Learning outcomes

The course aims at providing the methodological grounds to evaluate textual transmission and build a modern critical edition; alongside with a brief history of the various forms of text production and diffusion, the course will introduce the main criteria of text reconstruction and restoration and explain their linguistic implications. The second part of the course aims at introducing the various aspects and problems related to the analysis of vernacular texts and their transmission, illustrating the main criteria of textual reconstruction and editorial technique; due attention will be paid to the complex relationship between philological reconstruction and interpretation of text, the choice of a copy-text and the different methods in granting linguistic credibility to literary works edited from non-autograph sources. Within the new digital context, and in the theoretical tradition of Anglo-American editorial theory, the course will attempt to introduce the new challenges facing textual scholars dealing with the publication of early texts, and the new role of cultural mediation that scholarly editing must take on within the framework of a greater transpoition of all textual and literary knowledge into digital form.

Program

The course is taught within a single cycle; however, its syllabus is divided into three main sections:

I parte – Istituzioni di filologia: problemi e metodi. [18 ore = 3 CFU]

A. STUSSI, Breve avviamento agli studi di filologia italiana, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2002.

B. BENTIVOGLI-P. VECCHI GALLI, Filologia italiana, Milano, B. Mondadori, 2002.

NB. I due manuali sopra indicati sono obbligatori per tutti e necessari alla preparazione dell'esame.

II parte –Edizione critica e pubblicazione digitale: vecchi problemi e nuove frontiere

Elena Pierazzo, La codifica dei testi: un'introduzione, Roma, Carocci, 2005 (e succ. edd.)

M. Zaccarello, Alcune questioni di metodo nella critica dei testi volgari, Verona, Fiorini, 2012.


III parte – Un case study estremo: l’edizione della Commedia dantesca [18 ore = 3 CFU]

The teacher will provide this section's reading syllabus (scholarly articles published in scientific journals) in PDF format during the course.

Non-attendees will also have to read:

G. INGLESE, Come si legge un'edizione critica, Roma, Carocci, 1999.

S. TIMPANARO, La genesi del metodo del Lachmann, con una presentazione e una postilla di Elio Montanari, Torino, UTET, 2003.

Examination Methods

The exam will be taken as a viva.