Italian Papers

This paper aims to present the whole range of grammatical structures of the Italian language to ab-initio students, in order to develop an active understanding and use of the Italian language in a variety of registers, including literary. By its very nature the course runs at an intensive pace and is supported by carefully designed language material both on paper and online, that enables students to acquire, develop and reinforce the basic structures and vocabulary of Italian.

This paper is composed of 2 parts: Translation and Oral A

The translation component of ITA2 develops students’ language skills through targeted practise of translating from and into Italian. The oral skills component of the course exposes students to a variety of language and culture situations to develop their ability to communicate in Italian. Oral classes are taught by a native speaker and are conducted exclusively in Italian.

Translation Through practising translation from Italian, students will develop their comprehension skills, encounter the grammar and vocabulary they have been learning in other Italian language papers in authentic materials, and begin to develop techniques to produce accurate and effective translations. Through translating into Italian, students will have the opportunity to actively use the grammar and vocabulary encountered in their other Italian language papers, to develop confidence and mastery of Italian, and be able to use the language creatively and idiomatically.

Oral A On completion of the course, students are able to present and discuss general aspects of Italian culture and society, and to use basic formal and informal vocabulary in a number of functional language situations.

This course is for first year post-A Level students (Part IA(b)) and second year ex-ab initio students (Part IB(a)).

The course lays special emphasis on the study of the different styles and registers students will encounter in Italy. Through a number of varied and challenging exercises, to be completed in class and in college, students learn how to analyse and use the styles and registers of a variety of texts, selected to reflect the diversity of contemporary Italian. 

Translation from Italian into English, and an oral examination. These two elements count together as one paper. 

The purpose of the fortnightly translation class is to develop your awareness and comprehension of a variety of different registers and styles of written Italian (literary, academic, journalistic, descriptive, discursive, etc.), to increase the range of your vocabulary, and to enhance your ability to produce a good, stylistically appropriate English translation.

Oral supervisions aim to develop your oral and general language expression skills in Italian, working with a native speaker in small groups of 2-4 students.

Paper B3 is made up of two distinct components: Translation into Italian and Italian through Audio-visual Media (MD). Together, the B3 Translation and MD elements will help you develop your linguistic skills and cultural competence in a range of areas.

The B3 paper is only available to Part IB (i.e., second-year students) who had an A-level or equivalent in the language when they arrived. In addition, if your other language is ab initio, you can choose not to do this paper in Italian and instead do an extra literature/linguistics paper from the schedule of IB papers. If, however, both your languages are post A-level, then this paper (both components) is compulsory.

This course aims to further develop and consolidate the ability of students to translate accurately and effectively from and into Italian. Students acquire the necessary level of language sophistication to read, interpret and translate a range of texts from and into Italian, producing translations that show a confident command of idiomatic language, grammatical accuracy and the necessary sensitivity to reproduce the appropriate register and tone.

Under the umbrella topic of "identity", as prescribed by the Faculty Board, students explore and interact in Italian with three or four sub-topics around the central theme, including themes such as society, art and culture, history, language, philosophy, geography, and politics. A three-hour examination will ask students to engage critically in written Italian with an unseen text on a topic of cultural interest related to the topics discussed in classes over the course of the year.

The course is designed to introduce you to 'texts' or topics of a wide variety of different kinds drawing on the entire tradition of Italian culture and language from the 14th century to present, as preparation for later Italian courses in the Tripos. It spreads over three broad historical periods - medieval, Renaissance, and modern - and shows you how to embed the study of the texts of topics in their many historical and cultural contexts. Core material studied includeds medieval and Renaissance poetry and art, children's literature, cinema, and linguistics.  Each of the cultural topics, taught across Michelmas and Lent Terms, is built around a single text or extract of manageable length or quantity, supplemented by course handbooks providing detailed contextual material and suggestions for further study. The topic on Italian linguistics will be taught separately in Lent Term.

The course is designed to introduce you to 'texts' or topics of a wide variety of different kinds drawing on the entire tradition of Italian culture and language from the 14th century to present, as preparation for later Italian courses in the Tripos. It spreads over three broad historical periods - medieval, Renaissance, and modern - and shows you how to embed the study of the texts of topics in their many historical and cultural contexts. Core material studied includeds medieval and Renaissance poetry and art, children's literature, cinema, and linguistics.  Each of the cultural topics, taught across Michelmas and Lent Terms, is built around a single text or extract of manageable length or quantity, supplemented by course handbooks providing detailed contextual material and suggestions for further study. The topic on Italian linguistics will be taught separately in Lent Term.

