Ateneo - UPO

«Go to Hell!» Transmission and edition of a text in a romance language about an infernal journey

For attending students, the specific bibliography will be provided in class, following students' interests. Some titles for further study are:
- L.D. Reynolds - N. G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars. A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature, Oxford 2013
- Le livre au Moyen Âge, sous la dir. de J. Glénisson, Paris, Presses du CNRS, 1988
- A. Varvaro, Critica dei testi classica e romanza. Problemi comuni ed esperienze diverse, in Id., Identità linguistiche e letterarie nell'Europa romanza, Roma, Salerno, 2004.
- L. Leonardi, Filologia romanza. 1. Critica del testo, Firenze, Le Monnier, 2021
- S. Lefèvre, La magie du codex. Corps, folio, page, pli, cœur, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2023 (in press)

Non-attending students will choose a program with the teacher.

Knowledge:
- basic knowledge of the mechanisms of text transmission in the Western Middle Ages;
- knowledge of the philologist's working methods;
- basic knowledge of the main moments and articulations of medieval literary history.
Skills:
- ability to read a medieval text in a romance language on its manuscript support;
- ability to independently face and critically analyze a philological problem;
- ability with the bibliography.
Transversal skills:
- refinement of the skills of exposition of the topics covered in class and studied independently;
- refinement of the analysis skills of a novel text;
- refinement of critical skills in front of a written text.

Basic knowledge in philology and linguistics expected after a BA in "Lettere".

Lectures, seminar discussion, individual study.

Learning will be verified in progress and with a final exam. The evaluation will be based on the following points:
1. Students are required to actively participate during the seminar discussion;
2. Students will be asked to write down a specimen edition of an unpublished medieval text, which will be presented and discussed in class;
3. Students are required to study a book, chosen with the teacher;
4. Students are required to provide a review (ca 2 pages) on a book or a group of articles;
5. The oral interview (exam) will conclude the evaluation process with the presentation by the candidate of the work done.
Point 1.: 10% of the final evaluation. Point 2.: 30%. Point 3.: 20%. Point 4.: 20%. Point 5. 20%.
Honors will be awarded on the basis of the acuteness of the written work and the oral interview.

The course is divided into two parts: in the first one the teacher will provide a general framework, and will show the tools for an independent study of an unpublished text written in a medieval romance language; in the second part (seminar) students will work directly on a medieval text, and they will present the results of their work at the end of the course.

Topics of the first part:
- Writing in the Middle Ages: who? how? when? where? why and for whom?
- Types of books in the Middle Ages: describing a complex object.
- Reading and transcribing a medieval text (exercises).
- Palaeography, codicology and philology.
- Problems in the transmission of a text in the Middle Ages: concepts and vocabulary of philology.
- History of books, history of texts.

In the second part of the course the class will deal with the edition of a medieval text. Students will be guided in the reading of the text, in the transcription, in the study of the language, in order to produce a specimen edition of the text itself.

Students are expected to:
- (at a basic level) expose the knowledge and skills acquired during the course and demonstrate mastering vocabulary and methods of Romance philology;
- (at an advanced level) deal independently with a medieval text, using methods and bibliographical tools of Romance philology.