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Learning outcomes

Romance philology is a field of scientific research that studies neo-latin languages (i.e. vernacular tongues that developed from Latin) and their related literatures in a historico-comparative perspective. The course is designed to give students a critical insight into the works and culture of some of the most important medieval authors by means of different methods of interpretation (textual and literary criticism, codicology, etc.).

Course pre-requisites: none.

Program

MEDIEVAL SONGBOOKS AND ROMANCE LYRICAL TRADITIONS.
The course introduces students to the handwritten manuscripts that collect the vernacular poetry produced by the troubadours in Southern France, by the trouvères in Northern France and by the Galician-portuguese trobadores in Spain, between the 11th and 14th centuries. Through the description and analysis of the most notheworthy manuscript books, the ways they circulated and have been handed down to us, their internal structure and their often rich decorative programs, the course aims at giving students an overall understanding of the development of European lyric tradition. The most representative poems of these literary traditions (courtly love songs, satirical poems, hybrid texts) are put into their linguistic and historical contexts and are examined from the thematic, metric and lexical-stylistic point of view.

Bibliography:

1. TEXTBOOKS
I. Furio Brugnolo - Roberta Capelli, Profilo delle letterature romanze medievali, Roma, Carocci, 2011.

2. ANTHOLOGIES
*** Important: The exam questions will focus on the texts read and analyzed during the course.
I. Giuseppe E. Sansone (ed.), La poesia dell’antica Provenza: testi e storia dei trovatori, Parma, Guanda, 1993.
II. Aurelio Roncaglia (ed.), Antologia delle letterature medievali d’oc e d’oïl, Milano, Edizioni Accademia, 1989.
III. Giuseppe E. Sansone (ed.), Diorama lusitano: poesie d'amore e di scherno dei trovatori galego-portoghesi, Milano, Rizzoli, 1990.

3. CRITICAL ESSAYS
I. D’Arco Silvio Avalle, I manoscritti della letteratura in lingua d’oc, new edition by Lino Leonardi, Torino, PBE, 1993, ch. III: La tradizione manoscritta della lirica occitanica, pp. 61-106.
II. Giuseppe Tavani, Poesia del Duecento nella penisola iberica. Problemi della lirica galego-portoghese, Roma, Edizioni dell'Ateneo, 1969; pt. II, ch. 3: Come si è costituita la tradizione manoscritta della lirica galego-portoghese, pp. 145-175.
III. Further bibliography will be made available during the course and considered an integral part of the exam.

4. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Students who are unable to attend class must contact the Professor for integrative bibliography.

Examination Methods

Final oral examination.