RL 407/507 --- Winter 2014
Prof. Massimo Lollini
Stanley Fish has recently posed an important question that will be at the core of this course: "Does the digital humanities offer new and better ways to realize traditional humanities goals? Or does the digital humanities completely change our understanding of what a humanities goal (and work in the humanities) might be?" We will look for provisional and partial answers to these broad questions focusing on the Oregon Petrarch Open Book project being developed at the University of Oregon. We will address in a new perspective the relevance of Petrarch's Canzoniere to the formation of modern lyric and love discourse, exploring various ideas of subjectivity as they relate to reconfigured notions of authorship and readership in the digital environment.
In true Web 2.0 fashion, students in selected activities (from transcribing manuscripts, incunabula and commentaries, to studying different translations and modern re-writings, from analyzing intersemiotic transpositions to creating tweets) will become discussants and contributors to the ongoing dialogue with the text and among its readers. The class will be organized in a scale-up learning environment specifically created to facilitate active, collaborative learning in a studio-like setting.
Depending on the focus of their final projects graduate students may apply this course to the credits for M.A. Periods 1, 2, 3 or 4.
INTRODUCTION
a) Why read Petrarch?
b) The worlds of Petrarch
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Life, works, travels, themes
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The legacy of Petrarch in Italian and European culture
c) The Rerum vulgarium fragmenta (Canzoniere) as an open book.
Mandatory readings:
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Familiares (Letters on familiar matters), I, 1;
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Rvf, 6, 20. The love theme, the metamorphoses and the ethics of writing and reading
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Massimo Lollini, "Humanism in the Digital Age"
Suggested readings:
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Familiares, II, 9; IV, 1; XXI, 12.
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From Letters of Old Age, "Posteritati"
- Bolter-Grusin, Re-mediation (Introduction)
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Guest speaker: Karen Estlund (UO Digital Scholarship), Introduction to the idea of Digital close reading and encoding
- Organization of working groups and preparation of the different activities
- Forum #1 : Analysis and discussion of: a) Letter on familiar matters, I, 1; b) From Letters of Old Age, "Posteritati"
- Readings:
- De sui ipsius et multorum ignorantia (On his own Ignorance and that of Many Others). Italian: Chapters I-II (pag. 1029-1049); English: pag.49-.65. This reading will be at the center of forum #2 and discussed in class in meeting #3.
- From Letters of Old Age, "Posteritati"
* We meet in Computer Lab Yamada 113
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Reading and dicussion of De sui ipsius et multorum ignorantia (On his own Ignorance and that of Many Others). Italian: Chapters III-IV (pag.1049-1131); English: pag.65-120
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Reading of the Canzoniere
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The students divided in groups will read the following poems and choose three of them to encode:
- The beginning of the story and the long Prologue: 1-10;
- First expressions of desire, resistance, remorse and sense of limit: 11-22.
- Metamorphoses: 23
- Love, poetry and war: 24-30
- Laura's disease, meaning of death, the loneliness of the poet: 31-37.
- Sonnets for friends, desire prevents any rest to the poet, Laura, mirror and Narcissus: 38-50.
- Metamorphosis, sensuality, condemnation of laurel: 51-60.
- WIKI: brief summary and analysis of the encoded poems
- Forum #2 : De sui ipsius et multorum ignorantia (On his own Ignorance and that of Many Others)
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Reading and dicussion of De sui ipsius et multorum ignorantia (On his own Ignorance and that of Many Others). Italian: Chapters III-IV (pag.1131-1151); English: pag-120-133
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Reading of the Canzoniere
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The students divided in group will choose one poem to encode following the guidelines provided:
- Laura enemy and savior: 61-69.
- The ideological and narrative turning point: 70
- The canzoni degli occhi: 71-73.
- The portrait of Laura, the ship as a metaphor for life, the antitheses of love: 74-90.
- Sonnets for the death of Gherardo and Cino, developments of the love theme, 91-101.
Sonnets with references to ancient history, confirmation of the love passion, sonnets for Senuccio Bene: 102-113.
- Memories of Laura, the poet fears her death and his own death: 114-120.
- Reading of the Canzoniere
- The students divided in group will choose one poem to encode following the guidelines provided:
- Love and revenge, search for spiritual love, silence and despair: 121-124.
- Five songs including Italia mia, Laura like a ghost in the mind of the poet: 125-129.
- Contradictions and paradoxical antitheses: 130-135.
- Invective against the papal curia; conflict between passion and reason: 140-141.
- Sestina of spiritual crisis: 142
- Resumption of desire; 143-149.
