LATIN LITERATURE

The course of LATIN LITERATURE (alone = 6 CFU or as part of LATIN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE, 12 CFU) falls within the "Core educational activities" of the study plan of the Master's Degree Programmes in Ancient Civilisations: Literature, History and Archaeology and in Italian Philology and Literature. It aims to refine the student's knowledge of language and style, authors, genres and works of Latin literature and of their critical problems, and contributes to enrich the knowledge of western cultural history and literary traditions, of methods and tools of literary history and philology and of their specialized languages.

The outcome of this course would be the detailed knowledge of a work or of a selection of Latin literary texts in the original language, and of their historical and interpretative problems in the framework of the contemporary scientific debate. Students should be able to read, understand, translate into Italian and comment on the historical-literary and stylistic plan the texts treated during the course, to discuss the interpretation proposed by the teacher and the bibliography, to contextualize authors and works studied during the course in the cultural and literary tradition of classical antiquity. Students should then be able to repeat the same type of analysis, applying the methods learned during the course, on a further sample of texts assigned as personal readings.
Already equipped with linguistic skills at least intermediate level, students should also acquire through the course a greater familiarity with the Latin literary language, a broader set of linguistic knowledge and a more confident ability in translation from Latin into Italian; at the same time, the study of the bibliography should refine the students' knowledge of the concepts and critical vocabulary of philology and literary history, and their ability to discuss literary topics and texts.

The exam of LATIN LITERATURE requires a general knowledge of the history of Latin language and literature and a linguistic competence of Latin at least intermediate level.
To access the exam students must also certify their knowledge of Latin language by passing the Test of Latin 2 (http://www.unive.it/data/insegnamento/263176 ).

Poetic journal of a farewell: a reading of Rutilius Namatianus' "De reditu suo".
Between 415 and 417 Claudius Rutilius Namatianus left Rome, where he had been Praefectus Vrbi in 414, to return by sea, along the Tyrrhenian coast, to his native Provence. The "De reditu suo", of which only the first book comes to us intact, is the poetic diary (in elegiac meter) of the physical journey from the Eternal City, still wounded by the Gothic sack of 410, to the Ligurian coast (where the text is lost), and at once of the sentimental journey of a member of the last pagan nobility through the ancient and recent memories of Rome, split between nostalgia for past greatness and the unshakable certainty of constant rebirth, discontent with the present crisis and failures of current imperial policy, and confidence in the ethical and governing virtues of the senatorial class to which he and his friends belong. The course is devoted to selective reading and interpretation of the poem, which is both the fruit of a refined pen, steeped in a rich literary culture, and a vibrant manifesto of the class ideology of the more traditionalist senatorial aristocracy of Honorius' age.

In addition to the texts read in class, each student will agree with the teacher on a personal reading with pertinent bibliography (s. Referral texts, 4).

1) Notes from the lessons.*
2) A. FO, Ritorno a Claudio Rutilio Namaziano, "Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici" 22 (1989), pp. 49-74 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/40235929 )
3) Three papers of your choice from the book: É. WOLFF (éd.), Rutilius Namatianus, aristocrate païen en voyage et poète, Bordeaux, éd. Ausonius, 2020.
4) Personal reading: 100 verses in the original language from among those not covered in class, read with the aid of the commentary by A. Fo (RUTILIO NAMAZIANO, Il ritorno, Torino, Einaudi, 1992).*

* Students unable to attend the course may opt, as an alternative to items 1) and 4), to read the entirety of Book I of "De reditu" in the original language, with the aid of the commentary by A. Fo (RUTILIO NAMAZIANO, Il ritorno, Torino, Einaudi, 1992).

The texts read in class will be provided by the teacher and will be available on the Moodle page of the course.

Learning is verified through an oral interview in which the students must demonstrate to be able to read, understand, translate into Italian and comment on the stylistic and historical-literary level some passages of the work or selection of texts which has been read by the teacher or assigned as personal reading; students must also be able to discuss the bibliography and to use it in the interpretation of texts.

Traditional lessons, mainly based on reading, translation, linguistic, stylistic and historical-literary commentary of the texts covered by the course, with illustration of the related critical problems. During the lessons students are involved in the discussion of specific topics or critical problems, of the theses supported in the bibliography and are invited to propose and explain their own opinions.

Italian

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