Course Title: I. Introduction to Latin Literature; II. Vergil’s Aeneid

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 Vergil's epic poem, key text in Roman literary history as well as in Western culture: starting from an historical-cultural overview of the Vergilian poem, will be carried out an in-depth analysis of his ideological, structural and linguistic-stylistic features, paying peculiar attention to Latin epic tradition. The course aims to provide a critical knowledge of Vergil's epic poem, set in the context of the Augustan age and in its relationships with the Greek and Latin, not only epic, literary tradition. The goal will be pursued through reading and literary-philological analysis of an anthology of the poem’s episodes.

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, in 2 voll., Firenze, Le Monnier Università, 2019). Literary history has to be studied from the origins down to Augustan age (included).
A complete edition of Vergil’ Aeneid with Latin text (suggested: Virgilio, Eneide. Introduzione di A. La Penna; trad. e nn. di R. Scarcia, Milano, BUR, with many reprints); A. Traina, Virgilio. L'utopia e la storia. Il libro XII dell'Eneide e antologia delle opere, Bologna, Pàtron, 2017; A. Barchiesi, Le sofferenze dell'impero, in Virgilio, Eneide, BUR, pp. V-XLIV; A. Barchiesi, Bellum Italicum: l’unificazione dell’Italia nell’Eneide, in G. Urso (a cura di), Patria diversis gentibus una? Unità politica e identità etniche nell’Italia antica. Atti del Convegno internazionale, Cividale del Friuli, 20-22 settembre 2007, Pisa, 2008, pp. 243-260.