Italian Language and Literature
82-90 Wall Street, 432.0595
M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.
Chair
Giuseppe Mazzotta
Director of Graduate Studies
Olivia Holmes [F] (Silliman 1837, 432.8299, olivia.holmes@yale.edu)
Giuseppe Mazzotta [Sp] (82–90 Wall, Rm 404, 432.0598, giuseppe.mazzotta@yale.edu)
Professors
Giuseppe Mazzotta, Paolo Valesio, Guido Guglielmi (Visiting [F])
Associate Professor
Olivia Holmes (on leave [Sp])
Assistant Professors
Francesca Cadel, Kristin Phillips (on leave)
Senior Lector and Language Program Director
Risa Sodi
Visiting faculty from other universities are regularly invited to teach courses in the department.
Fields of Study
The Italian department brings together several disciplines for the study of the Italian language and its literature. Although the primary emphasis is on a knowledge of the subject throughout the major historical periods, the department welcomes applicants who seek to integrate their interests in Italian with wider methodological concerns and discourses, such as history, rhetoric and critical theories, comparison with other literatures, the figurative arts, religious and philosophical studies, medieval, Renaissance, and modern studies, and the contemporary state of Italian writing. Interdepartmental work is therefore encouraged and students are accordingly given considerable freedom in planning individual courses of study, once they have acquired a broad general knowledge of the field through course work and supplementary independent study.
Special Admissions Requirements
The department recognizes that good preparation in Italian literature is unusual at the college level and so suggests that applicants begin as soon as possible to acquire a broad general knowledge of the field through outside reading. At the end of the first year, the progress of beginning students is analyzed in an evaluative colloquium. Applicants who have had little or no experience in Italy are generally urged to do some work abroad during the course of their graduate program. For all students of Italian, a reading knowledge of Latin is essential. This may be acquired during the course of the first year, but applicants are reminded that it is difficult to schedule beginning language courses in addition to a normal graduate program. Students are advised to acquire proficiency in the languages required for the doctoral program before matriculation.
Special Requirements for the Ph.D. Degree
Candidates must demonstrate a reading knowledge of a second Romance language, Latin, and a non-Romance language (German recommended). The Latin examination must be passed, usually before the beginning of the third term of study, and all language requirements must be fulfilled before the Ph.D. qualifying examination. Students are required to take two years of course work (as a rule sixteen courses), including two graduate-level term courses outside the Italian department. The comprehensive qualifying examination must take place during the third year of residence. It is designed to demonstrate the student's mastery of the language and acquaintance with the literature. The examination, which is both written and oral, will be devised in consultation with members of the department. After the qualifying examination, the student will discuss, in a session with the departmental faculty, a prospectus describing the subject and aims of the dissertation. Students are admitted to candidacy for the Ph.D. upon completion of all predissertation requirements, including the prospectus. Admission to candidacy normally occurs by the end of the sixth term.
Teaching is considered to be an important component of the doctoral program in Italian. Students will be appointed as teaching fellows in the third and fourth years of study. Guidance in teaching is provided by the faculty of the department and specifically by the director of language instruction.
Combined Ph.D. Programs
Italian and Film Studies
The Department of Italian also offers, in conjunction with the Program in Film Studies, a joint Ph.D. in Italian and Film Studies. For further details, see Film Studies. Applicants to the joint program must indicate on their application that they are applying both to Film Studies and to Italian. All documentation within the application should include this information.
Italian and Renaissance Studies
The Department of Italian also offers, in conjunction with the Renaissance Studies Program, a combined Ph.D. in Italian and Renaissance Studies. For further details, see Renaissance Studies.
Master's Degrees
Only candidates for the Ph.D. degree will be admitted to the program, but the department will, upon request, offer the M.A. and the M.Phil. degrees to students who have completed the general Graduate School requirements for those degrees. Alternatively, the Department of Italian Language and Literature offers, in conjunction with the Medieval Studies program, a joint M.Phil. degree. For further details, see Medieval Studies.
Program materials are available upon request to the Director of Graduate Studies, Italian Language and Literature, Yale University, PO Box 208311, New Haven CT 06520-8311.
Courses
ITAL 552b, Italian Lyric Poetry from Middle Ages to Renaissance. Staff. M 3.30–5.20
An exploration of Italy's vernacular lyric tradition from its emergence in the thirteenth century through its flowerings in the sixteenth, with special attention to the emergence of the genre of the autobiographical Canzoniere and to the ascendance of the modern authorial self. Poets studied may include those of the Scuola Siciliana and Dolce stil novo, Boccaccio, Petrarca, Poliziano, Lorenzo de' Medici, Sannazaro, Boiardo, Bembo, Vittoria Colonna, Gaspara Stampa, Veronica Franca, and Michelangelo.
ITAL 640a, Topics in Renaissance Epic. Giuseppe Mazzotta. T 3.30–5.20
A study in some detail of three outstanding epics of the Italian Renaissance: Pulci's Morgante, Boiardo's Orlando Inamorato, and Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. The course stresses such issues as the clashes between Christians and Moslems, the continuity of the epic tradition, the recreation of medieval chivalric material, Renaissance theories of comedy, and perspectivism. The guiding idea is the examination of the specific ways in which the three poets represent history, theology, and politics in their texts. The course also investigates the impact of the intellectual, historical, and political events of fifteenth-century Italy on the construction of the poems.
ITAL 761au, The Prose and Thought of a Poet: Giacomo Leopardi. Paolo Valesio. W 3.30–5.20
Leopardi's crucial importance as one of the founders of modern poetry on the international scene is in large part due to the depth of his philosophical thought and to the brilliant counterpart and context in prose of his output in verse. We study his dramatic dialogues (Operette morali), his critical and social essays, and his uniquely rich journal (Zibaldone), with reference to other philosophical-poetical experiences, like those represented by English Romantic writings and by Soeren Kierkegaard's Journals. Also CPLT 814a.
ITAL 770bu, Poetry, Poetics, and Modernism. Paolo Valesio. W 3.30–5.20
In the first half of the twentieth century, Italian poetry shows an exceptional variety of voices and a great distinction of achievements. After a review of the creative continuations of Symbolism (some representative work by d'Annunzio and Pascoli, and the Crepuscolari), and of the historical avant-garde (Futurism), the course concentrates on the Modernists, especially Dino Campana, Umberto Saba, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Eugenio Montale, Salvatore Quasimodo, and Cesare Pavese. We consider these authors in their international context and study their poetry in a dialectical and critical connection with their statements of poetics; in so doing, we test various approaches to the analysis of poetry.
ITAL 920b, Petrarch and Boccaccio. Giuseppe Mazzotta. T 3.30–5.20
An examination of some of the major poetic and moral works of these two classics of the Italian Trecento. The readings range from Petrarch's Canzoniere and On His Own Ignorance, to Boccaccio's Decameron and the Genealogy of the Gentile Gods. Their discussion takes place in the context of the classical tradition, and of patristic and vernacular poetic experiments.
ITAL 930a, Literary Criticism and the Science of Literature. Guido Guglielmi. M 3.30–5.20
The relationship between text and history, an exploration of current discussions on literary criticism, with particular attention to the temporal dimension of the literary text.
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