75362 - Gender and Violence in the Old Germanic Literatures

Learning outcomes

The student already knows the old Germanic literatures and investigates the relation between gender and violence in the texts of the Nibelungs Cycle and in the modern rewriting of the Nibelung legend.

Course contents

1st Semester: 6 CFU (30 hrs)

Translating a medieval text: exercises on the Nibelungs' poem.

The course will focus on the translation of medieval texts, separted by us from cultural and chronological distance. Therefore, we will analyze the great thirteenth-century poem Nibelungenlied.

After the presentation of the cultural context in which the poem was conceived, some strophes will be analyzed looking at specific words which need a particular thinking for their translation into Italian.

Then some strophes will be translated into Italian taking into account the best possibilities in Italian.

Readings/Bibliography

Attending students:

- Texts charged by the professor as online materials

- I Nibelunghi, a cura di Laura Mancinelli, Torino (qualsiasi edizione)

- Davide Bertagnolli, I Nibelunghi. La leggenda, il mito, Milano 2020

Grammar (to be consulted):

German: Karl Weinhold, Kleine Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik; fortgefuhrt von Gustav Ehrismann ; neu bearbeitet von Hugo Moser. - 16. aufll., Wien 1986

Italian: Giorgio Dolfini, Grammatica del medio alto tedesco, 2° ediz., Milano1976

English: Wright, Joseph, A Middle High German Primer, 3rd ed., Oxfrod 1917.

French: Alfred Jolivet - Ferdinand Mossé, Manuel de l'allemand du Moyen age : des origines au 14. siecle : grammaire, textes, glossaire, Paris 1942

Non attending students:

To be added to the previous bibliography:

- Müller, Jan-Dirk, Spielregeln für den Untergang: Die Welt des Nibelungenliedes. Tübingen 1998 (English transl.: Rules for the Endgame. The World of the Nibelungenlied, 2007)

Students who never attended Germanic Philology (suggested reading):

Maria Vittoria Molinari, La filologia germanica, 2° edizione, Bologna (qualsiasi ristampa)

Teaching methods

Classrooms on site. Attendance in room is strongly recommended. Some lessons will be organized sharing students in seminar groups.

Knowledge of German language is not compulsory.

Assessment methods

The assessment will take into account some textual examples discussed in classroom will be object of the examination and will be orally discussed together with the theoretical knowledge gained . During the interview the methodological and critical skills acquired by the student will be evaluated . The student will be invited to discuss the texts covered during the course and to move within the sources and bibliographical material in order to be able to identify in them the useful information that will enable to illustrate the similarities and cultural areas of the discipline. The achievement of an organic vision of the issues addressed during the classes and their critical use, which demonstrate ownership of a mastery of expression and specific language, will be assessed with marks of excellence. Mechanical and / or mnemonic knowledge of matter, synthesis and analysis of non-articulating and / or correct language but not always appropriate will lead to discrete assessments; training gaps and / or inappropriate language - although in a context of minimal knowledge of the material - will lead to votes that will not exceed the sufficiency. Training gaps, inappropriate language, lack of guidance within the reference materials offered during the course will lead to failed assessments.

Teaching tools

Multimedial tools

Office hours

See the website of Alessandro Zironi