This course is shared between ab initio students of Italian (Part 1, Option A, Paper ITA3) and Post-A-level students of Italian (Part 1, Option B, Paper IT1).

This paper enables students to acquire an in-depth understanding of the complex linguistic landscape of the Italian peninsula. This will support the development of more accurate linguistic competence and, more broadly, foster a critical engagement with formal accounts of language variation and change, providing students with the tools and skills to critically evaluate what Italian and its related varieties can tell us about the language faculty. Through an exploration of key topics in Italian linguistics, including diatopic, diachronic, diastratic, and contact-induced variation in phonology, morphosyntax and lexis, students will:

• Gain an advanced empirical understanding of the linguistic structures and variation that shape Italy.
• Develop a theoretical understanding of general mechanisms of language variation and change.
• Engage with fundamental concepts from various branches of linguistics, such as syntax, historical linguistics, contact linguistics, and sociolinguistics.

Students enrolled in IT2 and IT10 attend the same lectures. The overall aims and objectives for both papers are as outlined above. To reflect the differing levels of academic expertise, a different range of supervision activities and readings will be specified for the two papers in relation to a specific set of topics. In the final exam, there will be some differences in the questions set for IT2 and IT10 students: i.e. different selections of texts will be set for the commentary question; and where appropriate some essay questions will be specific to IT2 or IT10 students only.

The significance of Italian cinema to Italian cultural life is inestimable, and Italy’s influence on the world is probably felt more strongly in cinema than in any other art form. Italian cinema played a crucial role in the development of an early international film culture in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Cinema was promoted vigorously under Fascism, as a weapon of the state, while the postwar filmmaking associated with Neorealism was an explicit means of breaking with the Fascist past. In late 1950s and 60s Italian cinema was a vital resource for narrating and criticising the dizzying consumerism of those years. Italian art cinema made an enormous impact on filmmaking worldwide in the 60s and 70s. More recent Italian cinema draws from this rich legacy to explore the conditions of the nation and its porous borders in an era of increasing multiculturalism, global precarity, and technological change. The paper carries students from the very beginning of cinema as an art form to the present day, and engages them in the study of film theory and the practice of close film analysis.

The paper will typically cover some or all of the following topics in Italian cinema history:

• Italian early cinema: nationhood, modernity, spectacle
• Fascist cinema: melodrama and everyday life
• Neorealism: aesthetic and political regeneration
• The Economic Miracle: consumerism and its discontents
• Italian art cinema: cinemas of poetry and alienation
• Postwar popular genres: commedia all’italiana and horror
• Postmodern impegno
• Neo-neorealism and neo-spectacularism: contemporary perspectives

Telling stories about ourselves and our lives is a universal human cultural trait, but it takes distinct forms in different cultures and different periods. This course follows the pattern of the Italian "Texts and Contexts" course in Part 1A by ranging over a wide range of periods in Italian culture, including literature and art, from medieval to modern. Instead of the contextual approach of the 1A course, however, here works are studied in relation to a single overarching aspect; the theory and practice of 'self-representation' or 'autobiography', with particular attention paid to questions of gender and race. You will be required to study single works in detail, from works of literature in prose and poetry, to self-portraits and memoirs, but also to compare and contrast different texts, across genres, forms and periods (including going beyond the core texts if you wish). You will also be introduced to some of the core theoretical issues at stake in studying autobiography and self-representation.

• Topic 1: Race, Migration, Autobiography: Nadeesha Uyangoda and Vittorio Longhi
• Topic 2: Medieval Selves: Dante and Petrarch
• Topic 3: Family, Memory, History: Primo Levi and Natalia Ginzburg
• Topic 4: Painting the Self: Sofonisba Anguissola, Lavinia Fontana, Artemisia Gentileschi 

Can we speak of an Italian culture and society (and language) if Italy de facto did not exist before 1861 as a political entity? Is it possible to speak of a single Italian identity in Italy's history or should we rather consider several Italian identities? And what is it that has defined and distinguished Italy and its culture through the centuries? From the Middle Ages to the end of the nineteenth century Italy was a politically and linguistically fragmented country. To more adequately understand Italy's tradition and culture, one must also consider the variety of political and cultural centres that developed across the peninsula. This paper offer students the possibility to gain a more detailed understanding of the country's history, language and culture by focusing on its local identities and texts of various genres that chronologically range from the Middle Ages to the present times. It also focuses on some of the greatest authors and works of the Italian cultural tradition, as well as literary, artistic and cultural movements whose influence and impact still continue worldwide. Students will have the possibility to both explore what is distinctively Italian about specific topics/authors/themes taught on the paper and appreciate the strength and uniqueness of Italy’s culture.

