The course aims to offer an overview of the narrative production of the late twentieth century and the early years of this century in order to identify in the light of exemplary novels the main trends and the most debated aesthetic issues.
Fictional works (any edition):
- Raffaele La Capria, «Ferito a morte», 1961.
- Giorgio Bassani, «Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini», 1962 (to be read with the help of Nicola Turi, «Sul limitar della soglia: spazi temi e strategie narrative del Giardino», in «La Rivista», 3, 2015, at the address https://f.hypotheses.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/326/files/2016/01/Turi-glissées.pdf), or «L’Airone», 1968 (to be read with the help of Anna Dolfi, «L’Airone: una figura della malinconia», in «Giorgio Bassani. Una scrittura della malinconia», Roma, Bulzoni, 2003, pp. 107-127).
- Beppe Fenoglio, «Una questione privata», 1963.
- Giuseppe Berto, «Il male oscuro», 1964.
Essays (in order to be able to fully understand of the literary debate during the Sixties, students are also required to know the following texts):
- Elio Vittorini, «Industria e letteratura», in «Letteratura arte società: articoli e interventi 1938-1965», Einaudi, 2008, pp. 955-962.
- Italo Calvino, «Il mare dell’oggettività», in «Una pietra sopra: discorsi di letteratura e società», 1980.
- Maria Corti, «Neoavanguardia», in «Il viaggio testuale», Torino, Einaudi, 1978, pp. 111-130.
- Alberto Arbasino, «La gita a Chiasso», in «Gruppo 63. Critica e teoria» (Feltrinelli 1976 or Testo & immagine 2003).
Part two
Fictional works
- Antonio Tabucchi, «Piccoli equivoci senza importanza» (1985) or «Requiem» (1991) or «Sostiene Pereira» (1994), to be read with the help of chapter I-III («Storie incompiute, finzione e gioco del reves»; «La scrittura e gli oggetti della saudade»; «Lo spleen di Parigi e il senso di colpa»: pp. 9-54) of Anna Dolfi, «Gli oggetti e il tempo della saudade. Le storie inafferrabili di Antonio Tabucchi», Firenze, Le Lettere, 2010.
- Daniele Del Giudice, «Lo stadio di Wimbledon» (1983) or «Staccando l’ombra da terra» (1994), to be read with the help of Paolo Zublena, «La scienza del sentimento. Il linguaggio tecnico-scientifico in Daniele Del Giudice», in «L’inquietante simmetria della lingua: il linguaggio tecnico-scientifico nella narrativa italiana del Novecento», Alessandria, Edizioni dell’Orso, 2002, pp. 119-142.
- Walter Siti, «Troppi paradisi» (2006) or «Il contagio» (2008) (to be read with the help of «Un libro in questione: Walter Siti, Troppi paradisi», in «Allegoria», 55, 2007, pp. 211-229).
- Students are also required to study one text from the following list:
Pier Vittorio Tondelli, «Altri libertini» (1980)
Aldo Busi, «Seminario sulla gioventù» (1984)
Pier Vittorio Tondelli, «Camere separate» (1989)
Sergio Atzeni, «Il figlio di Bakunìn» (1991)
Luther Blissett, «Q» (1999)
Antonio Moresco, «Canti del caos – prima parte» (2001)
Vitaliano Trevisan, «I quindicimila passi. Un resoconto» (2002)
Andrea Bajani, «Se consideri le colpe» (2007)
Helena Janeczek, «Le rondini di Montecassino» (2010)
Michele Mari, «Rosso Floyd» (2010)
Elena Ferrante, «L’amica geniale» (2011)
Francesco Pecoraro, «La vita in tempo di pace» (2013)
Giorgio Falco, «La gemella H» (2014)
Essays
- Daniele Giglioli, «Senza trauma: scrittura dell’estremo e narrativa del nuovo millennio», Macerata, Quodlibet, 2011.
- Andrea Cortellessa, «La terra della prosa», in «Allegoria», 64, 2011, pp. 51-79.
Learning Objectives
KNOWLEDGE - The knowledge of two key periods of Italian fiction production (starting from the 1960s) will be deepened, retracing critical debate around them and comparing the main texts produced, also in light of the historical and political 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. Plus the course aims at providing the students with technical skills to improve their language when describing and explaining the books they read.
BEHAVIOR - The course aims to stimulate the student to develop a good and fruitful communication with the teacher, in order to acquire critical autonomy, as well as to assure the conscious use of research tools offered by the university structure and the Cds.
Prerequisites
It is necessary to have a basic knoweledge of the italian literary context of the second half of ‘900 and of the critical language of reference.
Teaching Methods
Frontal lessons of two hours each, which may be supplemented with short oral reports of the students (which will be assessed in the final examination).
Further information
Part-time students (all the other students are required to attend at least 2/3 of the total classes) are asked to get in touch with Dr. Nicola Turi to agree on a specific syllabus.
Through the e-learning platform, students can enroll in the course and download useful material to enhance the content of the course.
Type of Assessment
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.
Course program
The course, of 12 CFU and entitled THE NOVEL OF THE SECOND NINETEENT (AND BEYOND), will be divided into two parts (of 6 CFU each). In the first (TRADITION AND INNOVATION IN THE NARRATIVE FROM THE SIXTIES) we intend to retrace a particularly lively season of our narrative, exploring the main trends and literary figures and focusing in particular on the defining texts by Giorgio Bassani and Beppe Fenoglio but also, on a more experimental level, by Raffaele La Capria and Giuseppe Berto (at the same time offering an introduction to issues related to the Group 63 activity, the rediscovery of Gadda, the trend of the industrial novel). In the second part (TERZO NOVECENTO? UNA MAPPATURA GENERALE) the course will fast forward to about 15 years ahead and move on to a less explored area of our narrative trying to fix, after the deep changes in the historical and social context and in the editorial environment, the main aesthetic orientations and the most important literary figures (the focus will be mainly on the names of Daniele Del Giudice, Antonio Tabucchi and Walter Siti, thus embracing a period that goes from the early eighties to today).
Students passing a 6 credit exam in Modern and contemporary Italian literature will follow the second part of the course.