B006799 - MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ITALIAN LITERATURE

italian

The course aims to retrace, through a selection of particularly significant episodes, the history of the short story in Italian literature from the twentieth century, in order to reflect on the evolution of the genre and, in the light of the proposed examples, to focus on some relevant figures and trends in our literary history.

Part one:

Fictional works (in any edition, if not stated otherwise):

- Giuseppe Dessì, «Nascita di un uomo» e altri racconti, Nuoro, Ilisso, 2015 (to be read with the help of Nicola Turi’s preface: Temi figure e modelli di un’organica comédie: ritratto ulteriore di Giuseppe Dessí, pp. 7-54).
- Tommaso Landolfi, Dialogo dei massimi sistemi, 1937 (to be read with the help of Michele Mari, Tre forme della fantasia landolfiana, in La liquida vertigine atti delle Giornate di studio su Tommaso Landolfi, edited by Idolina Landolfi, Firenze, Olschki, 2002; and with Rodolfo Sacchettini, La lingua ‘impossibile’ della Piccola apocalisse, in «Chroniques Italiennes», 81-82, 2008, pp. 119-138).
- Italo Calvino, Ultimo viene il corvo, 1949 (just the following texts: Uomo nei gerbidi, I figli poltroni, La casa degli alveari, Andato al comando, Ultimo viene il corvo, Uno dei tre è ancora vivo, Campo di mine) and Tutte le cosmicomiche, 1997 (just the following texts: I cristalli, Ti con zero, L’inseguimento, Il guidatore notturno, Il conte di Montecristo, La memoria del mondo).
- Beppe Fenoglio, I ventitré giorni della città di Alba (just the following texts: I ventitré giorni della città di Alba, L’andata, Il trucco, Gli inizi del partigiano Raoul, Vecchio Blister, Un altro muro, Ettore va al lavoro)

Students are also required to deepen Italian literary history of the twentieth century by reading the following essays from Il romanzo in Italia. I. Forme, poetiche, questioni, Roma, Carocci, 2018: Andrea Battistini, Le poetiche del romanzo italiano, pp. 127-152; Federico Bertoni, I generi del romanzo nel Novecento italiano, pp. 175-196; Maurizio Dardano, Le lingue del romanzo, pp. 217-237: Mauro Novelli, Il consumo dei romanzi: le collane, pp. 281-302.

Part two:

Fictional works:
- Giorgio Manganelli, Centuria, 1979.
- Antonio Tabucchi, Il gioco del rovescio (1981) or Piccoli equivoci senza importanza (1985) or L’angelo nero (1991), to be read with the help of Anna Dolfi, L’angelo nero e gli animali inquietanti, in Tabucchi: la specularità, il rimorso, Roma, Bulzoni, 2006, pp. 211-242, e Anna Dolfi, I personaggi, la saudade, la notte, in Gli oggetti e il tempo della saudade. Le storie inafferrabili di Antonio Tabucchi, Firenze, Le Lettere, 2010, pp. 55-71.
- Del Giudice, Mania, 1997.

- Students are also required to study one text from the following list:
- Pier Vittorio Tondelli, Altri libertini, 1980.
- Gianni Celati, Narratori delle pianure, 1985.
- Michele Mari, Tu sanguinosa infanzia, 1997.
- Antonio Pascale, La manutenzione degli affetti, 2003
- Walter Siti, La magnifica merce, 2004.
- Giorgio Falco, L'ubicazione del bene. 2009.
- Claudio Magris, Tempo curvo a Krems, 2019.

Essays:

- Viktor Šklovskij, La struttura della novella e del romanzo, from I formalisti russi: teoria della letteratura e metodo critico, edited by Tzvetan Todorov, 1968.
- Boris Ejchenbaum, Teoria della prosa, ivi.
- Romano Luperini, Il trauma e il caso: alcune ipotesi sulla tipologia della novella moderna in Italia, in Tipologia della narrazione breve: atti del Convegno di Studio MOD, edited by Nicola Merola and Giovanna Rosa, Roma, Vecchiarelli, 2004, pp. 63-76.

N. B. Further information about the program and the texts will be provided in class.

KNOWLEDGE AND COMPREHENSION SKILLS The course aims at promoting the knowledge of the genres and trends featuring in the literary history of the Italian twentieth century as well as the understanding and interpretation of the chosen narrative texts, putting them in relation with the historical, social, cultural and literary context of reference.

COMPETENCE The goal of the course is providing the students the necessary tools to understand and to comment on novels (in their semantic and structural complexity) and to put them in relation with the social, historical, cultural and literary context. Moreover, the course aims at providing the students with technical skills to improve their language when describing and explaining the books they read.

It’s requited from the students a basic knoweledge of the italian literary context of the second half of ‘900 and of the critical language of reference.

Frontal lessons of two hours each.

Part-time students (all the other students are required to attend at least 2/3 of the total classes) are requested to get in touch with Dr. Nicola Turi to agree on a specific syllabus.
Through the e-learning platform, students can enroll online to the course and download useful material to enhance the content of the course.

Oral exam. The questions will space through the content of the texts included in the program and commented in class (including in relation to the historical and literary context of reference), in order to assess students' knowledge, analytical skills and language properties.

The course, of 12 CFU and entitled SHORT STORIES FROM THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, will be divided into two parts (of 6 CFU each) and will be entirely dedicated to the evolution of the short story during the twentieth century. The first part of the course will focus on selected authors (whose overall profile will be studied in depth), mostly active between the thirties and the sixties of the twentieth century (Tommaso Landolfi, Giuseppe Dessì, Italo Calvino, Beppe Fenoglio). In the second part, the focus will shift to more recent collections (by Giorgio Manganelli, Antonio Tabucchi, Daniele Del Giudice ...) in order to verify the evolution of the genre (thematic and structural) compared to the previous season. The lessons will also be used to compose, in the light of the proposed examples, a history of the trends and aesthetic issues that run through our literary twentieth century.
Students passing a 6 credit exam in Modern and contemporary Italian literature will follow the second part of the course.