Week I-
Introduction to the course. When does ‘Modern’ Italian literature begin?
Giacomo Leopardi and the foundation of a new poetic subject. Introduction to Leopardi’s Canti.
Week 2-
Poetry as Philosophy- Leopardi’s Canti (selection)
Leopardi’s Operette Morali (selection)
Week 3. Il giovane favoloso (M. Martone, 2014) Clips
Continue: Il giovane favoloso. Discussion.
Week 4.
Literature meets History.
Alessandro Manzoni and the Italian Romanticism. The question of a new language for a new nation.
Manzoni and the new readership. Introduction to I promessi sposi.
Week 5
Literature and Society. The Italian Risorgimento and the question of a national literature. Italy meets modern Europe.
The role of theatre in shaping the modern literary canon. Giuseppe Verdi and his Trilogia Romantica.
Week 6.
Discovering regional identities through literature. Giovanni Verga’s I Malavoglia.
Continue: I Malavoglia (Selection).
QUESTIONNAIRE I DUE
Week 7.
Reacting against the “Stupido Ottocento”. The origins of Italian Decadentism.
Gabriele D’Annunzio and the decline of the Poeta-Vate. Selected poems.
FINAL PAPER OUTLINE (INCLUDING BIBLIOGRAPHY) DUE
Week 8.
Review for Midterm
Midterm
Week 9.
Giovanni Pascoli’s symbolism. Selected poems
Reacting against the Past. Italian Futurism.
Week 10.
Into the Novecento. Poetry against History. Ungaretti’s selected poems.
Montale’s selected poems.
Week 11.
Narratives of Self. The crisis of the traditional narrative subject. Pirandello and Svevo.
Continue: Pirandello and Svevo. Oral presentations
Week 12.
Literature rediscovers History. Postwar Italian literature. Introduction to Neorealism.
Towards the Sixties: the question of modernity in Italian literature. Introduction to Neoavanguardie.
QUESTIONNAIRE 2 DUE
Week 13.
Two paradigms for the late modernity: Italo Calvino and Pier Paolo Pasolini.
Literature as a Game: Calvino.
Week 14.
Literature as ‘Passion and Ideology’: Pasolini and his legacy in the Third Millennium.
Conclusions and review for the final exam.