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 Middle Ages to present times.

1. Knowledge and understanding:
1.1 know the main characteristics of the so-called "metrica barbara" and the different methods (prosodic, accentual-syllabic, accentual, accentual-prosodic) applied to reproduce in Italian the Classical metre;
1.2 know the debate on the relation between the accentual-syllabic Romance verse and the Classical quantitative metre;
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 oneself in the history of the "poesia barbara", contextualising in time and space the authors and their 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 the 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. Judgement skills:
3.1 know how to critically evaluate the appropriateness of models of formal analysis (metrical, stylistic, grammatical) applied to the 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.

Students are expected to possess a good knowledge of the Italian Language and of the chief notions of Italian Prosody, Metrics and Stylistics. No previous knowledge of the Classical metre is required.

Title: The "metrica barbara"

"Metrica barbara" is an umbrella term referring to all attempts of Italian poets to imitate the Classical metre. The term applies to several experiments, differing between them as far as their methods, functions, effectiveness, and success are concerned, that have been conceived in the history of the Italian literature uninterruptedly from the 15th to the first half of the 20th century. Still today, rhythmical translations of Ancient Greek and Latin poets are regularly published, such as Alessandro Fo's translation of Catullus' "Liber" (2018) and Daniele Ventre's translation of the Odyssey (2023).
The course aims to trace the development of the "metrica barbara" from the first experiments of the humanists until Carducci's consecration and the debate caused by the publication of the "Odi barbare" (1877), not omitting the rapid obsolescence of this kind of poetry in the 20th century and its relegation to the translations from Greek and Latin. By analysing a selection of texts of the main Italian imitators of the Classical meter, from Alberti to Chiabrera, from Fantoni to Carducci, Pascoli and D'Annunzio, the twofold character of this current of the Italian literature will be underlined: on the one hand, a learned, almost archaeological recovery of metrical forms of a remote past, anachronistically taken as a model or remembered with nostalgia; on the other, a trigger for overcoming traditional metrical schemes and structures (the "worn out poetry" hated by Carducci), and consequently a laboratory of innovations that, in the experiments of the second half of the 19th-first decades of the 20th century, prelude to the free verse of Contemporary poetry.

A) General references on the "metrica barbara":
1. Francesco Bausi, Mario Martelli, La metrica italiana: teoria e stile, Firenze, Le Lettere, 1993, pp. 122-125; 153-157; 197-203; 222-228; 250-263.
2. Pietro Beltrami, La metrica italiana, Bologna, il Mulino, 2011, pp. 220-231 (§§ 161-174); pp. 344-354 (§§ 248-258).
3. Mario Mancini, Saggi sulla poesia barbara e altri studi di metrica italiana, Manziana, Vecchiarelli, 2000, pp. 7-110; pp. 157-177.
4. Giovanni Battista Pighi, Poesia barbara e illusioni metriche, in Id., Studi di ritmica e metrica, Torino, Bottega d’Erasmo, 1970, pp. 403-432.
5. Giuseppe Vergara, La poesia barbara: come e quando, «Misure critiche», 6 (1976), pp. 71-91.

B) Essays on specific authors:
6. Felicita Audisio, Pascoli: metrica “neoclassica” e metrica italiana, «La rassegna della letteratura italiana», 8/3 (1995), pp. 34-91.
7. Felicita Audisio, Carducci, l’esametro, il pentametro e alcuni antecessori, «La rassegna della letteratura italiana»,109 (2005), pp. 371-396.
8. Anna Bellato, Note sulla metrica barbara di Fantoni, «Stilistica e metrica italiana», 6 (2006), pp. 157-175.
9. Lucia Bertolini (a cura di), De vera amicitia. I testi del primo Certame coronario, Modena, Franco Cosimo Panini, 1993, pp. 341-385.
10. Filomena Giannotti, Il fine giustifica i metri: recenti traduzioni dei classici in metrica barbara, «Semicerchio», 61 (2019), pp. 20-31.

C) The texts read and commented upon during the course.

Texts 4-10 will be made available on the Moodle platform.

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.

oral

Evaluation system:
28-30L: the student masters the topics presented in the course and in the assigned readings; he is capable of hyerarchizing information and makes use of a convenient scientific terminology;
26-27: the student has a good knowledge of the topics presented in the course and - to a lesser extent - in the assigned readings; he generally succeeds in hyerarchizing information and is familiar with scientific terminology;
24-25: the student does not always know thoroughly topics presented in the course and in the assigned readings; his oral exposition is clear, although concepts are not always expressed through a convenient scientific terminology;
22-23: the student has a mostly superficial knowledge of the topics presented in the course and in the assigned readings; his oral exposition is not always clear and generally lacks scientific terminology;
18-21: the student has a very superficial knowledge of the topics presented in the course and in the assigned readings; his oral exposition is confused and does not resort to scientific terminology.

Frontal lectures, in which texts by several authors will be read and commented upon.