Università Roma Tre

The Fall of Man in Medieval Germanic Literature

The course will focus on the different modes of translating and interpreting Biblical passages in the medieval Germanic milieu. Special attention will be given to the Fall of man and to the representations of Adam and Eve in texts belonging to different genres and periods. Problems related to source identification, to the relations among texts, to the interaction between word and image, to the various allusions and quotations of the Temptation episode found in works of different authors (Chaucer, Langland, Gottfried von Strassburg), to the allegorical and metaphorical dimension of the scene as it appears in literary texts will be analyzed from a literary, philological and linguistic perspective. The course will also provide students with an understanding of the main aspects of language changes over time (phonological, lexical, morphological, syntactic). Students will learn how to use the principle bibliographical instruments for carrying out individual or team researches.

One of the following texts:

- C. Barber, The English Language: a Historical Introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1993.
- P. von Polenz, Geschichte der deutschen Sprache, Berlin-New York: Walter de Gruyter 1978.

A selection of chapters from:

- B. Smalley, Lo studio della Bibbia nel Medioevo, Bologna: Il Mulino 1972.
- N. Frye, Il grande codice. La Bibbia e le letterature, Torino: Einaudi 1986
- B. Murdoch, The Apocryphal Adam and Eve in Medieval Europe: Vernacular Translations and Adaptations of the Vita Adae et Evae, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009
- A. M. Luiselli Fadda, Tradizioni manoscritte e critica del testo nel medioevo germanico, Roma-Bari: Laterza 2004 (Parte II).
- D. Wallace, The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2002 (chapters 1,2,6,21,26).
- D. Kartschoke, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur im hohen Mittelalter, München: DTV 1990.

Further material (critical editions, glossaries, critical essays) will be given at the beginning of the course.
Students are advised to attend classes. Those who cannot attend them are requested to contact the teacher at the beginning of the course.