Italian 621, Il Settecento (Part 1) offers a survey of early eighteenth-century (pre-Enlightenment) Italian literature (1690-1750) and examines the development of specific literary genres in the contexts of cultural and intellectual history. The course provides methodologies and philological instruments necessary to the critical reading of a variety of narrative and poetic texts in the perspective of literary and cultural cross-currents of this time period. Special attention will be devoted to poetry, theory of poetry, philosophy of history and literary and historical methodology. Textual analysis will be occasionally conducted on 18th-century printed editions with the purpose of allowing the students to familiarize themselves with the typographic characteristics and oddities of antique books.