ITALIAN LITERATURE

KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING ABILITY: In addition to the required knowledge of the nineteenth-and twentieth- century Italian literature, the students should acquire a theoretical awareness of the rise and development of the European modern novel in its various genres with a particular reference to the ‘historical’ one, of which the students should know the basic aspect and further development.

JUDGEMENT: The students should approach the selected novels with critical maturity also in the light of the most significant analysis and interpretations. In the meantime, they should pick up formal peculiarities and contents also in relation to the individual personalities of the authors and the historical and literal contexts they belong to.

COMMUNICATION SKILLS: Through constant input from the teacher and through seminars, students will acquire, or improve, their skills in the critical reading of the selected novels.

LEARNING SKILLS: The students should develop methodological skills in the analysis of literary texts not only in a national perspective but also in an European and extra-European one.

The canon of the historical novel, conceived and defined in the Romantic period, reached its "classical" form in the Italian Promessi sposi. It rapidly declined, but it regularly re-emerged in later times as, for example, in the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and in the second half of the 20th century. However, the canon displayed various features for which the categories "anti-historical novel" and " post-historical novel" have been coined.

1. A. Manzoni, I Promessi sposi (any edition); 2. F. De Roberto, I Vicerè, N. Zago (ed.), Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli (or L. Pirandello, I vecchi e i giovani, Mondadori); 3. G. Tomasi di Lampedusa, Il Gattopardo, Feltrinelli; 4. L. Sciascia, Il Consiglio d'Egitto, Adelphi; 5. G. Bufalino, Le menzogne della notte, N. Zago (ed.), Bompiani.

Testi critici: 1. G. Lukàcs, Il romanzo storico, Einaudi (chapters I and III); 2. V. Spinazzola, Il romanzo antistorico, Editori Riuniti; 3. S. Tusini, Il romanzo post-storico, in "Allegoria", 2004, n. 47; 4. G. Traina, In un destino di verità. Ipotesi su Sciascia, La Vita Felice (chapter on Consiglio d'Egitto); 5. N. Zago, Tomasi di Lampedusa, Bonanno (chapter III).