theoretical and narratological methodologies, in order to apply them to the analysis of both literary and extra-literary texts.

1.Knowledge and understanding
- Knowing critical and theoretical thinking, knowing how to grasp the different stages of its development, both problematic and diachronic.
- Understand in what and why the status of literature differs from other verbal and non-verbal arts.
2. Ability to apply knowledge and understanding.
- Use the terminology of the discipline correctly. Know how to apply the acquired knowledge to understand the peculiarities of the literary text compared to the other linguistic and non-linguistic codes.
3. Judgment skills.
- Know how to formulate and argue what has been coherently learned, while demonstrating that it has been acquired an autonomous attitude with respect to the issues transmitted.
4. Communication skills
Develop an approach both explanatory and interpretive, interacting with the recipient, either real or virtual, to achieve a personal evaluation, that could also be alternative, attentive to the pragmatics of communication.

Knowledge of some primary notions of historiography, criticism and theory, with particular regard to the literary field.

The course examines the most salient moments of both criticism and literary theory, starting from the birth of the disciplines up to the modernity of the 21st century, with particular regard to the most significant issues, currents and figures. Some lines of thought will be studied, from psychoanalysis to Marxism, from cultural studies to deconstructionism. Particular attention will be reserved to the critical theories of the twentieth century.

Mandatory Texts:
- Brugnolo, S., Colussi, D., Zatti, S., & Zinato, E. (2016). La scrittura e il mondo. Teorie letterarie del Novecento. Roma, Carocci, 2016
- Antoine Compagnon, Il demone della teoria, Torino, Einaudi, 2000


Program for students who do not attend the lessons:
- besides the above-mentioned volumes: Emanuele Zinato, Le idee e le forme. La critica letteraria in Italia dal 1900 ai giorni nostri, Roma, Carocci, 2010


Further Readings:
- Guido Mattia Gallerani, L'intervista immaginata. Da genere mediatico a invenzione letteraria, Firenze, Florence University Press, 2022

The assessment of learning takes place through an oral test, during which the student must demonstrate knowledge of the topics developed during the course and proving to know how to expose them in a formal way. The test includes two questions: the first one on a single chapter of Muzzioli’s book, the second on a single chapter of Compagnon’s book.

Seminar and Frontal Lessons

Italian

Frequency is recommended

oral