The course consists of two sections. The first part will be devoted to textual criticism; we will apply the teoretical notions introduced to some Old Germanic (but also Romance) texts, about which we will give a literary introduction as well as a linguistic and philological comment. In the second part we will deal with the theme of medioeval society, with particular attention paid to Old English, Norse and Middle English literatures.
LUISELLI FADDA, Anna Maria. 1994. Tradizioni manoscritte e critica del testo nel Medioevo germanico. Roma: La Terza.
M. Amodio, The Anglo Saxon Literature Handbook. 2013. London: Wiley-Blackwell
Bennett, Jack Arthur Walter. 1986. Middle English literature /edited and completed by Douglas Gray. Oxford : Clarendon press.
McTurk, Rory 2005. A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture. London: Blackwell.
Materials commented during the course are available for students on Moodle platform and are part of the bibliography.
Learning Objectives
The learning goal of the course is to develop theoretical and methodological skills in the field of Germanic Philology.
Students will develop
- knowledge of the concepts of Germanic Philology, of text critics and historical comparative linguistics in the field of Germanic languages
- knowledge of the terminology and inquiring tools proper to ecdotic analysis
- acquisition of skills related to the philological analysis of texts.
The extra-disciplinary goal of the course is to stimulate students
- to develop a conscious use of the academic environment, of the CdS, of the assistance facilities provided to exploit the academic features and to manage student careers
- to develop intellectual participation and effective student-teacher collaboration
- awareness in use of the learning resources provided by both CdS and Scuola
Prerequisites
Basic knowledge in linguistics
Teaching Methods
Lectures and written essays.
Further information
Attendance is required for at least 2/3rds of the course. No provisions and specific exams for non-attending students, except for part-time students (who must contact the professor at the beginning of the course in order to agree upon a specific program).
Type of Assessment
Students take either an oral or written exam.
Students can choose to take the exam either through a written or an oral test. The test is designed to assess the relevance and coherence of the students' answers, their capacity for making judgements and express opinions on a topic in a structured way and consist of questions related to the topics covered in the course, including:
- concepts and terms of ecdotics or textual criticism.
- general knowledge of the Old Germanic literatures
- analysis of one or more texts analysed during the course.
The final mark will be calculated as the average between the marks obtained in the either written or oral exam and the marks obtained in the essay delivered during the course .
Course program
During the first part of the course the student will face the problems connected with the edition of a Medieval text and at the same time theoretically learn how to edit a text. The terminology introduced in the first part will be confronted with Old Germanic (but also Romance) texts, of which translation, literary introduction, and linguistic and philological comments will be provided. The second part focuses on medieval society, paying special attention to Old English, Norse and Middle English literatures.
The students, who attend the course, will accompany the lectures with a bibliography of reference to which the student must add a grammar of Old English, Norse and Middle English, to be used during the analysis of texts. During the course we will offer bibliography where students can find the Old Germanic texts analyzed during the lectures.