HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN LANGUAGE

The course is part of the Master Degree in Italian Literature and Philology.
The course aims to provide students with advanced competences in the linguistic analysis of written texts, both old and modern, and their historical and cultural contextualization. The achievement of this objective will enable students to apply autonomously the methods and tools of historical linguistics, discourse analysis and stylistics to texts of the past and Contemporary Era, both literary and non-literary.

1. Knowledge and comprehension:
1.1 To be acquainted with Speroni's linguistic ideas, the steps of their evolution, and the texts in which they are presented.
1.2 Knowledge of the main textual and stylistic traditions of sixteenth-century prose, with particular reference to dialogue.
1.3 Understanding of the expressive resources of Speroni as dialogist and orator.
2. Ability to apply knowledge and understanding:
2.1 Ability to distinguish between the various phases of the elaboration of Sperone Speroni's linguistic ideas by placing them in the context of the question of language.
2.2 The ability to recognise the main sources of the analysed texts and to explain how the author integrates them into his works.
2.3 The ability to contextualise Speroni's linguistic ideas in the contemporary linguistic debate (the so-called Questione della lingua).
3. Judgement ability:
3.1 Ability to critically evaluate the originality of Speroni's expressive resources in relation to the textual tradition in which they are embedded.
3.2 The ability to correctly interpret Speroni's and Bembo's linguistic and rhetorical vocabulary in the light of one's knowledge of Italian literature, language history and linguistics.
4. Communication skills:
4.1 Ability to communicate in appropriate technical language the expressive characteristics and evolution of Speroni's rhetorical resources and linguistic ideas.
5. Learning skills:
5.1 Know how to critically study reference texts, hierarchizing information and establishing connections between various notions.

Students must possess the basic principles of History of the Italian language and History of the Italian literature, generally acquired through the courses of Linguistics and Literature of the Bachelor Degree in Lettere.
Students must have achieved the formative objectives of History of the Italian language I and II (or Italian Linguistics I and II) and Italian Literature I (the Renaissance).

Course title: Renaissance linguistic culture facing Pietro Bembo: the case of Sperone Speroni

Since their immediate appearance (1525), the Prose della volgar lingua marked the linguistic debate and rhetorical experiences of the 16th century. As is widely known, in the history of this reception, regional dynamics and the different traditions linked to them play a decisive role, according to the framework offered by Carlo Dionisotti (Geografia e storia della letteratura italiana, Torino, Einaudi, 1967). This course dwells on the Venetian milieu and, in particular, explores the figure of Sperone Sperone degli Alvarotti (1500-1588) as critic and interpreter of Bembo. In his numerous writings (mostly in dialogic form) Speroni elaborated a linguistic and cultural proposal alternative to the strictures of Bembo's so-called "scolastica" and proposed an original synthesis between philosophy and rhetoric. Speroni's linguistic thought will be studied in relation to some of his best-known dialogues and to the oration he composed on the occasion of Pietro Bembo's funeral celebrations: the latter is a text to which Speroni entrusts his own assessment of the Prose and its author and which, therefore, is particularly interesting to study in depth. Of these texts, and in particular of the Dialogo delle lingue, the sources will be analytically studied, as well as their re-use by the author and the compositional technique, so as to put the students in contact not only with the hard core of Speroni's reflections, but also with the stylistic and expressive resources that convey them (for the Delle lingue we will take advantage of the acquisitions coming from a new commentary on the work, currently in progress).

Primary sources
Pietro Bembo, Prose della volgar lingua (selection), in Trattatisti del Cinquecento, ed. by Mario Pozzi, Napoli, Ricciardi, 1978, pp. 50-284 (or any other edition).
Sperone Speroni, Dialogo delle lingue, Dialogo della retorica, Dialogo della istoria, in Trattatisti del Cinquecento, pp. 585-635, 637-682, 725-784.

Secondary literature
Alessio Cotugno, La scienza della parola. Retorica e linguistica di Sperone Speroni, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2018.
Idem, Bembo dopo Bembo. L’Orazione in morte del cardinale di Sperone Speroni, forthcoming.

Further readings: AA.VV., Sperone Speroni, Padova, Editoriale Programma, 1989 («Filologia veneta», 2); Pasquale Sabbatino, La scienza della scrittura. Dal progetto del Bembo al manuale, Firenze, L.S. Olschki, 1988; Mirko Tavoni, Le Prose della volgar lingua di Pietro Bembo, in Letteratura italiana. Le Opere, ed. by Alberto Asor Rosa, Torino, Einaudi, 4 voll., 1992, vol. 1 (Dalle origini al Cinquecento), pp. 1065-1088.

Students will have to pass an oral exam of 20-30 minutes. During the exam, students will demonstrate their knowledge of the subjects that have been illustrated in the lessons and that are described in the reference texts.

Frontal teaching. All materials read and commented upon during the lessons will be available in the e-learning platform moodle.unive.it. Although the course is not conceived as a seminar, feedback from students will be constantly solicited, according to an interactive and dynamic idea of teaching.

Italian

Non-attending students shall contact Prof. Cotugno and agree with him a different programme.

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