The objective of the course is to provide the basic skills necessary for the study of Romance languages and literature in the Middle Ages, with regard to the French, Italian and Iberian areas. Specifically, the course illustrates the main linguistic phenomena characterising the transition from Latin to the various Romance languages and the problems related to the tradition and an edition of Romance texts in the Middle Ages.
Course in Linguistica descrittiva e storica is recommended. Basic Latin skills are preferable, but not essential.
Lectures. Before the start of the lectures, a handout of the texts commented in the lecture will be available on the Moodle platform. Students are advised to print out a copy for use during the lectures.
Oral examination. The student must demonstrate that he/she has acquired the necessary linguistic and philological knowledge for a critical approach to medieval texts. The exam consists of questions on both parts of the course.
The examination consists of questions on both parts of the course, and the final grade will be composed of the sum of the following marks:
0 to 14 points for the historical linguistics part;
0 to 12 marks for the textual criticism part;
0 to 4 for translation and reading of texts.
The course consists of two parts.
The first part concerns historical grammar and the linguistic phenomena that characterised the emergence of the Romance languages from Latin. These phenomena are illustrated through a comparative linguistic analysis of the first documentary and literary attestations of the Romance languages, with particular attention to the languages of the Gallo-romance, Italo-romance and Ibero-romance areas.
The second part concerns the characteristics of the tradition and the fruition of literary texts in the Middle Ages. In addition to elementary notions of paleography, necessary for a first approach to the sources, students will be introduced to the fundamental concepts of textual criticism applied to Romance texts and the role of the philologist in the cultural mediation between the texts of the past and contemporary readers.
The course will be held in Italian during the second semester (subperiods III and IV). The program for non-attending students is available in a specific section of the course Moodle.
