French Literature
A.Y. 2025/2026
Learning objectives
The course aims to provide non-specialist students an overall preparation in relation to French Literature and Civilisation, with a focus on influence and mediation with Italian Literature.
Expected learning outcomes
Knowledge: 1) An essential framework of French Literature, according to the periods and authors considered, 2) Understanding basic elements in order to analyse texts' structure (metrical, stylistic, narrative devices).
Skills. 1) Ability to identify the main expressive features (stylistic, thematic and structural) of every literary work and recognize the author's identity in it 2) Ability to date literary works in chronological and cultural connection with Italian literature, 3) Ability to use coherently critical contributions 4) Ability to read works and identify themes and formal issues.
Skills. 1) Ability to identify the main expressive features (stylistic, thematic and structural) of every literary work and recognize the author's identity in it 2) Ability to date literary works in chronological and cultural connection with Italian literature, 3) Ability to use coherently critical contributions 4) Ability to read works and identify themes and formal issues.
Lesson period: First semester
Assessment methods: Esame
Assessment result: voto verbalizzato in trentesimi
Single course
This course cannot be attended as a single course. Please check our list of single courses to find the ones available for enrolment.
Course syllabus and organization
Single session
Responsible
Lesson period
First semester
Course syllabus
The Course is entitled Artist portraits in the 19th century: jesters, boats, children and severed heads
The Course aims to conduct a reflection on the status of the artist within the bourgeois culture of the 19th century, in France, from the 1950s onwards. In the face of an inexorable distance with the mundane body, the artist tends to offer a playful, ironic, critical and self-critical portrait of himself, which the course intends to analyze, in particular, through an anthological reading of the work of Baudelaire and Rimbaud.
The Course includes a final part dedicated to the rewriting of an evangelical episode - the beheading of John the Baptist - as a form of authorial self-representation in a Flaubert count.
The Course aims to conduct a reflection on the status of the artist within the bourgeois culture of the 19th century, in France, from the 1950s onwards. In the face of an inexorable distance with the mundane body, the artist tends to offer a playful, ironic, critical and self-critical portrait of himself, which the course intends to analyze, in particular, through an anthological reading of the work of Baudelaire and Rimbaud.
The Course includes a final part dedicated to the rewriting of an evangelical episode - the beheading of John the Baptist - as a form of authorial self-representation in a Flaubert count.
Prerequisites for admission
passive knowledge of French is required: Italian translations are used individually, but texts are read in class in French for stylistic commentary on the original. A small part of the critical material may be in French.
Teaching methods
Frontal teaching: presentation of the subject and contextualization of the authors and works chosen; analysis of texts by Baudelaire and Rimbaud and Flaubert's tale examined in their different articulations (rhetorical devices, stylistic, poetic or narrative structures,
Attendance is not compulsory but strongly recommended.
Attendance is not compulsory but strongly recommended.
Teaching Resources
For 6 credits:
Anthology of texts available on my Ariel website at the beginning of the course.
Dossier of critical texts available on my Ariel website from the end of October
For non-attending students
Additional PDF critical material uploaded to my Ariel website from the end of October
For the 9 credits for attending and non-attending students:
Gustave Flaubert, Hérodias, any edition with parallel text in French. We recommend the edition edited by Giovanni Iudica, Milano, Edizioni Settecolori, 2021
Dossier of critical texts available on my Ariel website from the beginning of November
For non-attending students:
Additional critical material on my ariel website from the beginning of November
Anthology of texts available on my Ariel website at the beginning of the course.
Dossier of critical texts available on my Ariel website from the end of October
For non-attending students
Additional PDF critical material uploaded to my Ariel website from the end of October
For the 9 credits for attending and non-attending students:
Gustave Flaubert, Hérodias, any edition with parallel text in French. We recommend the edition edited by Giovanni Iudica, Milano, Edizioni Settecolori, 2021
Dossier of critical texts available on my Ariel website from the beginning of November
For non-attending students:
Additional critical material on my ariel website from the beginning of November
Assessment methods and Criteria
he oral test consists of an interview in Italian on the subject of the syllabus. The student must analyse the texts in French presented in the course, know how to contextualize them (historical-literary context), know how to recognize the elements of reflection on the poet's self-representation; know how to analyse the individual texts in their various articulations (rhetorical and stylistic devices, poetic and narrative structures)
Assessment criteria ability to situate the works analyzed culturally; ability to use literary critical contributions on the subject coherently; ability to reason critically; quality of exposition; competence in critical reflection on the poet's self-representation from the literary works analyzed.
Assessment criteria ability to situate the works analyzed culturally; ability to use literary critical contributions on the subject coherently; ability to reason critically; quality of exposition; competence in critical reflection on the poet's self-representation from the literary works analyzed.
Unita' didattica A
L-LIN/03 - FRENCH LITERATURE - University credits: 3
Lessons: 20 hours
Unita' didattica B
L-LIN/03 - FRENCH LITERATURE - University credits: 3
Lessons: 20 hours
Unita' didattica C
L-LIN/03 - FRENCH LITERATURE - University credits: 3
Lessons: 20 hours
Professor(s)
Reception:
Tuesday from 2.30 to 7.30 pm.
square S.Alessandro 1, 2nd floor