ROMANIAN LITERATURE 1

The course offers a problematic view on the process of modernization of Romanian culture during the XIXth century, focusing on the Romanian translations of Italian literary works, on the first Romanian novel Ciocoii vechi si noi. The second part of the course will be focused on post-modern novels, which are set in the modernization period (1780-1860 ca.).

1) The first part will emphasize the concepts of synchronization and romance westernization necessary to understand the cultural history of Romania. We will take into consideration the translations of Italian literature made between 1830 and 1860 and the first Romanian novel , Ciocoii vechi si noi, paying attention to the linguistic and stylistic contextualization of these works.

2) The second part will focus on the postmodern representation of the 1700-1800 period, trying to identify the ideological and literary causes of this interest among the authors of post-communism and the 2000s.

At the end of the course, students will:

- identify the constant dialectic in Romanian cultural history between modernization and autochthonism;
- know the main moments of the linguistic modernization of literary Romanian;
- will have knowledge of philology of the ancient Romanian texts in the Cyrillic alphabet;
- to analyze linguistically, stylistically and thematically a literary text;
- to approach a literary translation with a comparative method.

There are not requirements: the course is open to all interested people. The Professor will provide interpretative coordinates useful for students, who do not have previous knowledge of the Romanian language.

The course is divided into the following topics:

1) The Roman Westernization of Romanian as a translatio:

- the "discovery" of Romanian Latinity;
- the translations of Saul by Alfieri and Norma by Felice Romani as experiments of language modernization;
- The dialectic between the Balkan substratum and to the "modern" language in the novel Ciocoii vechi si noi by Nicolae Filimon.

2) The recovery of Balkanism in contemporary fiction

- Coordinates on the Romanian postmodernism and on the language of some novels set in XVIII and XIX centuries (Zilele regelui by Florian; O suta de ani de zile the Orientului portile by Grosan; Levantul by Cartarescu).

The bibliography will be provided during the lessons.

The final exam consists exclusively of an oral test

Frontal lesson with distribution of textual material in paper format.

Italian

oral