Italian Modern and Contemporary Literature

The course aims to provide an advanced overview of the modern literary system in Italy, in its historical development to the present day, according to different perspectives. One perspective is critical and methodological: it aims to strengthen the comprehension of the functional relationships among the main actors of literary communication (authors, readers, publishers, critics). The other perspectives focus on specific literary periods, training students to the critical analysis of the authors' choices of genre and style.

Knowledge: 1) Essential account of the raise and development of the modern bourgeois literary system: cultural trends, movements and conceptions of literature; genres and styles; analytical knowledge of significant works of Italian literary tradition from Unity to the present day. 2) Main issues related to the modern dynamics of literary experience: modes and forms of literary reading; the narrative pact; functions of publishing mediation.

Skills: 1) Ability to examine the reading list recognizing the authorship and audience features: reading pacts, role of paratexts, discursive regime, space-time narrative coordinates. 2) Ability to delineate the genre system and its main transformations; ability to place the individual works correctly; ability to describe and interpret the paratextual sections. 3) Ability to analyse the works comparing different critical interpretations, and to build up a streamlined bibliography.