Ateneo - UPO

The “Integrated” Course of Italian and Comparative Literature for Students studying foreign languages (12 credits) consists of the two courses of Italian Literature for Students studying foreign languages I (6 credits) and Comparative Literature A (6 credits). Each year the specific topics of the two courses change. The attention remains constant for authors, works, and essential issues of Italian literature and other national literatures, for their historical contextualization and for the use of the appropriate tools for analysis, interpretation, and commentary on the literary text.

Academic year 2023/2024:
Italian and Literature for Students studying foreign languages I is dedicated to Two Italian poets: Umberto Saba and Vittorio Sereni. The Course of Comparative Literature A consists of a general introduction, dedicated to some fundamental paths of theory, methodology, and literary comparative studies, and a focus seminar entitled “Dealing with otherness: dialogues on the threshold and forced proximities”.

ITALIAN LITERATURE I for Students studying foreign languages:
The teacher will prepare a booklet with the texts that will be commented on in class, and which will be deposited in the copy shop before the start of the lessons. Students will be notified when the booklet is available.

For further information (recommended but not mandatory readings):
Vittorio Sereni, Poesie, edizione critica a cura di Dante Isella, Milano, Mondadori, 1995; Umberto Saba, Tutte le poesie, a cura di Arrigo Stara, Introduzione di Mario Lavagetto, Milano, Mondadori, 2004 (I ed. 1988); Umberto Saba, Tutte le prose, a cura di Arrigo Stara, con un saggio introduttivo di Mario Lavagetto, Milano, Mondadori, 2001; Umberto Saba, Vittorio Sereni, Il cerchio imperfetto. Lettere 1946-1954, a cura di Cecilia Gibellini, Milano, Archinto, 2010; Stefano Carrai, Saba, Roma, Salerno Editrice, 2017; Vittorio Sereni, Poesie e prose, a cura di Giulia Raboni, con uno scritto di Pier Vincenzo Mengaldo, Milano, Mondadori, 2020.

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE A
- General Introduction
STEFANIA SINI, FRANCA SINOPOLI (eds), Percorsi di teoria e comparatistica letteraria, Milano, Pearson, 2021.

- Focus Seminar
Focus seminar:
KAREL ČAPEK, R.U.R. Rossum's Universal Robots, Penguin.
DINO BUZZATI, Paura alla Scala, Milano, Mondadori, 2019, oppure Id., Sessanta racconti, Milano, Mondadori, 2016.
JOSÉ SARAMAGO, Ensaio sobre a cegueira, Caminho, 1997.
GEORGE SAUNDERS, Lincoln in the Bardo, Penguin, 2017.

Movies
LUIS BUÑUEL, El angel exterminador (1962)
EMIR KUSTURICA, Underground (1995)
J.J. ABRAMS, DAMON LINDELOF, JEFFREY LIEBER, Lost, I season, episods 1-12 (2004)
Supplements for Students not attending classes:
SIGMUND FREUD, Massenpsychologie und Ich-Analyse (Group psycholgy and Analysis of the Ego, in The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, edited by James Strachey, Macmillan, 1954.
MIKHAIL BAKHTIN, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, ed. And transl. by Caryl Emerson, Introd. By Wayne C. Booth, University of Minnesota Press, 1984, pp. 109-120 (on the Socratic Dialogue and the Menyppean Satire)
STEFANIA SINI, In contagiosa crisi: lo spaccato mano di Paura alla Scala, in Figures de la crise et crises de la Figuration dans l'oeuvre de Dino Buzzati, sous la direction de Cristina Vignali de Poli, Chambery, Université Savoie Mont Blanc, 2018, pp. 225-243.

Not attending Students are kindly requested to contact the Professors for any doubts about the program.

Mission
Outcomes
(a) Knowledge and understanding:
knowledge of life, poetics and works of the authors examined in the course, also in relation to the cultural context; knowledge of the fundamentals of literature theory, comparative literature and the analysis tools of the literary work; knowledge of the texts, literary and filmic, studied in the course, in the light of the relationships between truth and lie, and between identity and otherness, and with particular attention to the linguistic and stylistic dimension and the different ways of characterizing the characters and their relationships.
(b) outcomes - ability to apply knowledge and understanding:
Knowing how to read and analyze a literary work, recognizing its historical context, its philological-editorial history, its genre, its expressive, rhetorical and ideological strategies, and its devices and techniques.
(c) outcomes - Making judgments:
Acquisition of the ability to formulate critical judgments on texts, also in dialogue with the most recent critical orientations, with particular attention to the historical-literary context in which the texts are produced, to its main structural and compositional elements, and its historical, ideological and social vitality.
(d) outcomes - communication skills:
Being able to present with clarity and argumentative effectiveness to an individual interlocutor or in public, using the appropriate terminology, the results of the readings carried out.
(e) study skills:
Knowing how to move in front of a text between a synthetic understanding of the whole and an analytical articulation of the details.
Acquisition of the ability to independently integrate the topics discussed in class, also through a basic orientation in the use of digital sources and in library work.

