Dr. Anthony Costantini
Spring 2013-FLIT 331: Literary Masterpieces of Italian Humanism and Renaissance
Sierra Tower 434- Office hours: T/Th 9:00-9:30 and 3:50-5:00PM
Office phone 677-7226
T/TH 12:30-1:45PM- Jerome Richfield 203Final Exam- May 16 from 12:45-2:45 PM
Email-g.vest@csun.edu
Course Description
This course is a survey of major Italian literary masterpieces (fiction, poetry, and drama)
And aesthetic theories developed during the period of Humanism and Renaissance
(1380-1550). Such a study will allow students to appreciate the importance of new
literary, spiritual, and human values that emerged at that time and the unique role played
by Italian Humanism and Renaissance in the European literature and civilization
Student Learning Outcomes
1) Students will appreciate the artistic beauty present in Humanism and Renaissance literature
and artistic theories
2) Students will recognize the uniqueness of the contribution of the various Italian literary
figures of the Humanism and Renaissance period.
3) Students will describe the unique function that the Italian literary establishment played in the
elaboration of a new vision of the world within the European civilization.
4) Students will understand the impact that the Italian literary works had on European literary
and artistic production
5) Students will identify the historical, social, cultural events that contributed to the formation of
the Italian literature of Humanism and Renaissance
Possible texts
Francesco Petrarca, Selections from The Canzoniere and Other Works. Oxford University Press,
1985.
Boccaccio, Decameron. Penguin Books.
Machiavelli, The Mandrake and The Prince in The Portable Machiavelli. Penguin Books
Anthology of Italian Writers and Poets prepared by the Professor. [Can be found at Northridge
Graphic & Printing Services, 9130 B. Reseda Blvd. Northridge].
Course Requirements
Students are required to prepare assigned material and participate in class discussions. Their
contribution is considered vital for a dynamic development of the topic or topics to be discussed.
A class presentation of an assigned topic by the professor is also part of the course. Last but not
least, attendance is considered mandatory. If you miss more than two classes without proper
justification, your grade will be lowered one letter grade (“A” will change to “B”).
Grading:
Students will be evaluated based on the following:
1. Midterm……………………………………25%.
2. Final………………………………………..30%
3. Class Presentation…………………………25%
5. Class attendance and participation.………..20%
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Grading is based on this scale:
95-100% is an A
90-95% is an A85-90% is a B+
80-85% is a B
75-80% is a C+
70-75% is a C
65-70% is a D
Below that is an F
Class etiquette
Absolutely no cell activity during class. Details on how it will affect your grade, will be
presented in class. Unacceptable or negative behavior involves always asking teacher and
classmate; moving around and going out to make phone calls; not paying attention to the
teacher and acting bored as you were not part of the class; stretch your legs to occupy two seats;
etc.
Course Calendar
*Homework will be assigned on a weekly basis from textbooks and Anthology.
Week 1. Presentation of the course work. General presentation of the Middle Ages. Introduction
to Italian society and literature in the 14th century .
Week 2. Continuation of the presentation of 14th century world. Alessandra Macinghi Strozzas’s
letters. Petrarca’s poetic world and his rediscovery of the values of the Classical World. The
beginning of Humanism.
Week 3. Continuation of Petrarch’s contribution to Humanism. Reading of assigned material
from Il Canzoniere.
Weeks 4/5. Introduction to Giovanni Boccaccio’s literary world. The Decameron as the
celebration of the merchant’s class. Expanding the poetic world of The Decameron. The
introduction to the Fourth Day. The themes of love, women, pranks, and great deeds in the
Decameron.
Weeks 6/7Midterm. Florence as the Center of Italian Humanism. The Moral and Civic
Humanism in the literary works of chosen authors among P. Bracciolini, C. Salutati, L. Bruni, L.
B. Alberti, and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s.
Weeks 8/9/10 The poetic world of Poliziano, Lorenzo de’ Medici, and Ludovico Ariosto.
Week 11 The literary and moral world of Machiavelli’s Mandrake.
Week 12 and first part of 13 Week. Petrarch’s influence on lyric poetry. Reading of selected
poems from women poets (Vittoria Colonna, Gaspara Stampa, Veronica Franco, Modesta Dal
Pozzo).
Weeks 13/14/15. Oral Presentation
FINAL
Selected Bibliography
Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron. London/New York: Penguin Classics, 1972.
Barber, Richard. The Penguin Guide to Medieval Europe. New York, Penguin Books, 1984.
