This course will be a general introduction to the study of Italian vernacular literature covering the medieval and renaissance periods, roughly 1100-1600. We will read, discuss and write upon the major genres of this period; lyric poetry, the novella, autobiography, and theatrical comedy, as well as glancing briefly at chronicles, biographies, Vidas and razos, saints' lives, and epistles.

We will spend some time with the major authors of the period and their major works: Dante's Vita Nuova and Commedia, Boccaccio's Decameron, Petrarca's Canzoniere, and Machiavelli's The Mandragola, but we will also address the lyric poets of the Sicilian School, Guido Cavalcanti, Guido Guinizzelli, Cecco Angiolieri, Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna, as well as pre- and post-Boccaccian novellistica (including Christine De Pisan's early work of proto-feminism, The Book of the City of Ladies), and other biographical and historical texts of the period to deepen our understanding of how literature was produced and received in the middle ages and renaissance.

These readings should give us a good picture of the development of the various literary genres of this period as well as provide a springboard for discussing greater historical and social concerns such as the effects of various political and economic forces on art and literature, spirituality and/or the secular in the same, the so-called "rise of the individual", and even the role of woman in this pivotal period of early modern history.