Fantastic Beasts

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

From mythical creatures to demonic bodies and surprisingly bestial humans, this course explores the animals of medieval Italian literature. Why is the horse lascivious? How can a wolf be tamed? Which monsters from Antiquity lurk in the imagination of the Medieval world? To answer these questions and more, students will read extracts from classics of world literature – including Dante’s Divine Comedy, Boccaccio’s Decameron, and Petrarch’s Canzoniere – alongside lesser-studied poems, treatises, and short stories from the heart of the lyric tradition to the soul of medieval monasticism. As well as a strong grounding in the logic and development of the medieval “Bestiary” tradition, students will discover medieval transformations of classical myths and explore the role of non-humans in medieval depictions of the human condition itself, from love to sin and salvation. This course is taught in Italian. Students will have the chance to study selected traditions from visual art, including manuscript illuminations and wall paintings.