The aim of the course is to provide an exhaustive outline of the Italian literary tradition and its main formal and thematic features from the beginning to the Italian Unity.

Prerequisites: Basic knowledge of Italian literature
Content
Leopardi and Manzoni between literature and philosophy.

First part
The first part of the course aims to offer an image of the whole of the thought of Giacomo Leopardi, and to investigate in particular the relations between the "Zibaldone" and the "Canti": we will try to identify similarities and differences between Leopardi's poetry and philosophical writings , and to discuss, starting from this premise, the category of nihilism in Leopardi.

texts:
G. Leopardi, Canti, edited by L. Felici, Newton Compton; or by F. Bandini, Garzanti. For the Zibaldone, a selection of pages will be extracted from the website of the Italian Library.

essays:
F. D'Intino-L.Maccioni, Leopardi: guida allo Zibaldone, Carocci, 2016.
L. Felici, Un canto dal nulla (in ED. Newton Compton of "Canti" above).
F. Bandini, La poetica leopardiana e il testo dei "Canti" (in ED. Garzanti of "Canti" above).

Lecture notes. Additional critical bibliography will be indicated in class.

Second part
The second part of the course will focus on the work of Alessandro Manzoni and in particular on the connections between some of his theoretical essays and the most famous literary works. In particular, we will considered in their relations with I promessi sposi and with the poetic work of Manzoni's the Osservazioni sulla morale cattolica (reference edition: Alessandro Manzoni, Osservazioni sulla morale cattolica, critical text with introduction, edited by Romano Amerio , Milan, Naples, R. Ricciardi, 1965) and Il dialogo dell'Invenzione (edition reference Alessandro Manzoni, Dell'invenzione e altri scritti filosofici, premessa di Carlo Carena, introduction and notes by Umberto Muratore, Milan, Centro nazionale studi manzoniani, 2004 ).
Students who will not attend ti the lectures, as well as to demonstrate a detailed knowledge of the essay by Gino Tellini, Manzoni, Rome, Salerno, 2007, are required to read the introductory essay to the Osservazioni sulla morale cattolica of Romano Amerio in the edition cited above and the premessa di Carlo Carena and the introduction by C. Muratore to the Dell'invenzione in the edition quoted above.

Attending and non-attending students are required to know the main lines of development of Italian literature. For this purpose can be used for self-preparation of this preliminary part: Gino Tellini, ILetteratura italiana. Un metodo di studio, Florence, Le Monnier University, 2011 (the first two sections: alle origini al Rinascimento e Dalla Nuova Scienza all’epica risorgimentale, pp. 3-336.

Teaching methods: Lectures, seminars possible.
The exam will be oral. In the first part the student must demonstrate knowledge of the history of Italian literature (this part must be prepared independently by each student, using the mentioned manual); the second part will be devoted to the Learning Assessment of the course sections on Leopardi and Manzoni: Attending students can prepare for the second part using notes taken in class; Non attending stutends will prepare the second part on the bibliography mentioned above.