- The pain of the poet and praise of the beloved: 150-161
- WIKI: brief summary and analysis of the encoded poems
- Ups and downs of love passions: 162-165
- Critique of the production in the vernacular: 166
- Mixed and opposite feelings: 167-184
- Separation Body-Spirit: 180
- Laura like the phoenix: 185 (see also 135 and 321-323)
- The fate of Laura and poetry: 186-188
- It closed the first part of the form Chigi, the image of the ship disaster: 189
- It closed the Giovanni form, the white deer: 190.
- Stilnovistica transfiguration, Laura "beatrice": 191-193
- Identification of Laura with the breeze: 194-198.
- 199-201: the cycle of the glove.
- The labyrinth of love: 202-213.
- Only divine intervention can liberate the soul in the face of the overwhelming beauty of Laura capable of obscuring the sun: 214-226.
- WIKI: brief summary and analysis of the encoded poems
- *Computer Lab Yamada 113
- Still vicissitudes of love: 229-145
- Premonition of death of Laura: 246-257.
- Imagination: 257.
- The ephemeral beauty of Laura and the endless beauty that comes from heaven: 258-261.
- Laura's Chastity: 262-263.
- THE SECOND PART: 264-26: The turning point Song: 264 (the best and the worst), lamentations, the first composition to death is 267. Two compositions for Giovanni Colonna.
- Brief betrayal of the memory of Laura: 270-271.
- Painful sonnets and phantom presence of the beloved: 272-286.
- WIKI: brief summary and analysis of the encoded poems
- Sonnet for the death of Senuccio : 287
- The death of Laura corresponds to a salvific plan: 288-90
- He may see Laura again only after death: 291.
- Suffering and loss: 291-301.
- Brief vision of Laura among the spirits in paradise 302.
- The changes brought about by the death of Laura, reflections on the weakness of human consciousness: 303-309.
- Still suffering, loss, commemorations: 310-318.
- Laura is identified with the phoenix, the providential order of her death in the Canzone delle visioni: 319-323.
- Lamentations for the death of Laura and promises to make her eternal in his poetry: 325-327
- WIKI: brief summary and analysis of the encoded poems
- *Computer Lab Yamada 113
- Commemorations of events in the life and death of Laura: 328-337.
- Laura identified with Jesus, the poet with John the Evangelist: 338.
- The limited expressive power of poetry: 339.
- Night visions of the blessed Laura, desire to reach Laura in heaven: 340-353.
- Difficulties in adapting the style to the merits of Laura: 354.
- All the themes of the second part of the Canzoniere return: 355-365.
- Prayer to the Virgin: 366.
- WIKI: brief summary and analysis of the encoded poems
Presentations:
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Readings and participation to working groups, class discussions, electronic forumsand wikis (30%);
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Digital close reading of selected poems - Group activity (30%);
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Individual or group project to be discussed with the instructor (30%); student may choose one of the following projects:
- Translation Project (Study a particular translation of the Rvf; translate content in the OPOB)
- Transcription Project (Transcribe part of a 15th-century commentary of Rvf)
- Rewriting project (Study contemporary rewritings of the Rvf)
- Visual Art Project (Add images to the OPOB; study visual representations of Petrarch and his Rvf in different centuries)
- Music Project (Introduce new examples of musical renderings of Rvf in the OPOB database)
- Rhyme Project (study the different poetic genres of the Rvf and elaborate a summary to be included in the OPOB)
- Essay Project to be published in the OPOB
- Tweet Project (Elaboration, supervision and Publication of the existing 366 tweets of the Rvf; or translation into English, Spanish or French of these tweets)
- Presentation (10%).
NB. The course is conducted in English. Some discussion group might be conducted in a different Romance language. Students of French, Italian, Spanish or Portuguese need to plan with the instructor an appropriate project or special assignment to cover the language requirement if they want credit in the respective languages.
OBJECTIVES
The students in this course will
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read Petrarch's Canzoniere, and learn why this is one of the major masterpieces of World Literature
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learn about its history, structure, major themes and poetic devices
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become able to relate Petrarch's poetry to Petrarch's philosophy
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learn about the reception of the Canzoniere in different historical settings
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become able to appreciate the evolution of the text from manuscript to print and digital culture
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become able to appreciate how the different technologies, from manuscript to print and digital editions, influence and condition our reading of texts
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learn and practice the notion of digital close reading
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learn the process of encoding a poetic text and its importance for a new reading and understanding of the Canzoniere
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learn and practice the major techniques of collaborative reading and writing
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