• Topic 1. Florence: Boccaccio's Decameron​ in Medieval Florence: Storytelling, Society and Gender in Crisis
• Topic 2. The “Prince” and the State in Renaissance Italy’s Court Culture: Machiavelli’s Political Thought
• Topic 3. Grazia Deledda's Sardinia in Post-Unification Italy  
• Topic 4. Ferrante’s Naples: From Local to Global

his paper allows you to study a wide range of different texts and topics from within Italian culture of the modern era, broadly stretching from the early 20th century to the present day. It focuses on texts of different forms (novels, drama, short stories, poetry), works in different media (written texts, film, photography, visual arts), and different modes of cultural enquiry (literary and cinema criticism and theory, intellectual and cultural history, cultural sociology, philosophy), to give you a rich sense of the variety and complexity of modern Italian culture and history. There are no compulsory texts or topics: you will select four of the topics on offer in any one year and study each in a combination of lectures / seminars and supervisions.

• Topic 1: Rome in Italian Cinema
• Topic 2: Questioning the Post/Decolonial through Italian Cultures
• Topic 3: Fondata sul lavoro': Labour Narratives in Post-war Italy
• Topic 4: 'Anni di piombo': history, cinema, memory
• Topic 5: Fascism and Culture

This course offers an opportunity for in-depth study of Dante’s writings, with particular attention to his masterpiece, the Commedia. Dante’s works and personal experience are deeply rooted in the turbulent socio-political and cultural context of his time—one that marked a crucial turning point in the development of Italian history and identity. At the same time, Dante’s highly experimental and innovative approach gave remarkable impetus to the emerging Italian literary tradition and to the vernacular language. Through a combination of thematic approaches and close readings of individual works, the course opens up a wide range of possible explorations of Dante’s oeuvre, set within the historical, literary, artistic, religious, and theological landscape of late-medieval Italy.

This paper examines a period of radical political, religious, and cultural change in Italy. As well as engaging in detailed analysis of some of the most fascinating works of the period, students can explore broader questions, such as the ways in which traumatic historical events, cultural discoveries, and technological innovations allow the emergence of new ideas on the human condition, on self-representation, on the role of intellectuals, and on the status of women in society and literature. A range of topics, touching on a variety of literary genres can be explored. Students who are interested in doing an Optional Dissertation for this paper should contact the paper coordinator.

• Topic 1: Nature and the Pastoral
• Topic 2: Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna: Art and Poetry
• Topic 3: "Constructing Women" in Early Modern Italy 
• Topic 4: Global and Local: Forming identity in 16th century Italy
• Topic 5: Linguistic Thought in Early Modern Italy: The Vernacular Codification and Language

Visual and textual art in Italy have always fed one another in productive and challenging ways, and this course offers an opportunity to study visual culture as embedded in textual traditions across a broad range of periods and mediums in Italy. Topics taught each year will vary but each topic will emphasise theoretical approaches to the study of visual culture and the interaction between word and image. You will be encouraged to develop your own particular research interests for your written work in consultation with your supervisor.

Four to five main topics will be taught in any one year, and may change from year to year.

• Topic 1: Medieval Literature and the Visual Arts: Dante and Boccaccio
• Topic 2: Colonial and Postcolonial Italy between Text and Film: Flaiano
• Topic 3: Leonardo da Vinci: Vision and Creation
• Topic 4: Art and the Counter-Reformation
• Topic 5: Pasolini. Text, Image, Art  

This paper enables students to acquire an in-depth understanding of the complex linguistic landscape of the Italian peninsula. This will support the development of more accurate linguistic competence and, more broadly, foster a critical engagement with formal accounts of language variation and change, providing students with the tools and skills to critically evaluate what Italian and its related varieties can tell us about the language faculty. Through an exploration of key topics in Italian linguistics, including diatopic, diachronic, diastratic, and contact-induced variation in phonology, morphosyntax and lexis, students will:

• Gain an advanced empirical understanding of the linguistic structures and variation that shape Italy.
• Develop a theoretical understanding of general mechanisms of language variation and change.
• Engage with fundamental concepts from various branches of linguistics, such as syntax, historical linguistics, contact linguistics, and sociolinguistics

Students enrolled in IT2 and IT10 attend the same lectures. The overall aims and objectives for both papers are as outlined above. To reflect the differing levels of academic expertise, a different range of supervision activities and readings will be specified for the two papers in relation to a specific set of topics. In the final exam, there will be some differences in the questions set for IT2 and IT10 students: i.e. different selections of texts will be set for the commentary question; and where appropriate some essay questions will be specific to IT2 or IT10 students only.