Basic knowledge of Italian literature in its historical development and elementary skills in reading literary texts (normally acquired at high school level).

Frontal lessons accompanied and followed by discussion; reading and commenting on the texts in class, with the possibility of individual or group contributions; online teaching (DIR).

Italian Literature: Written exam. The final exam consists of a written test, which will focus on the following points:

1. Verification of the ability to examine and interpret the texts (with particular attention to the topic of the course), and together of communication skills and the ability to express judgments: a question on one or more texts among those included in the booklet prepared by teacher - 50% of the weight on the exam grade;

2. Verification of the ability to examine and interpret texts, to express judgments, and to apply oneself to the analysis of the literary text: a question consisting in the paraphrase, analysis and comment of a passage among those anthologized in the manual adopted or in the dossier prepared by teacher - 50% of the weight on the exam mark.

To pass the exam, it will be necessary to answer at least sufficiently to each of the questions. The assessment is based on the degree of knowledge and understanding of the texts and authors in the program, on the ability to apply knowledge to the text or to the interpretative problem proposed, and on the degree of expressive and communicative capacity.

Comparative Literature A : Written or oral exam (at choice).
Both in oral and written form, the exam will consist in:
1) One question or more questions about theory of literature, literary comparative studies and literary methodology (general introduction);
2) Reading, and narratological and stylistical analysis of an excerpt from literary texts and of films; their commentary and interpretation in the light of the issues addressed in the focus seminar.

The final grade of the exam Letteratura italiana per Lingue e comparatistica will be the result of the average – reasoned, and no mechanical - of the grades of the two exams Letteratura italiana per Lingue and Letterature comparate A

Italian Literature:

1. Outlines of the history of XXth century Italian poetry.
2. Umberto Saba: the Canzoniere, the theoretical reflection, the self-commentary of Storia e cronistoria, the prose.
3. Vittorio Sereni: poetic collections, critical reflection, the temptation of prose.

Comparative literature:

First week: presentation of the Course (General Introduction and Focus Seminar). The experience of literature. Imagination and reading. Theories of Otherness Karel Čapek, R.U.R. Introduction, reading, commentary analysis.

Second week: Sigmund Freud, Massenpsychologie und Ich-Analyse. Theories of reception and the act of reading. Karel Čapek, R.U.R. Reading, commentary analysis. Dino Buzzati, Paura alla Scala. Introduction, reading, commentary analysis

Third week: Narrative and narratology. Temporality, narrator, point of view. Mikhail Bachtin, the chrisis chronotope. . Dino Buzzati, Paura alla Scala. Reading, commentary analysis. Luis Buñuel, El angel exterminador.

Fourth week: Narrative and narratology. Mediacy. Narrative situations. Character Theories. José Saramago, Ensaio sobre a cegueira. Introduction, reading, commentary analysis.

Fifth week: Rhetoric and argumentation. Spaces of literature. José Saramago, Ensaio sobre a cegueira. Reading, commentary analysis.

Sixth week: The comparative history of literature and the world literature. Translation and transmediality. George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bard. Introduction, reading, commentary analysis.

Seventh week. Poetry. Anthropology and literature. George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bard. Reading, commentary analysis.

Eighth week. One of the films in the program. Comment analysis. Conclusion of the course.

In order to achieve the knowledge and skills corresponding to the sufficiency level, the student is asked to demonstrate:

1.KNOWLEDGE
to know the works of Umberto Saba and Vittorio Sereni;
Knowledge of some fundamentals of literary theory, comparative literature, and literary work analysis tools; knowledge of the texts and movies examined in the course, in the light of the relationship between identity and otherness, and with particular attention to the linguistic and stylistic dimension, and the different ways of characterizing the heroes and their relationships.

2. SKILLS
knowing how to analyze and interpret XXth century literary texts, linking ideological elements to more strictly literary ones;
Acquisition of the tools for analyzing the modern literary text, with particular attention to the techniques and perspectives exemplified in the works examined in the course.

3. TRANSVERSAL SKILLS
Being able to present with clarity and argumentative efficacy, using the appropriate terminology the results of the readings carried out.

For the achievement of an advanced level, the student must demonstrate:
A global and unitary understanding of the path formed by the course, with the acquired complementarity between theoretical-methodological skills and interpretative skills.
The ability to autonomously re-elaborate the contents of the course and to apply the tools and knowledge acquired to texts and materials, including those other than those in the program.
The active and confident competence of critical and theoretical terminology combined with excellent communication skills.