The Lyric Tradition from Provence to Petrarch

Catalog description

The course is devoted to exploring vernacular lyric poetry in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Beginning with Provençal poets influential on the Italian lyrical tradition, we will start our focus on poets of the Sicilian school (Giacomo da Lentini, Guido delle Colonne, Pier delle Vigne and others), move to the Tuscan Guittone D’Arezzo and poets of the so-called Stile Nuovo (Guido Guinizzelli, Guido Cavalcanti, Dante, Cino da Pistoia, Compiuta Donzella and others) to Dante’s immediate successors, Petrarch and Boccaccio. We will evaluate the role of Greek -Arabic and Hebrew culture in the development of that tradition, in particular the impact of new translations of texts from Arabic intermediaries. We will also examine the curricular reform taking place in European universities at the same time, the relevance of new ideas of learning and its organization, focusing on the notions of poetry, imagination, rhetoric and politics. The interaction between old learning and new learning will be one of the major concerns of the course. The course will be conducted in English. Reading knowledge of Italian is not required.