STYLISTICS AND PROSODY

The course is included in the core educational activities of the Master's Degree Programme in Philology, Linguistics and Italian Literature.
At the end of the course, students will know the chief tools for a metrical and stylistical interpretation of Italian poetical texts, from the Origins to the XXth century.

1. Knowledge and understanding:
1.1 know the main characteristics of the genre (epic and romance), its genesis and evolution, in relation to the Italian and European literary context, and to the Greek-Latin models;
1.2 know the 16th-century critical debate on the Italian metres suitable for the poem (heroic, romance or sacred): Dante's terzine, the octave rhyme and the loose endecasyllable
1.3 understand the style, vocabulary and grammatical structures of the language of the poems examined.
2. Ability to apply knowledge and understanding:
2.1 be able to orient themselves in the history of the poem in octaves, contextualising in time and space the authors and works;
2.2 being able to identify the stylistic features and rhetorical figures of the language of the poems considered;
2.3 be able to paraphrase passages read and commented on in class;
2.5 be able to recognise the metrical and grammatical particularities of the passages read and commented on in class;
3. working independently on seminar topics.
3. Judgement skills:
3.1 know how to critically evaluate the appropriateness of models of formal analysis (rhetorical, stylistic, grammatical) applied to passages read in class.
4. Communication skills:
4.1 be able to communicate the specifics of the form, style and language of the poems examined, making use of appropriate terminology.
5. Learning skills:
5.1 To be able to study the reference texts critically, hierarchizing information and establishing links between the poems.

To be admitted to this course students must possess a good knowledge of Italian Language and of the chief notions of Prosody, Rhetorics and Stylistics.

Title: The poem in ottava rima

The first part of the course offers a survey of the main applications of stylistic criticism, exemplified on a selection of representative texts.
In the second part, after tackling the problem of the controversial origins of octave rhyme, the course focuses on the birth and development of poems in octave, from Boccaccio to Tasso, paying particular attention to the formal aspects connected with the techniques of representation and the relationship between syntax and metre, and dwelling as much on the elements of continuity proper to the genre as on the innovative and individual traits present in the texts examined.

Students will be invited to participate in a seminar activity on some of the texts covered in the course.

1 P.V. Mengaldo, Prima lezione di stilistica, Roma-Bari, Laterza.
2 A. Balduino, “Pater semper incertus”. Ancora sulle origini dell’ottava rima, «Metrica» 3, 1982, pp. 107-158.
3 A. Limentani, Struttura e storia dell’ottava rima, in «Lettere Italiane», XIII (1961), pp. 20-77.
4 M. Praloran, Il poema in ottava. Storia linguistica italiana, Roma, Carocci, una qualunque edizione.
5 A. Cotugno, Introduzione a G.A. Dell’Anguillara, Le metamorfosi d’Ovidio, a c. dello stesso, Manziana, Vecchiarelli, 2019, vol. I, to. 1.
6 Texts available in the e-learning platform moodle.unive.it.

Background bibliography: P.G. Beltrami, La metrica italiana, Bologna, Il Mulino; L. Matt, Manuale di stilistica, Firenze, Vallecchi, 2024.

Students will have to pass an oral exam of 20-30 minutes. During the exam, students will demonstrate their knowledge of the subjects that have been illustrated in the lessons and that are described in the reference texts.

Frontal lessons and seminars.

Italian

oral