French Language and Literature (One-year Course; Year 1, Three-year
Course; Year 2, Three-year Course; Years 1 and 2, Two-year Course)
PROF. MARISA VERNA
COURSE AIMS
The course will study the theoretical foundations, the structures and the stylistic
features of the prose of Gustave Flaubert and Villiers de l’Isle-Adam.
COURSE CONTENT
French prose in the late 19th century. Flaubert and Villiers de l’Isle-Adam
1. The aesthetic of Gustave Flaubert: the readings, the thinking, the aesthetic
project.
2. Reading and commentary of Madame Bovary.
3. Reading and commentary of Un cœur simple in Trois contes. The student can
download the online text from Blackboard. Naturally, any complete edition of
the text is acceptable, although non-attending students are advised to get the
Folio edition as it comes complete with comments and notes.
4. The aesthetic of Villiers de l’Isle-Adam: thinking, aesthetic, writing.
5. Reading of Véra, in Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, Contes cruels (see the Reading
List).
READING LIST
G. FLAUBERT, Madame Bovary, any complete original-language edition. Parallel texts are not
admitted to the exam. Recommended edition: Folio classiques, Gallimard.
VILLIERS DE L’ISLE-ADAM, Contes cruels: suivi des Nouveaux contes cruels, éd. critique par Pierre-
Georges Castex et Pierre Glaudes (get the text from Blackboard).
S. CIGADA, Gustave Flaubert. Appunti per il corso di lingua e letteratura francese, 2004, pp. 148.
L. NISSIM, Veste, habit-veste, redingote, habit. Piccole note sull'abbigliamento maschile in
"Madame Bovary", in Lingua, cultura e testo. Miscellanea di studi francesi in onore di Sergio
Cigada, Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 2003, Vol. II, pp. 889-906, get the text from Blackboard.
L. NISSIM, Les vêtements d'Emma: sexe ambigu ou frénésie des modes?, in Vêtements et littérature,
Frédéric Monneyron ed., Presses de l'Université de Perpignan, 2001, (pp. 194-212) (optional
for Year 1, compulsory for Year 2).
L. NISSIM, "Elle écrivit à Rouen afin d'avoir une robe en cachemire bleu": quelques notes sur les
vêtements d'Emma Bovary, in Madame Bovary, Préludes, Présences, Mutations, Italian
translation Preludi, Presenze, Mutazioni, edited by R.M. Palermo, EDI, Naples, 2007, pp. 159171, (optional for Year 1, compulsory for Year 2). The student can find the text on Blackboard.
S. CIGADA, I «Trois contes» nella storia dell’arte flaubertiana, in Contributi del seminario di
filologia moderna, French series, vol. II, Milan, Vita e Pensiero, p. 252-269.
AA.VV., Antimimesis, Schena, Fasano, 1997, optional.
E. AUREBACH, Nell’hôtel de la Môle, Stendhal, Balzac, Flaubert, in Mimesis, Turin, Einaudi, 2000,
(only the essay on Flaubert: recommended). The text can be found at the library.
Course notes: compulsory for all students, the notes can be downloaded from Blackboard.
TEACHING METHOD
The student must supplement the Special Subject course (Professor Verna) with the
following practical classes and readings:
Three-year course students (Faculty of Languages) taking Year 1:
Dr. Federica Locatelli, French Literature Practical Classes, Year 1, according to the
methods and timetable indicated herein;
Three-year course students (Faculty of Languages, curriculum: Foreign Languages and
Literature) taking Year 2:
Dr. MariaCristina Pedrazzini, French Literature Practical Classes, Year 2 according to
the methods and timetable indicated herein;
Three-year course students (Faculty of Languages, curriculum: Language Expert for
Management and Tourism; Faculty of Language Sciences, curriculum: Languages,
Communication and Media (semester students):
Dr. Federica Locatelli, according to the methods and timetable indicated herein;
One-year course and Two-year course students (both specialists and non-specialists):
These students must attend the supplementary French Lanaguage Practical Classes held
by Dr. Isabelle Morel. Students earning 8 training credits (CFU) from the French Language
and Literature course are not allowed to replace the exam with SELDA certification.
ASSESSMENT METHOD
One-year and two-year course students must sit the exam in a single session; the exam
comprises a written and oral language part, which the student must pass in order to take the
literature part. One-year and first-year students will take the exam in Italian; second-year
students will take the exam in French. Exclusively Faculty of Arts and Philosophy students
(one-year course) can replace the language exam with the SELDA exam. Faculty of Arts
and Philosophy students who want to repeat the exam a second time must attend the French
Lanaguage Practical Classes (Year 2) held by Dr. Isabelle Morel. See the French
Lanaguage Practical Classes course programme contained in this guide for information on
the assessment method for the language part of the exam.
The student must translate the course texts accurately before they can proceed to that
part of the exam on the commentary of Flaubert’s texts and aesthetic, otherwise they will not
be able to sit the exam.
NOTES
The course is open to the following students:
Year 1, three-year course students; Year 2, three-year course students of Foreign
Languages and Literature of the Faculty of Language Sciences; one-year students (Arts and
Language Sciences); Year 1 and Year 2, two-year course students (both Faculty of
Language Sciences and Faculty of Arts); Year 1 and Year 2, university master’s degree
third-language students (i.e., those who start to learn a new language for their university
master’s degree, Faculty of Language Sciences).
All second-year students, regardless of their curriculum or Faculty, will take solely the
first 30 hours of this course (Professor Verna). The following 30 hours will be taken with
Professor Davide Vago, French Language and Literature 2, three-year course A, slated for
semester two, for which the language of instruction is French. The course held by Professor
Verna is of 4 hours per week and will thus end around March. After which, the same weekly
hours will be dedicated to the practical classes for both the first and second year (three-year
course students, Faculty of Languages).
