Learning outcomes

The course aims at providing students with critical insights into some of the fundamental aspects in the evolution of Russian prose literature in the XIX and XX century. The attention will be focused on the critical analysis of some works of particularly meaningful and influential authors. Considering also the cultural and historical backgrounds, the guiding lines of the itinerary will be the literary representation of everyday objects and realia, whoch condense metaphoric and semiotic undertones declined in different stylistic modes in the selected texts. The works proposed belong to different genres, as short-stories, novels and novellas (povesti), in order to illustrate the formal developments of Russian prose literature through the centuries.

Program

From life to literary page: the "poetics of objects" as a reformulaton of everyday life in Russian prose literature from the XIX to the XX century.

The itinerary into Russian culture and literature will analyse and comment different texts written by some influential authors of the two centuries. The literary representation of everyday life through common objects and realia will provide a guiding line to explore the works finding in them a series of thematic and stylistic affinities (Leitmotives).

The course will be hold in the second semester, and presupposes some previous knowledge of general, fundamental developments of Russian history of the XIX and XX century. Students are warmly recommended to attend the lessons and to read the works ahead. Those who cannot come to the lessons should contact the teacher to agree upon the programme.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

a) Works (in Italian translations or in Russian originals):
- A. Puškin, Il fabbricante di bare
- N. Gogol’, Proprietari di vecchio stampo
- F. Dostoevskij, Delitto e castigo
- A. Čechov, Il violino di Rot ši l’d
- M. Bulgakov, Il maestro e Margherita
- S. Dovlatov, La valigia

b) Critical materials: TWO essays FREELY CHOSEN among the following ones

- Sv. Bojm, Obščie mesta. Mifologija povsednevnoj žizni, Moskva, Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie, 2002, pp. 45-135; [ed. in inglese Id., Common Places: Mythologies of Everyday Life in Russia, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard U.P.,1994].
- N. M. Fortunatov, “Grobovščik” Puškina i “Skripka Rotšil’da” Čechova (k probleme architektoniki novelly), Boldinskie čtenija, redkol.: M.P. Alekseev [i dr.], Gor’kovskij gos. Universitet im. N. I. Lobačevskogo, Gor’kij, Volgo-Vjatskoe kn. izd-vo, 1976, s. 93-103.
- N. K. Gej, Proza Puškina: Poètika povestvovanija, otvestvennyj redaktor S. G. Bočarov, Moskva, Nauka, 1989.
- Ju. Karjakin, L’autoinganno di Raskol’nikov, in Id., Dostoevskij e la vigilia del XXI secolo, in publication, Italian translation by C. De Lotto of Ju. Karjakin, Dostoevskij i Apokalipsis, Moskva, Folio, 2009.
- Ju. Lotman, Il problema dello spazio artistico in Gogol’, in Id. (con B. A. Uspenskij), Tipologia della cultura, a cura di R. Faccani, M. Marzaduri, Milano, Bompiani, 1975, pp. 193-248.
- Ju. Lotman, La casa ne Il Maestro e Margherita, «eSamizdat», 2005 (III) 2-3, pp. 31-36; [http://www.esamizdat.it/lotman_temi_trad_eS_2005_(III)_2-3.pdf].
- Ju. Mann, La poetica di Gogol’, Roma, Lithos, 2014, pp. 135-178.
- M. Martini, Oltre il disgelo. La letteratura russa dopo l’Urss, Milano, Mondadori, 2002, pp. 39-46.
- G. P. Piretto, La Russia “dentro e fuori l’Europa”, in AA. VV., Mappe della letteratura europea e Mediterranea, vol. III, Da Gogol’ al Postmoderno, a cura di G. M. Anselmi, Milano, Bruno Mondadori, 2001, pp. 1-54.
- G. P. Piretto, La vita privata degli oggetti sovietici. 25 storie da un altro mondo, Milano, Sironi, 2012, pp. 7-45; 62-67; 138-147; 150-153; 188-191.
- I. Remonato, “Il violino di Rotšil’d” ieri e oggi, «Slavia», XV, 1, 2006, pp. 96-107.
- I. Surat, S. Bočarov, Puškin: kratkij očerk žizni i tvorcestva, Moskva, Jazyki slavjanskoj kul’tury, 2002.


c) Texts for general reference:

HISTORICAL PART:
- F. Benvenuti, Storia della Russia contemporanea (1853-1996), Roma - Bari, Laterza, 1999.

HISTORY OF LITERATURE:
- AA.VV., Storia della civiltà letteraria russa, diretta da Michele Colucci e Riccardo Picchio, Torino, UTET, 1997, voll. 1 e 2 (le parti relative agli autori e ai periodi trattati).

Examination Methods

Optional: interim written test on the historical part of the programme.

Oral assessment on literary works and on the critical essays.