Barzini, Luigi. The Italians. New York: Atheneum, 1964.
Bolgar, R. R. The Classical Heritage and Its Beneficiaries. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1964.
Bracciolini, Poggio. Avarice. Foreign Literature in Translation, 1vol. Northridge: The Faculty
Press, 2005
Branca, Vittore. Boccaccio. The Man and His work.. New York: New York University Press,
1976.
Brown Lota, Meg and Boyd Mc Bride, Kari. Women’s Role in the Renaissance. London:
Greenwood Press, 2005.
Burckhardt, Jacob. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1964.
Burke, Peter. The Italian Renaissance. Culture and Society in Italy. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1999
Cannon, Joann. Italian Women Writers from Renaissance to the Present: Revising the Canon.
University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996.
Cassires, Ernst. The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy. New York: Harper
and Row, 1963.
Celenza, Christopher S. The Lost Italian Renaissance: Humanist, Historians, and Latin’s Legacy.
Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2004.
Chastel, André. The Flowering of the Italian Renaissance. New York: Odyney Press, 1965.
De Maio, Romeo. Donna e Rinascimento. Milan: Mondadori, 1987.
Ferguson, Wallace K. The Renaissance in Historical Thought: Five Centuries of Interpretation.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948.
Foster, Kenelm. Petrarch: Poet and Humanist. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1984.
Garin, Eugenio. Science and Civic Life in the Italian Renaissance. Garden City, NY: Anchor
Books, 1969.
Gilbert, Neal. Renaissance Concepts of Methods. New York: Columbia University Press, 1960.
Goodman, Anthony, Angus, MacKay. The Impact of Humanism on Western Europe. London:
Longman, 1990.
Grendler, Paul F. Schooling in Renaissance Italy: Literary and Learning, 1300-1600. Baltimore:
john Hopkins University Press, 1989.
Hay, Dennis. The Italian Renaissance in its Historical Background. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1966.
Kent, Francis. Patronage, Art, and Society in Renaissance (Italy). Australia: Oxford University
Press, 1987.
King, Margareth, L and Rabil, Albert. Her Immaculate Hand. New York: Binghantom, 1983.
Kolsky, Stephen. The Ghost of Boccaccio: Writings on Famous Women in Renaissance Italy.
Belgium: Brepols, 2005.
Kristeller, Paul Oskar. Renaissance Thought: The Classic, Scholastic, and Humanist Strains.
New York: Harper and Row, 1955.
Kristeller, Paul Oskar, Weiner, Philip P. Renaissance Essays: From the Journal of the History of
Ideas. NewYork: Harper Torchbooks, 1968.
Labalme, Patricia A. Beyond Their Sex: Learned Women of the European Past. New York: New
York University Press, 1980.
Levi, Albert William. Humanism and Politics: Studies in the Relationship of Power and Values
in the Western Tradition. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1969
Lewis, C.S. The Allegory of Love. New York: Oxford University Press, 1958.
Lauro, Martines. Power and Imagination. City-States in Renaissance Italy. Baltimore: The John
Hopkins University, 1988.
……………….. The Social World of the Florentine Humanists 1390-1460. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1963.
Musa, Mark. Petrarch. Selections from the Canzoniere. New York: McGraw Hill, 1991.
Procacci, Giuliano. History of the Italian People. New York: Penguin Books, 1968.
Rabil, Albert, Jr. Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms, and Legacy, 3 vols.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1988.
Schmitt, Charles B, Quentin Skinner. The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy. The
Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Stevenson, Jane. Women Latin Poets: Language, Gender, and Authority, from Antiquity to the
Eighteenth Century. England: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Stortoni, Laura. Gaspara Stampa. Selected Poems. New York: Italica Press, 1994.
Stortoni, Laura and May, Prentice. Women Poets of the Renaissance: Courtly Ladies and
Courtesans. New York: Italica Press, 1995.
Vasari, Giorgio. The Lives of the Artists. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Ullman, Berthold L. The Humanism of Coluccio Salutati. Padova: Editrice Antenore, 1963.
Wilson, Katarina M. Women Writers of the Renaissance and Reformation. Athens: University of
Georgia Press, 1987.
Woodward, William Harrison, Vittorino da Feltre and Other Humanist Educators. New York:
Teachers College Columbia University, 1963.
Zatti, Sergio. The Quest for Epic from Ariosto to Tasso. Canada: University of Toronto Preses,
2006.
Zemon, Davis, Natalie and Farge, Arlette. A History of Women in the West. London: Harvard
University Press, 1993.