The student is invited to check the Professor Verna’s webpage and the course
Blackboard page (http://www.blackboard.it) regularly for any communications and to
download useful study materials.
Further information can be found on the lecturer's webpage at
http://docenti.unicatt.it/web/searchByName.do?language=ENG, or on the Faculty notice
board.
French Language Practical Classes (Year 1, Three-year Course)
DR. FEDERICA LOCATELLI
COURSE AIMS
The course sets out to map the history of French literature from the 16 th to the 18th
century. We will see how a new hierarchy of values and the centrality of the
individual were established and, in particular, how all the barriers of action were
torn down as Man increasingly claimed the freedom to express himself through his
creative activity, to shape the world around him by building his civilization and his
history. This historical, intellectual, artistic and social journey culminates in the
proclamation of the ideals of the French Revolution, i.e., liberty, equality and
fraternity, of which the literary voice of Humanism and Enlightenment became
increasingly stronger.
The different approaches to the chosen thematic nucleus will enable us to study the
historic-cultural backdrop against which the literary work was produced, as well as
the linguistic, stylistic and formal strategies used to portray the ideal of freedom
and the hailing of the pre-eminence of reason as proposed in the literature of the
centuries under analysis.
COURSE CONTENT
Liberté au nom de la raison: de l’Humanisme aux Lumières
Analysis of a selection of literary texts (poetry, theatre pièces and prose) from
Rabelais (Pantagruel 1532, Gargantua 1534) to Voltaire (Dictionnaire
philosophique 1764) to understand the frequency of the thematic thread proposed
in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries and its impact on the diverse cultural
movements of production and reception. Overview of the theoretical and
contextual lines needed to understand the writings and the methodology needed to
analyze the literary work through practical tests that will be assessed as an integral
part of the final exam.
READING LIST
The lecturer will provide a course pack containing the selection of texts to be analyzed and
the documentation needed to understand the relative historical and socio-cultural
context.
In addition to the course pack and Blackboard material (Professor Verna), the student must
choose, read and translate the complete version of one of the following literary works:
RABELAIS, Pantagruel, Gargantua.
DU BELLAY, Les Regrets.
MONTAIGNE, Essais.
DESCARTES, Méditations philosophiques, Principes.
PASCAL, Pensées.
MOLIÈRE, École des femmes, Les Femmes savantes.
MONTESQUIEU, L’esprit des lois.
ROUSSEAU, Du contrat social, Essais sur l’origine des langues, Lettres écrites de la montagne.
VOLTAIRE, Dictionnaire philosophique.
TEACHING METHOD
Lectures scheduled for after the end of the Special Subject course held by Professor
Marisa Verna. Practical workshops for the analysis of the course texts and to equip the
students with the tools need to analyze the different types of literary texts; final test the
result of which will be incorporated into the final exam assessment.
All the course students must register with Blackboard, the online platform that is an
integral part of the course, and consult the course page regularly.
ASSESSMENT METHOD
The exam is in two parts: final written exam at the end of the course and an oral exam in
Italian, in which the student will need to demonstrate their knowledge of the course pack
texts and the complete version of the chosen text. The accurate translation of the poetic tests
is a prerequisite to take the exam on the commentary of the text and the aesthetic under
analysis.
NOTES
Further information can be found on the lecturer's webpage at
http://docenti.unicatt.it/web/searchByName.do?language=ENG, or on the Faculty notice
board.
French Literature Practical Classes (Year 2, Three-year Course students of the
Faculty of Language Sciences; curriculum: Foreign Languages and Literature)
PROFESSOR MARIA CRISTINA PEDRAZZINI
COURSE AIMS
In this course, we will study 19th-century French poetry, prose and drama.
COURSE CONTENT
Romantic and post-Romantic poetry: Lamartine, Vigny, Hugo, Gautier,
Baudelaire. Romantic prose: Chateaubriand. Theatre: Hugo. Realist-naturalist
prose: Maupassant.
READING LIST
The lecturer will prepare a course pack of the poetry
CHATEAUBRIAND, René, Ed. Gallimard.
HUGO, Ruy Blas, Ed. Gallimard.
MAUPASSANT, La dot ; Aux champs, available at http://maupassant.free.fr/.
The following manuals are reccomended for an overview of literary history:
J.P. BERTRAND-A. VAILLANT-P. REGNIER (éd.), Histoire de la littérature française du XIXe siècle,
Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2007.
P. BRUNEL-Y. BELLENGER, Histoire de la littérature française XIXe et XXe siècles, Bordas.
S. LONGO-M.C. CHASTANT, Regards. Histoire et anthologie de la littérature d’expression
française, XIXe siècle, Hoepli, Milan, 2004.
The students need to prepare the chapters on the authors studied in the course for the exam.
TEACHING METHOD
General studies, such as the history of the era, the thinking and 19th-century French
literature, readings and textual analysis.
ASSESSMENT METHOD
Final oral exam, in which the student will be asked to present 19th-century French
literary history and to read, translate and analyse passages of the works dealt with in the
course.
NOTES
This 20-hour course is open to all second-year three-year course students of the Faculty
of Language Sciences and will start after the end of the Special Subject Course taken by
Professor Marisa Verna.
The student is invited to check the lecturer’s webpage and the Foreign Languages and
Literature notice board (Necchi 9, 4th floor) regularly for variations and integrations to the
course.
Further information can be found on the lecturer's webpage at
http://docenti.unicatt.it/web/searchByName.do?language=ENG, or on the Faculty notice
board.