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German Literature
UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI NAPOLI "L'ORIENTALE"
Overview
Date/time interval
Syllabus
Course Objectives
The main learning objective is for the students to acquire a schematic knowledge of the developments in German culture, society and literature in the second half of the 18th century through an in-depth examination of certain salient issues. They will need to know in detail the plot and philological macro data of the works (period of writing, year of publication, fortune), their literary characteristics (both genre and structural and stylistic), the psychological issues related to the characters, as well as social and cultural issues.
CAPABILITY TO APPLY KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING
At the end of the course, students should be able to: focus on the above-mentioned themes; contextualise the three texts in the different historical periods; interpret the salient passages and the most significant images of the texts in the programme.
FURTHER EXPECTED LEARNING OUTCOMES
Autonomy of judgement:
At the end of the course, students should be able to: develop a discourse on the literary representation of the themes dealt with in the three works; formulate a personal aesthetic judgement on them, which they should then be able to justify convincingly. One of the teaching objectives is in fact to develop in them attention to the text, the ability to read and the critical interpretation of selected pages.
Communication skills:
Students should be able to construct micro-discourses on the topics covered during the course, using appropriate language; they should, using the technical terms of textual analysis and hermeneutic practice learnt during the lectures, present in a discursively convincing manner the themes and stylistic features of the literary texts on the syllabus and the issues addressed during the course, placing them in the description of their respective context.
Learning skills:
The course aims, by means of the introductory reconstruction of the context in which the works on the syllabus are situated, to lead students to appreciate the historical and cultural significance of the textual aspects enunciated as salient.
Course Prerequisites
PREREQUISITES
Having already passed the German examinations in the first year (see below under ‘Propaedeuticities’), students will have acquired an initial knowledge of German literature and culture, including their historical development, limited to certain phenomena and periods. They will also have already been able to follow the complete German Language II course and half of the annual language exercises, so they should have a German language proficiency level of no less than A2; they will therefore be able to follow the reading and analysis of some short language passages from the texts on the syllabus, proposed during the lessons as examples of literary German.
Propaedeuticities
Before taking the examination, students must have passed the German Language I (in its entirety) and German Literature I examinations.
Teaching Methods
The course will consist solely of lectures in Italian, which will follow both a historical-literary and a hermeneutical methodology. On the one hand, in fact, the developments of German literature and culture in the second half of the 18th century will be reconstructed in broad outline; on the other hand, the lessons will guide students in the use of textual analysis tools, applied to the concrete example of selected passages. Some of these, suitably selected, will also be examined in the German original provided by the lecturer.
The students are invited to intervene both during the short break in the middle of the lesson, to ask questions or request further explanations on passages perceived as particularly complex, and at the end of the lesson, when greater interaction with the lecturer is possible and a small space for debate can be opened up; it is also possible to ask the lecturer to dedicate a larger space to debate on topics of particular interest.
Assessment Methods
The examination comprises an oral test only. There are no ongoing or end-of-course tests or other forms of assessment. No distinction will be made, either with regard to the syllabus or to the examination procedures, between attending and non-attending students.
The examination will be held exclusively in Italian. First of all, knowledge of the texts on the syllabus will be assessed, also in relation to the parts not covered in depth during the lessons, and then the ability to construct analytical micro-discourses on scenes, characters, social, cultural, political and psychological issues in the texts, as well as on the stylistic and specifically literary characteristics of the textual passages on which the examination will focus; the ability to relate these elements to the historical and cultural context in which they are inserted will also be tested.
Texts
Bibliography
1. G.E. Lessing, “Emilia Galotti”, Einaudi, Torino 1980.
2. Fr. Schiller, “I masnadieri”, Einaudi, Torino 1986.
3. J.W. Goethe, “I dolori del giovane Werther”, a cura di G. Baioni, Einaudi, Torino 1998 (in italiano); INCLUDING: G. Baioni, "Introduzione”, pp. V-XXIV.
Additional bibliography
(The following texts do NOT constitute examination subjects!)
1. J.M.R. Lenz, “Il precettore”, Libreria Stampatori, Torino 2002 (in the Biblioteca “Europa”, Via Duomo).
2. K.Ph. Moritz, “Anton Reiser. Romanzo psicologico”, Pisa 1996 (in particular: I and II part). www.fileli.unipi.it/jsq/1996/01/10/27-anton-reiser-romanzo-psicologico-1996/
3. J.W. Goethe, “Inni”, a cura di G. Baioni, Einaudi, Torino 1973 (with introduction).
4. I. Kant, “Risposta alla domanda: Che cos’è l’Illuminismo?”, in I.K., “Scritti politici e di filosofia della storia e del diritto”, UTET, Torino 1963.
5. L. Mittner, “Storia della letteratura tedesca”, vol. II: “Dal pietismo al romanticismo (1700-1820)”, Einaudi, Torino 1977.
6. M. Cometa, “L’età di Goethe”, Carocci, Roma 2006.
7. G. Baioni, “Il giovane Goethe”, Einaudi, Torino 1996 (in particular: “Introduzione. Il bello, il sublime, il demoniaco”, pp. 3-26).
8. R. Barthes, “Frammenti di un discorso amoroso”, Einaudi, Torino 1979.
Contents
Course Title: “Aristocracy, Bourgeois Morality, and Rebellion in German Literature of the Late Eighteenth Century”
Topics:
1. Social and cultural dynamics in the late eighteenth-century Germany (introduction);
2. Principle of authority and new self-awareness;
3. Conventionality, bourgeois morality and discovery of authenticity;
4. Aufklärung, Pietism, Empfindsamkeit, Sturm und Drang;
5. Gender roles;
6. Social conflict (aristocracy, bourgeoisie, popular classes);
7. Generational conflict, violence, rebellion;
8. The nostalgia for the lost harmony and the myth of a patriarchal world;
9. The idea of God and the pantheistic conception of nature;
10. The novelty of “Werther”: modernity and consumerism.
Course Language
Italian