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INTERSEMIOTIC TRANSPOSITION

Course Details

• CODE: 66410
• ACADEMIC YEAR: 2025/2026
• CREDITS:
  • 6 cfu anno 1 LINGUE E LETTERATURE MODERNE PER L'INSEGNAMENTO, L'EDITORIA E I MEDIA DIGITALI 11953 (LM-37 R) - GENOVA
  • 6 cfu anno 1 LETTERATURE MODERNE E SPETTACOLO 11961 (LM-14) - GENOVA
  • 9 cfu anno 1 LETTERATURE MODERNE E SPETTACOLO 11961 (LM-14) - GENOVA
• SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINARY SECTOR: L-FIL-LET/14
• LANGUAGE: Italian
• TEACHING LOCATION: GENOVA
• SEMESTER: 2° Semester
• TEACHING MATERIALS: AULAWEB

OVERVIEW

Writers should open the ways of access between men. Only Metamorphosis, taken in the most radical meaning, enables us to feel what a person is beyond their words, to grasp the true substance of a living being. Pity demands concrete metamorphosis in every single living and existing being. In the myth and in the literary works that are handed down to us, those who write learn and practice Metamorphosis, our human instrument not to leave humanity at the mercy of death. - Elias Canetti

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The main purpose of the discipline is to lead students to reflect critically on the intertextual practices of transposition of the literary text into other media (musical, visual, scenic, and cinematographic), identifying and comparing different transformative processes, which allow content and narrative forms to migrate in different sign systems; establishing and testing the possible equivalence relations and the conditions of translatability and transferability between different semiotic contexts.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of the course, students will be able to:

• Know and reciprocally compare the main theoretical concepts regarding intertextuality and intermediality
• Apply the different theoretical positions to the concrete practice of intersemiotic translation cases analysis, knowing how to evaluate the congruence of theoretical choice, in relation to the class of texts to which it is decided to apply
• Critically master the theoretical categories for intertextuality analysis, increasing abilities for abstract reflection and argumentative skills, sensitive to contexts
• Demonstrate the historical awareness of the different theoretical positions and the ability to conceive their possible interpretative function relatively to contemporary literary phenomena

PREREQUISITES

The theoretical characterization of the discipline engages a dialogue with the course of Comparative Literature, developing and deepening its formative objectives, according to a different and more specific methodological perspective.

TEACHING METHODS

In its 60 hours of lessons, the course will provide for a close and continuous interconnection between frontal lessons (presenting analytical methodologies and synoptic historiographic frameworks) and participatory activity of students (collectively discussing theoretical models, and analyzing literary, musical, and cinematographical texts in their intersemiotic relations). Active participation in lessons is therefore very important for the full achievement of the learning objectives.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The Transparent World. George Gordon Byron and European Culture. Goethe claimed that Byron was a poet of the same greatness as Shakespeare, he imagined him as a burning bush reducing to ashes the sacred cedars of Lebanon (every great work he measured with), he identified Byron with Poetry itself, transfiguring his figure, in the tragic character of Euphorion, son of Faust and Helen of Troy. Following Goethe, all Europe in the 19th Century fell in love with the hyper-romantic figure of Byron, with his modernly fluid sexuality, his existential incontinence, and his absolute creative grace. Byron, the hero, was adopted as the fictional protagonist of countless narratives. His work was continually rewritten, assuming many of his verses and pages as a shared memory of the epoch, and finally translated into painting, music, melodrama.

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

• NICOLA FERRARI
  • Ricevimento: On Monday (by appointment), 11-12 AM
• Exam Board:
  • NICOLA FERRARI (President)
  • MARTINA MORABITO

LESSONS

LESSONS START

Lessons will begin on Monday, the 9th of February, at 9.00 AM (Aula 3).

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available.

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

The exam consists of a written (a) and an oral (b) part. (a) Redaction of an essay of a length appropriate to the chosen topic, previously agreed and discussed with the teacher, presented in its final form at least one week before the exam. (b) Critically discussion of the written paper, placing the adopted intertextual methodology in the context of the main literary theories of the twentieth century.

ASSESSMENT METHODS

The evaluation of the paper (a) will consider:

• The terminological property of the analysis
• The understanding of the critical model and the ability to personal re-elaboration of the studied contents
• The reflection on the formal organization in the presentation of the research results
• The effectiveness of the analytical model application to the text reading The evaluation of the oral discussion (b) will consider:
• The general knowledge of the discipline contents
• The degree of the contents' personal critical re-elaboration
• The ability for abstract reflection and argumentative ability, sensitive to the contexts of discourse
• The awareness of the essential historical relationships between texts and theories

Exam schedule

• 15/12/2025 | 09:00 | GENOVA | Orale
• 12/01/2026 | 09:00 | GENOVA | Orale
• 02/02/2026 | 09:00 | GENOVA | Orale
• 25/05/2026 | 09:00 | GENOVA | Orale
• 08/06/2026 | 09:00 | GENOVA | Orale
• 20/07/2026 | 09:00 | GENOVA | Orale
• 14/09/2026 | 09:00 | GENOVA | Orale

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

The bibliography, indicative of the critical and literary texts to be analyzed in the course, will be integrated in relation to the participating students' interests.

1. General handbooks on intertexuality/intermediality
2. Theoretical and Critical Texts
3. Texts:
   • George Gordon Byron, Don Juan, Penguin 2025
   • George Gordon Byron, Selected Poems, Penguin 2006
   • W. Goethe Faust II [trad. Franco Fortini, Mondadori 2016]

FURTHER INFORMATION

Non-attending students should contact the teacher in order to define a personal program related to her/his interests and curriculum. There is no extra-bibliography for non-attending students. Erasmus students not proficient in Italian may request a substitutive bibliography, and take the examination in English (or in other European languages as Spanish or French). Students with disabilities or learning disabilities (SLD) can request exam accommodations.