B1588 - TRADIZIONE E RICEZIONE DEI TESTI CLASSICI

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course, students will be familiar with the historical and cultural contexts where Classical Antiquity has left its most meaningful and long-lasting traces. Students will also acquire the tools to analyse the complementary processes of Tradition and Reception of classical texts in drama, literature, in the history of art and music, from the Renaissance to the present day.

Course contents

Pastoral Utopia and Tragedies of History.

The course analyses how Virgil’s Bucolics provided western poetry – especially in the darkest moments of the history of the 20^th Century – a fundamental poetic paradigm to read and interpret the fracture between an ‘Arcadian’ ideal (where ‘pastoral’ poetry seems to create a literary shelter, out of time) and the real and tragic threats of history: therefore, an inescapable model to assess and question the very role of poetry in history.

Along with Virgil’s Eclogues, poems by Miklós Radnóti and Seamus Heaney will be read and analysed.

Readings/Bibliography

Virgil, The Eclogues.

M. Fernandelli, Ricevere e tramandare l'antico, in M. Fernandelli, E. Panizon, T. Travaglia, Vivendo Vincere Saecula: Ricezione e tradizione dell’antico, Trieste 2022, 9-29.

A. Fo, Utopie pastorali e drammi della storia: Virgilio, Miklós Radnóti, Seamus Heaney, «I quaderni del ramo d’oro on-line» 7 (2015), 78-117.

S.J. Harrison, Heaney as Translator: Horace and Virgil, in S.J. Harrison, F. Macintosh, H. Eastman (eds.), Seamus Heaney and the Classics: Bann Valley Muses, Oxford 2019, 248-262.

S. Heaney, Eclogues "In Extremis": On the Staying Power of Pastoral, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 103, 2003, 1-12 (trad. it. Ecloghe in extremis: la capacità di resistenza della pastorale, in R. Andreotti (ed.), Resistenza del classico, Milano 2009, 61-78).

A. Rinaldi, Arcadia, in Enciclopedia Virgiliana I, Roma 1984, 273-285.

Teaching methods

Lectures in class, supplemented by moments of interactive teaching and seminaries.

Assessment methods

The examination consists of a viva voce exam. Students are tested on:

- their ability of reading and translating the analysed Latin texts
- their knowledge of Literary History
- their ability of setting in a historical and cultural context the texts analysed in class
- their ability to discuss the chosen critical readings

The assessment criteria are thus explained:
failing grades: lack of basic knowledge and inability to produce a coherent interpretation of the texts. Lack of knowledge of Latin literature
passing grades: literary interpretation of the texts is correct, but inaccurate and lacking in autonomy
excellent grades: interpretation (and translation) of the texts are not only correct, but carried out with autonomy and precision.

Teaching tools

Online resources.

Office hours

See the website of Antonio Ziosi