UCL - An Author and his Work

[ROM2854]

[15h] 5 credits

This course is taught in the 1st & 2d semester.

This two-yearly course is taught in 2010-2011, 2012-2013,...

Teacher(s): Costantino Maeder

Language: I

Level: Second

Aims
Main themes
Content and teaching methods
Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Aims

To be able to analyse an italian poem. To know the mechanisms and functioning of poetry. To know the characteristics of an italian poem. To be able to write-up an analysis. To have read the fundamental collections of italian poetry. To be able to interpret a poem according to semiotic and post-semiotic methods. To be able to recognize the distinctive characteristics of a poem and to contextualise them in their cultural synchrony.

Main themes

phenomenons linked to communication/incommunicability, to argumentation, to iconism and to the modes of signification of the signifier.
Semiotics, postsemiotic approaches, iconism, cultural studies.

Content and teaching methods

Hermetic authors such as Saba, Montale or Ungaretti deal with the search of meaning in their poems. They compel the reader, through their sayings and poems, to help them in return find the meaning that escapes them as authors. In class, we shall analyse the argumentative and rhetorical strategies, often linked to iconism, which, in spite of the destruction of the traditionnal form, determine and condition the creation of meaning.

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Prerequisite (ideally in terms of competences). To know the general framework of italian literature. To know how to express oneself orally in italian. To know ho to write-up a text in italian. To know the basics pertaining to narratology and textual analysis. Evaluation : Oral and written exam. The student will choose a group of poems (a collection or a section of poems) which he or she will analyse according to the contents of the course. The student will hand-in a written version according to the criteria of scientific writing. At the oral exam, he or she will discuss the term paper with the instructor and will analyse the questions which pertain to the contents of the course.
Support : I-campus.

Compulsory readings :

-book on Iconicity
-coursepack on theoretical articles
-coursepack for the ROM course : Analyse pragmatique de textes littéraires

Additionnal compulsory readings :

-Saba : Canzoniere
-Montale : Ossi di seppia
-Ungaretti : l'allegria
-Leopardi : Canti

Students will also have read the pages devoted to poetry in Giulio Ferroni's Storia della letteratura italiana.