90137 - History of Culture and Latin Text of Middle Ages (1)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course students gain a basic understanding of the philological method as applied to the tradition of medieval texts (how to study the manuscript tradition of a medieval Latin text, how a critical edition is produced, how to read a critical edition) and are able to apply this knowledge to the history of culture and literary criticism. Students are acquainted with the working conditions of medieval authors and they are introduced to the different concrete forms of medieval textual production in relation to the diversity of the reading public. Students are able to reconstruct critically a brief text transmitted by a simple manuscript tradition.

Course contents

The Disciplina clericalis (or The Student's Whip) by Peter Alfonsi (ca.1070- ca. 1135).

1. What is a text in the Latin Middle Ages? and what is a literary text? how can Latin live in this world? The amazing collection of novellas due to Peter Alfonsi (which goes under the daunting title of Disciplina clericalis) is one of the ideal places to ask these questions to which the modern age will later give answers that no longer satisfy us.

2. Peter's collection is addressed to the students of the University of the early 12th century, to spur them to seek true knowledge, which will make them strong in life and free in science; but how does this collection come about? from what worlds do its endless stories gathered around explosive details (about friendship , love, hypocrisy and truth, power and death) come? Their author is an Arab-cultured Spanish Jew who converts to Latin Christianity and wants to provoke his new world with unexpected knowledge.

3. The Disciplina will have considerable fortune. This fortune can be understood by studying how the mediolatin world works, that is, a culture that is elaborated and spread in manuscript texts: the Discipline will often be known in fragments and in different redactions, not infrequently forgetting the name of its author, but remaining a reference for those who want to invent stories and believe that in the details rests the key to life (Nabokov), in the Middle Ages and beyond. The fact that Giovanni Boccaccio appreciates the Discipline and willingly draws on it shows definitively how Peter's novellas constitute a model in imaginative fiction.

4. The Discipline is thus a great literary invention (at the origin of the European romance with its subject matter of the East) and at the same time a work of popularization of otherness because of its rich references to the East. It is compact in its intention but ready to spread by a thousand rivulets, each of which seems to bear the mark of origin. Or perhaps not. To understand the literary capacity of the Latin Middle Ages and its very special way of constituting texts, proliferating, insidious, weak and invincible, Disciplina clericalis and its manuscripts are an excellent start.

 

Readings/Bibliography

1. General part

Only one book from the following

C. Leonardi, Medioevo latino. La cultura dell'europa cristiana, Firenze, SISMEL Edizioni del Galluzzo 2004 (Il millennio medievale)

C. Leonardi (cur.) Letteratura latina medievale (secoli VI-XV). Un manuale, Firenze, SISMEL Edizioni del Galluzzo 2002 (Il millennio medievale)

F. Santi, L'età metaforica. Fugure di Dio e letteratura latina medievale da Gregorio Magno a Dante, Spoleto, Fondazione Cisam 2011 (Uomini e mondi medievali)

2. Reading and commentary on a text

Pietro Alfonsi Disciplina clericalis edited by A. Hilka and Soederhjerlm 1911 (with translation by J. R. Jones-J. E. Keller. Toronto 1969)

Students who do not attend classes must prepare a second text between those indicated:

Gregorius Magnus, Dialogi (ed. A. de Vogüé-B. Calati, Roma 2000)

Hildegard of Bingen Ordo uirtutm cur. Peter Dronke, in Hildegardis Bingensis Opera minora, Turnhout, Brepols 2007 pp. 505-21 (Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis 226) (English translation: Peter Dronke (ed. trad. comm.) Nine Medieval Latin Plays Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1994 pp. XXXV-237 tavv. 4 (Cambridge Medieval Classics 1) .

Petrus Abaelardus-Heloissa Epistolario (ed. I. Pagani-G.Orlandi, Torino 2015)

 

Teaching methods

1. The introductory part of the course will be dedicated to the presentation of the authors and the emerging moments of the Middle Latin tradition and its concrete conditions.

2. Once the awareness of the intellectual significance of the sources of the Latin Middle Ages has been acquired, the teacher will introduce students to the creation of erudite tools capable of describing them (descriptive cards for authors, texts, manuscripts, lexical cards, in traditional forms and in electronic media of the new platforms).

3. Reading experiences of critical apparatuses will be carried out and first experiences of the procedures of critical editions will be proposed. The close relationship between literary criticism and criticism of the text will be indicated.

Students with SLD or temporary or permanent disabilities. It is suggested that they get in touch as soon as possible with the relevant University office (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en ) and with the lecturer in order to seek together the most effective strategies for following the lessons and/or preparing for the examination.

Assessment methods

The exam is oral (thirty minutes). The teacher considers it a moment of evaluation but also a moment of teaching, giving the student the opportunity to present information and thought in an articulated way.

Students with SLD or temporary or permanent disabilities. It is necessary to contact the relevant University office (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en ) with ample time in advance: the office will propose some adjustments, which must in any case be submitted 15 days in advance to the lecturer, who will assess the appropriateness of these in relation to the teaching objectives.

 

Teaching tools

Texts

medieval manuscripts

Electronic platforms dedicated to authors, texts, manuscripts, linguistic corpora

Office hours

See the website of Francesco Santi