Undergraduate Course: Italian Love Poetry from the Sicilians to the Stil Novo (ELCI10005)
Course Outline
School |
School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College |
College of Humanities and Social Science |
Course type |
Standard |
Availability |
Available to all students |
Credit level (Normal year taken) |
SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Credits |
20 |
Home subject area |
European Languages and Cultures - Italian |
Other subject area |
None |
Course website |
None |
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Course description |
From being a luxury foreign import for high officials at the court of Frederick II in Sicily, love poetry rapidly became acclimatised and outstripped its models. By the end of the thirteenth century in Italy, vernacular love poetry was well on its
way to being a dominant art form.
Reading between the lines of this intense production of vernacular love poetry produced in thirteenth century Italy, you will discover a surprisingly playful and inventive use of notions from contemporary science, medicine, psychology, theology, law and even sociology. Often what looks like a trite declaration of love turns out to be an investigation into something else, something much more challenging
and original.
You will learn to admire the technical skill exercised by these writers as they grapple to express the inexpressible, and set themselves fiendish challenges in terms of language and poetic form.
Finally, you will be able to understand how, in the space of less than one hundred years, Italian literature could progress from being tongue-tied to being capable of producing a fertile linguistic and cultural context for writers like Dante and Petrarch.
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Entry Requirements
Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites |
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Prohibited Combinations |
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Other requirements |
None
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Additional Costs |
None |
Course Delivery Information
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
Working knowledge of early Italian prosody and literary vernaculars; understanding of the intellectual currents in philosophy, medicine, astronomy in the late middle ages; general skill in 'decoding' enigmatic, compressed texts. |
Assessment Information
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Please see Visiting Student Prospectus website for Visiting Student Assessment information |
Special Arrangements
Not entered |
Contacts
Course organiser |
Prof Federica Pedriali
Tel: (0131 6)50 3642
Email: F.Pedriali@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary |
Mrs Jacqueline Barnhart
Tel: (0131 6)51 3757
Email: Jackie.Barnhart@ed.ac.uk |
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copyright 2010 The University of Edinburgh -
1 September 2010 5:57 am
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