The course is divided in two parts: the first (16 hours) includes a wide introduction to Latin literature, focused on key elements for the discipline's study (literary genres; models; intertextuality; historical and literary contexts; themes; linguistic and stylistic codes; conservation and loss of texts; survivor); the second (32 hours) is focused on Ovid's Metamorphoses, poem which represent an original transfornation of epic form. The work will be analysed in the historical and cultural context of Augustan Age, paying peculiar attention to the tradition of epic genre in Rome and to Vergil's Aeneid. Object of in-dept analysis will be ideological features, models, structure, language and style of the poem. Some important episodes will be read, translated and commented.

For the study of Latin literature any school textbook at the discretion of the student, to be approved by the professor (recommended G.B. Conte, Letteratura latina, 2 voll., Firenze, Le Monnier Università, 2019, III ed.).
Complete edition of Ovid’s Metamorphoses: Publio Ovidio Nasone, Le metamorfosi; introduzione di Gianpiero Rosati; traduzione di Giovanna Faranda Villa; note di Rossella Corti, Milano, BUR, 2016 (Classici greci e latini); further reading: G. Rosati, Mito e potere nell'epica di Ovidio, «Materiali e Discussioni per l’analisi dei testi classici » 46 (2001), pp. 39-61; A. Barchiesi, Senatus consultum de Lycaone: Concili degli dèi e immaginazione politica, nelle Metamorfosi di Ovidio, in «Materiali e Discussioni per l’analisi dei testi classici» 61 (2009), pp. 117-145.