The Myth of Memory from Antiquity to Dante
Spring 2014
ITAL 314 / HUMS 263/ LITR 185
Prof. Giuseppe Mazzotta
82-90 Wall St., No. 406
giuseppe.mazzotta@yale.edu
Eleonora Buonocore
82-90 Wall St., No. 413
eleonora.buonocore@yale.edu
Course description
The purpose of this course is to draw the students’ attention to the importance of
memory. We will raise some key questions: what is memory’s relationship to
forgetfulness? Is memory an art? Is it a philosophical faculty? Is it the myth of the mother
of the Muses? And how do these questions relate to one another? To answer them we
will turn to philosophical and poetic texts in the Ancient and Medieval worlds, we will
think critically about the role of memory in Medieval Culture and offer new insights into
early Italian Literature.
More specifically, the course, a bi-weekly seminar, will provide an in-depth
analysis of the different views of memory and of the relationship between memory and
poetry, starting from the Greco-Roman world and arriving to Dante. The course will
analyze different perspectives on memory: memory as a seal in the wax, memory as a
book, memory as a monument, memory as a river, the banquet of memory, in order to
show the intrinsic poetic value of the act of remembering and the fundamental link
between memory and its opposite, forgetting.
The course will focus on three areas: the role of memory in the philosophy of
Plato and Aristotle; the place of memory in the Roman education of rhetoricians and in
the Latin poetry of the early Empire; the Ancient reflection on the spiritual character of
memory in the Christian philosophy of Saint Augustine. These three large subdivisions
share one aim: the question of education. The course will then explore the continuing
importance of memory in Medieval education and therefore in poetic and didactic texts,
such as the Troubadours, Cavalcanti, and Dante.
The class will be taught in English, all the texts will be provided in translation.
Given the nature of the course as bi-weekly seminar, the students will be expected to
come to class prepared and to participate actively to class-discussion. Students will be
evaluated according to: participation in seminar discussion (includes prepared responses
to questions asked in class) (30%); two 10 mins in-class presentations about the class
material (20%); a paper proposal (3 to 5 pages), including a paper outline and a
bibliography (15%); a 10 pages final paper (35%).
Week 1:
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January 14, 2014: Presentation of the course
January 16, 2014: The myth of memory as mother of the Muses and Plato
Week 2:
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January 21, 2014: Memory in Greek Thought: Plato
January 23, 2014: Memory in Greek Thought: Aristotle
Week 3:
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January 28, 2014: Memory in Greek Thought: Aristotle II
January 30, 2014: The role of memory in the Roman Education: Rhetoric
Week 4:
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February 4, 2014: Memory in Roman Literature under the Empire: Horace
February 6, 2014: Ovid and Virgil
Week 5:
 February 11, 2014: Memory in Christian Thought
 February 13, 2014: Saint Augustine Confessions X (selections)
Week 6: (Last week for First round of Student Presentations)
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February 18, 2014: The role of memory in Medieval Education
February 20, 2014: Memory in Medieval Paris
Week 7:
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February 25, 2014: Theories of Love and the Problem of Memory
February 27, 2014: Memory and Love in the Vernacular: the Troubadours
Week 8:
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March 4, 2014: Memory at the Imperial court of Frederick II
March 6, 2014: The role of memory in Tuscan poets, from the origins to the
Dolce Stil Novo
Spring Break!
Week 9:
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March 25, 2014: The philosophical basis of medieval memory: Thomas Aquinas
March 27, 2014: Memory in between philosophy and poetry: Guido Cavalcanti’s
Donna me Prega
Week 10:
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April 1, 2014: The Masterpiece of memory: Dante’s Vita Nova
April 3, 2014 Dante’s Vita Nova II
Week 11: (Paper proposal due- including outline and bibliography)
 April 8, 2014: Dante’s Banquet of memory
 April 10, 2014: The fixation of memory in Inferno
Week 12: (Last week for Second round of student presentations)
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April 15, 2014: Memory in Inferno II
April 17, 2014: The rivers of memory in Purgatorio
Week 13:
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April 22, 2014: The failure of memory in Paradiso: Forgetfulness
April 24, 2014: Conclusions
Final Paper due: May 6, 2014
Readings:
Primary sources: selected readings in translation from the following texts:
Alighieri Dante, The Divine Comedy. Trans. Charles Singleton. Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1970-75. (selections)
--- Dante’s Il Convivio (The Banquet) Trans. Richard H. Lansing. New York:
Garland, 1990.
--- Vita Nuova. Trans. Mark Musa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973.
Aquinas, Saint Thomas. Commentaries on Aristotle's " On Sense and what is Sensed"
and " On Memory and Recollection". Ed. Trasl. Kevin White and E. M. Macierowski.
Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2005. (selections)
Gary Wills, Saint Augustine’s Memory, New York- London, Viking Press, 2002
Sorabji, Richard, and Aristotle. Aristotle on Memory. Providence: Brown University
Press, 1972
Cicero, Marcus Tullius. De Inventione. De Optimo Genere Oratorum. Topica. with an
English Translation by H. M. Hubbell. Cambridge; London: Harvard University Press;
William Heinemann Ltd., 1960. (selections)
Horace. Odes III: Dulce Periculum. Trans. David West. Oxford; New York: Oxford
University Press, 2002. (selected poems)
Hugh of St. Victor. The Didascalicon of Hugh of Saint Victor, a Medieval Guide to the
Arts. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. (selections)
Martianus Capella and the seven liberal arts. New York: Columbia University Press,
1977. (selections)
Mark A. Cirigliano, Melancholia Poetica. A Dual Language Anthology of Italian
Poetry, 1160-1560, Leicester (UK), Troubadour Publishing, 2007.
Plato, Meno and Phaedo. Ed. Trans. David Sedley, Alex Long. Cambridge, New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. (selections)
Plato, Theaetetus, Transl. Robin H. Waterfield, Penguin Paperbaks, 1987
Virgil, Aeneid. Trans. Rushton Fairclough and G. P. Goold. Cambridge (Mass.):
Harvard University Press, 1999. (selections)
Other primary sources will be made available throughout the semester on the ClassesV2
server.
Secondary sources (suggested readings):
Carruthers, Mary, The Book of Memory, Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press,
1990.
--- (ed.) Medieval craft of memory : an anthology of texts and pictures. Philadelphia,
Pa. : University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.
Mazzotta, Giuseppe, Dante Poet of the Desert, Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1979.
---Dante's Vision and the Circle of Knowledge, Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1992.
Minnis, Alastair J. Medieval Theory of Authorship. London: Scolar Press, 1988.
Pearce, Spencer, “Dante and the Art of Memory,” in The Italianist 16 (1996), 20-61.
Stahl, William Harris, and Richard Johnson. Martianus Capella and the Seven Liberal
Arts. 84 Vol. New York: Columbia University Press, 1971.
Yates, Frances A., The Art of Memory, London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1966.