Italian Literature (advanced)

The course aims at improving the students' acquaintance of Italian Modern Literature, as well as developing their critical awareness of the literary tradition: historical background, transmission of texts, thematic and stylistic aspects. In order to achieve these goals, the course focuses on some relevant authors and texts from the late XVIth to the XIXth century.
Furthermore, in its first part the course aims at making the students more familiar with Dante's Commedia, with the help of the main tools of analysis and through the discussion of critical approaches useful to interpret literary texts (theory of styles and genres).

Knowledge. At the end of the course, the students are expected to be well-informed about Italian Modern Literature, especially for ages and authors which are object of the lessons; and to have a fair knowledge of Dante's Commedia.

Skills. The students are expected to be aware of the most suitable tools for the analysis and interpretation of literary texts (thematical and formal aspects), and to be able to set the works in their historical context. They are also expected to be conscious of the different methodological perspectives and to recognize the problematic aspects of the topics studied; to demonstrate a correct use of a scientific bibliography and the ability to clearly argue and properly use the specific lexicon of the discipline.