Brief description
There will be a short introductory part on the European history of the novel, looking at its differentiation from romance, its "bourgeois" origins, and at the early rise of an anti- or meta-novel form.

We shall then look at the "first" two Italian novels, Ugo Foscolo?s Ultime Lettere di Jacopo Ortis and Alessandro Manzoni?s I Promessi Sposi.

In each case a consideration of the cultural and historical as well as of the literary background should help us trace and explain the presence within the text of those germs of ?sfiducia? and self-criticism which make the Italian novel at its very outset a ?reticent? form.