Corsi di Studio del Dipartimento di Lingue e Letterature straniere e Culture moderne

This German Literature course aims to provide students with both basic historical and literary knowledge and the critical tools required to analyse a text from the German cultural area. This course also aims to contribute to the developing of language competence.

• Acquiring historical and critical skills needed to analyse a literary text
• Enhancing linguistic competence (in Italian and German).
• Improving translation skills.

Classes will be helt face-to-face, while learning materials will be loaded on the Moodle Platform. 

Lectures with reading and commentary of texts in Italian translation and extracts in the original language

Classes will be helt both in Italian and in German. 

There will be an oral exam. When interviewed on the general study part, students will have to show their knowledge of the most important aspects of German Literature and their ability to analyse three works of their choice among those offered. The part of the exam focusing on the themed research will instead have the students show their ability to put into context and comment given texts, providing a literary and historical frame.
The exam consists of three questions:
• The first question will cover the historical and literary context
• The second question will focus on the analysed texts
• The third question will centre on the three chosen literary works.

The oral exam will also test learning according to the Dublin descriptors:

• knowledge and understanding;
• applying knowledge and understanding;
• making judgements;
• communication skills;
• learning skills. 

Teaching relies on the Moodle 2.0 platform for Department eLearning

Voluntary participation in the conferences of the German cycle of conferences "Ringvorlesungen" will be recognised.

1) Monographic Part

The teaching aims to identify through the reflections of philosophers, writers and Nobel prize-winners the forms of pacifist thought circulating in twentieth-century Germany, at the same time investigating the weaknesses that caused their failure, and the strengths that led to results of high humanistic value.  In particular, the teaching investigates, from a historical-literary point of view, pacifist and anti-militarist thought in the different political and government systems of the twentieth century in which it spread (The second Reich, Habsburg Empire, Weimar Republic, resistance to Nazism, Cold War) and is articulated in the analysis of the various literary genres (short story, novel, essay, poetry and theatre). In particular, the following authors, among others, will be examined in depth: Bertha von Suttner, Erich Maria Remarque, Leonhard Frank, Bertolt Brecht and Alfred Andersch. 

2) Institutional Part

In addition to the knowledge of the main moments of German literature between the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, students are required to read, in Italian or German, three of the following works (any edition):

• Th. Mann, I Buddenbrook / Morte a Venezia / Tonio Kröger
• F. Kafka, Il castello / America / La metamorfosi / Lettera al padre
• B. Brecht, L'opera da tre soldi / Madre coraggio e i suoi figli
• R. Musil, I turbamenti del giovane Törless
• Dürrenmatt, La promessa / La visita della vecchia signora / I fisici
• M. Frisch, Homo Faber / Andorra
• I. Bachmann, Tre sentieri per il lago / Il trentesimo anno
• H. Böll, Opinioni di un Clown
• H. Müller, Il paese delle prugne verdi / Lo sguardo estraneo / In viaggio su una gamba sola
• F. Wander, Il settimo pozzo

Parte istituzionale (recommended)

R. Poidevin, S. Schirmann, Storia della Germania, Milano, Bompiani 2001, pp. 77-334.

G. Corni, Storia della Germania: da Bismarck a Merkel, MIlano, Il saggiatore 2017.

V. Zmegač, Breve storia della letteratura tedesca, Torino Einaudi 2000.

U. Mählert, La DDR. Una storia breve, MIlano, Mimesis 2009. 

R. Calzoni, Storia della letteratura tedesca dal 1945 al 1961, Roma, Carocci, 2018²

R. Calzoni, La letteratura tedesca contemporanea. L'età della divisione e della riunificazione, Roma, Carocci, 2018.

Parte Monografica:

The materials for in-depth study and literary criticism relating to the texts being taught, will be made available by the teacher during the lessons.