CONTEMPORARY ITALIAN LITERATURE

According to the Dublin descriptors, students should, at the end of the course, acquire

1) knowledge and understanding in a field of study at post-secondary level and be familiar with the fundamental issues in their field of study; 

2) ability to apply knowledge and understanding in a way that demonstrates a professional approach and possess adequate skills both to devise and support arguments and to solve problems in their field of study

3) learning skills necessary to undertake subsequent studies with a high degree of autonomy.

Specifically, the study of the authors will be conducted through the analysis of texts that allow a direct comparison with their poetics, as well as through knowledge of the main critical contributions relating to the works examined. At the end of the course, students will be able to use the reading tools also for the analysis of other 20th century authors and texts, adequately assessing their formal, stylistic and symbolic characteristics.

Lectures.

A) Twentieth-century Italian fiction and poetry (7 CFU)

B) Vittorini and the Initiation Novel (2 CFU)

A) The Italian storytelling and poetry in the twentieth century (7 ECTS).

A textbook to choose from:

C. Segre – C. Martignoni, Leggere il mondo, Edizioni Scolastiche Bruno Mondadori, (related chapters);

R. Luperini – P. Cataldi – L. Marchiani, Il nuovo La scrittura e l’interpretazione, voll. 5-6, Palumbo (related chapters);

G. Langella, La modernità letteraria. Manuale di letteratura italiana moderna e contemporanea, Pearson 2021 (related chapters).

The total amount of pages is within the limit of 400.

Particular attention should be paid to the following authors:

G. Pascoli, G. D’Annunzio L. Pirandello, G. Gozzano, C. Sbarbaro, U. Saba, C. Rebora, D. Campana, F. Tozzi, I. Svevo, C.E. Gadda, A. Moravia, G. Ungaretti, E. Montale, S. Quasimodo, C. Pavese, E. Vittorini, V. Pratolini, B. Fenoglio, P. Levi, I. Calvino, E. Morante, P.P. Pasolini, V. Sereni, G. Caproni, A. Bertolucci, A. Zanzotto, M. Luzi, F. Fortini, E. Sanguineti, L. Sciascia, G. Manganelli, G. Bufalino. The study will be complemented by an anthology of texts (50 prose texts and 50 poetical texts, about 300 pp.) chosen by the student.

B) Vittorini and the initiation novel (2 ECTS).

E. Vittorini, Il garofano rosso, edition of your choice.

E. Vittorini, Conversazione in Sicilia, edition of your choice.

M. Paino, Ritorni vittoriniani, in Ead., Il moto immobile. Nostoi, sonni e sogni nella letteratura siciliana del ‘900, Pisa, ETS, pp. 11-37.  

Please remember that in compliance with art 171 L22.04.1941, n. 633 and its amendments, it is illegal to copy entire books or journals, only 15% of their content can be copied.

For further information on sanctions and regulations concerning photocopying please refer to the regulations on copyright (Linee Guida sulla Gestione dei Diritti d’Autore) provided by AIDRO - Associazione Italiana per i Diritti di Riproduzione delle opere dell’ingegno (the Italian Association on Copyright).

All the books listed in the programs can be consulted in the Library.

Final oral examination.

For the assessment of the examination, account will be taken of the candidate's mastery of the content and skills acquired, linguistic accuracy and lexical propriety, as well as his or her ability to argue.

The learning assessment may also be carried out electronically, should the conditions so require.

Characteristics of the modernist novel 

The influence of psychoanalysis on 20th century literature 

Characteristics of Neorealism 

Metrical and stylistic analysis, paraphrase and commentary of a poetic text 

Vittorini and the Resistance The training novel