ITAL 380 - Modernity in Italy

1 unit(s)

This course explores different manifestations of modernity in Italian literature and culture in the early twentieth century. We will consider both objective and subjective transformations, focusing on the impact of urban life, war, Fascism, and technological modernization on literary creation and its aesthetic and social function. How do Italian writers of the early 20th century relate to modernity and define it? How are the ideas of progress, tradition, and avant-garde defined, expressed and questioned? How does the affirmation of mass culture affect the perceived role of poets? How do artists and intellectuals redefine their role in relation to bourgeois materialism, war propaganda, censorship, or spectacular politics? These are some of the questions that will inform textual analysis, class discussion and students’ writing. In studying specifically Italian modernism, we also investigate how its origins at the peripheries of the nation shape its relation to Italian history and literary tradition. The texts examined include poetry, narrative, theory, and programmatic writings by such authors as Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Guido Gozzano, Aldo Palazzeschi, Luigi Pirandello, Italo Svevo, Eugenio Montale among others. Simona Bondavalli.

Prerequisite(s): ITAL 220, ITAL 222; or ITAL 217, ITAL 218 with permission of the instructor.

One 2-hour period.

Not offered in 2019/20.

Course Format: CLS