Introduction to Modern and Contemporary Italian Literature and Culture



This course will cover Italian literature from the beginning of the nineteenth to the end of the twentieth century focussing on major literary movements and their chief representatives in a political and social context. Beginning with an overview of Italian Romanticism the course will then focus on the development of the novel, and the poetics of realism, Decadentismo and Futurism. Representative writers of the twentieth century will also be studied. Changing attitudes in poetry will be illustrated by a selection of readings ranging from “Crepuscular poets” to the "Hermetic poets" and the Transavanguardia. Selected writings by contemporary authors will also be included. (1 Unit)



Required Text: Mario Pazzaglia. Scrittori e critici della letteratura italiana. Ottocento e Novecento. Antologia con pagine critiche e un profilo di storia letteraria. Vol. 3 (vol. unico). Terza Ed. Bologna: Zanichelli (1996). ISBN: 9788808146922. Additional reading materials will be provided by the instructor.