GERMAN LITERATURE

Single discipline educational activity

Course Sheet

Academic Year of enrolment:

2020/2021

Type of Course:

Characterising

Optional/Mandatory:

Optional

Degree:

Bachelor's Degree Programme in HUMANITIES

Disciplinary Sector:

German Literature

Language:

Italian

Credits:

Programme Year:

Hours of classroom activity:

Prerequisites:

none

Borrowed from

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GERMAN LITERATURE

HUMANITIES

AF code:

40X01560

Assessment Methods

Verification of learning:

Oral exam

In order to be admitted to the exam it is necessary to read the works listed below in READINGS.

Non-participant students have to prepare for the oral exam:
Zmegac/Skreb/ Sekulic: Breve storia della letteratura tedesca, Torino (Einaudi) 2000, pp. 82-397

Teaching period

First semester

Objectives

The course aims to provide basic knowledge of German literary and cultural history, of the characteristic features of its main periods, in particular these of the 19. century and of some prominent authors of this period, 'classics' of German literature (such as Goethe, Kleist, Büchner, Storm, Raabe etc.). The student will acquire the analytical tools to understand the individual works of the authors in question and place them in their respective historical, cultural and literary context. It will be sensitized to the problems of literary and cultural historiography in general and of the periodization of German literature in the specific and enabled to orientate himself autonomously in the field of German Studies in order to be able to identify and eventually specify future research interests.

Contents

STORY//HISTORY: the '›Nineteenth Century', for instance

The history of literature is currently, as a genre, clearly in crisis. The nature and meaning of periodizations, the classical -›isms‹ of traditional artistic history for example (such as Enlightenment, Romanticism, Realism etc.), are now problematic, suspected, since the advent of Postmodernism in the 1980s (proclaiming itself 'Posthistoire'), to be nothing more than ideological fictions. The course will question this general skepticism towards history, examining the idea of a ›nineteenth century‹ within German literature. Are there secular styles like this, perhaps even transnational and interartistic? What sense can such a category still have?
Conceived as an introduction to German literature, the course - passing through the nineteenth century - will present some of its well-known protagonists (as Goethe, Kleist, Büchner etc.) and analyze some of its most outstanding works, comparing the results regularly with stylistic trends in other arts (such as music, painting etc.).

Recommended Bibliography

READINGS

In order to be admitted to the exam it is necessary to read the works listed here:

1) SECONDARY LITERATURE (tot. 3 readings)

Luca Crescenzi: Letteratura tedesca – Secoli ed epoche, Roma (Carrocci) 2005.

alternatively:
Dahlhaus, Carl: Il realismo musicale. Per una storia della musica ottocentesca, Bologna 1987 (Il Mulino).
Nochlin, Linda: Il realismo della pittura europea del XIX secolo, Torino 2003 (Einaudi)

alternatively:
Safranski, Rüdiger: Il Romanticismo, Milano (Longanesi) 2011.
Fambrini, Alessandro: Letà del realismo. La letteratura tedesca dellOttocento (Carocci)

2) PRIMARY LITERATURE (5 texts of your own choice)

Büchner, Georg: Lenz, Milano 1989 (Adelphi).
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang: Faust.
Herder, Johann Gottfried: Idee per la filosofia della storia dell’umanità, a cura di V. Verra, Bologna (Zanichelli) 1971 (Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1992).
Keller, Gottfried: Romeo e Giulietta nel villaggio, Venezia (Marsilio) 2002.
Mörike, Eduard: Mozart in viaggio verso Praga (Elliot 2018)/ (Passigli 2009)
Stifter, Adalbert: Cristallo di rocca . In: A.S., Pietre colorate, Venezia (Marsilio) 2005, p.153-198.
Storm, Theodor: Immensee e altre novelle, a cura di Fabrizio Cambi, Trento (Università di Trento) 1998.
- Il cavaliere del cavallo bianco. In: Th. S., Novelle, Milano (Garzanti) 1996, S. 310-427.
Raabe, Wilhelm: Das Odfeld.
Wagner, Richard: Tristano e Isolda. Testo tedesco a fronte, 2011 (Ariele).

Methods of Provision

Conventional

Teaching Methods

Lectures/ Online-Lectures

Contacts/More Information

Recommendations for additional readings.

David E. Wellbery/Hans Ullrich Gumbrecht et al.(Ed.): A New History of German Literature, Cambridge/MA (Harvard University Press) 2005.
Mary Garland/ Henry Garland: The Oxford Companion to German Literature, Oxford (Oxford University Press) 1997.

The teacher's student reception time during the lecture period will be communicated on the Department's website.

GERMAN LITERATURE

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GERMAN LITERATURE