ROMANCE PHILOLOGY 1 MOD. 1

The teaching of Romance Philology 1 module 1 is one of the characteristic teachings of the Course of Studies (Master's Degree) in Language Sciences and in European, American and Postcolonial Languages and Literatures. The general objective of the course is to explain the formation and development of the Romance languages in the Middle Ages and to analyse in depth and in original language some texts of the Romance literatures developed between the 11th and 14th centuries.

1. Knowledge and understanding

To know and understand, in a comparative perspective, the main phenomena of the linguistic change in the medieval Romance context, also in function of an adequate understanding of the characteristics of the Romance languages in today's phase;

Know and understand the main historical, cultural and literary events of the Romance world through textual documentation;

To know and understand the dynamics of text production in the Middle Ages and its dissemination through time and space.



2. Ability to apply knowledge and understanding:


To know how to recognise the main phenomena of linguistic change in the Romance languages and to know how to illustrate their importance, also in order to take into account the peculiarities of these languages at this stage;

To be able to deal, in the relevant context, with the linguistic and historical-cultural analysis of a medieval text, using the investigative tools discussed in the course;

To be able to use philological terminology correctly in the main areas of teaching.


3. Autonomy of judgement:

To be able to orient oneself in the critical debate on themes of philological subject, in order to be able to face the evaluation of alternative hypotheses concerning the same phenomenon (linguistic, literary, historical-cultural) or to formulate hypotheses on various questions of the discipline.


4. Communication skills:

To be able to communicate in a clear and technically appropriate way the contents of the course, using the register relevant to the communicative situation.



5. Learning ability:

To be able to propose in an organic way the contents of the course.
To be able to orient oneself adequately when reading the reference texts.

No specific prerequisites are required

Introduction to Romance philology. The Grail legend in medieval Romance literature (Part I).
The module aims to illustrate in the first three lectures the basic data on the formation and development of the Romance languages from the common Latin base. Then we will focus on the birth and spread of the Grail legend by analysing some scenes from the two oldest Grail novels, Chrétien de Troyes' ‘Le conte du Graal’ and Robert de Boron's ‘Joseph d'Arimathie’, both in Old French.

M. Mancini (ed.), "La letteratura francese medievale", Rome, Carocci, 2020;
Il Graal. I testi che hanno fondato la leggenda, edited by M. Liborio, introduction by F. Zambon, Milan, Mondadori, 2005.

The original passages of the texts examined in class will be provided by the lecturer.


Students who cannot be present for class will contact the lecturer.

Ask questions about your classroom program and personal readings. The questions allow to test critical thought, as well as the capacity of mastering the subject.
More specifically:
Knowledge and understanding as well as communication skills will be verified through content questions;
The ability to apply knowledge and understanding will be verified through practical exercises, such as the translation of passages from the texts analysed during the course;
autonomy of judgement will be verified by questions on the personal evaluation of the various positions of the critic on the subject dealt with.

oral

The examination, which is oral, will begin with a question on literature: if the student is unable to answer the first and then the second and third questions on literature sufficiently, he/she will have to re-sit. For those who have passed this first part, the examination will continue with a first and then a second question on framing, contextualisation, translation and commentary of one of the passages from the texts examined in class. 18 to 22 points will be awarded if the preparation appears to be barely sufficient or superficial and the critical language imprecise; 23 to 26 if the preparation appears to be partial and the critical language modest; 27 to 30 with possible honours if the preparation as well as the critical language appear to be good or excellent.

Lectures and presentation by the students of precise researches on the theme of the course assigned during the lectures.