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This authoritative and vividly written book brings readers into the heart of Italian literary culture from the 1690s to the present. It probes the work of major authors in their broad cultural context, traces the history of audiences and publishers, explores the shifting relationship between public and private, assesses the impact of significant historical trends and events on creative processes, and establishes the continuities as well as the discontinuities of the Italian literary tradition.

A synoptic overview at the beginning of the volume is designed to help the reader get her or his bearings in the detail of the nine chapters which follow. Using an essentially chronological framework, the book is divided into three major cultural time-spans: the long eighteenth century, the decades of national identity formation and the creation of modern', industrial Italy between 1816 and 1900, and the twentieth century with its constant renegotiation of national cultural identity. A final epilogue provides a snapshot of Italian literary culture in the near-present.

This is a book which will be readily accessible to students and all those interested in Italian culture, and at the same time is based on the most up-to-date scholarship. New readings of the canonical authors rub shoulders with a refreshing attention to standard and popular writing, gender issues, and the interaction between written and oral forms, producing a history of modern Italian literature which is new in its conception and its scope. ... Read more

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Italian American studies has long been in conversation with American culture at large and is increasingly present in American universities and colleges. Yet once-celebrated works, such as Pietro di Donato s Christ in Concrete, have slipped from the public consciousness, and many scholars fear that representations of Italian Americans in popular culture, as in The Godfather films and the television series The Sopranos, have obscured genuine historical inquiry and understanding. This volume aims to foster a deeper and more complex appreciation for the importance of Italian American texts in the study of American culture.

The editors open the volume by outlining the history of Italians in the United States and exploring the potential of literature and the arts to enable the recovery of a forgotten, even repressed, historical past. Over thirty scholars and teachers then present innovative ways of teaching Italian American texts and integrating them with other texts in courses ranging from American literature and history to multiethnic and women s studies. Contributors discuss Italian American fiction, poetry, memoir, oral history, and theater and performance. A section on film and television provides an overview of popular as well as lesser-known works and interrogates the stereotyped portrayals of Italian Americans. Other contributors offer historical and interdisciplinary approaches to Italian American texts that revolve around themes of race and gender politics, work and social class, and historical intersections. The volume concludes with a review of anthologies that can be used in teaching Italian American studies. ... Read more

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This first substantial history of Italian literature to appear in the English language for forty years provides a comprehensive survey of one of the richest and most influential literatures of Europe. Leading scholars describe and assess the work of a wide range of writers who have contributed to the Italian literary tradition from its earliest origins to the present day. The volume is accessible to the general reader as well as to students and scholars. Translations are provided, along with maps, chronological charts, and up-to-date bibliographies. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Learn About Italy's Literary Giants
I have not completed this book yet, as I find myself stopping to investigate a particular author I didn't know much about, i.e., Tasso, Boccaccio, Leopardi, and then doing in-depth research to go along with the details of this book.It is really a wonderful introduction to Italian Literature.I majored in English Literature; therefore, writers like Dante and Petrarch were familiar to me, but still there was so much I wanted to know.This book gives me the chance to learn more and has a wonderful bibliography in order to know where to look for more.If you want to learn about Italian Literature, begin here and I think your experience will be worthwhile.

Corriere della Sera, September 1997
This latest attempt at a history of Italian Literature for the English speaking world was highly recommended in a review by Giulio Ferroni in the Corriere della Sera (one of Italy's most important newspapers).Giulio Ferroni is himself the author of a highly regarded history of Italian Literature (in Italian).The writers include Lino Pertile and Franco Fido (both from Harvard), Paolo Cherchi (The University of Chicago), and others. ... Read more

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Twentieth-century Italy was marked by a profound and often convulsive transformation in both society and culture, accompanied at various stages by war, violence and dictatorship. This was Italy’s ‘difficult’ entry into modernity. The voices of Italian literature responded to this transformation with a bewildering combination of excitement and anxiety, from the loud embrace of the new in Futurism to melancholy laments for tradition. In the process, some of the greatest works of modern literature were created.Robert Gordon offers a vivid overview of the century’s literature, charting a series of motifs of Italy’s ‘difficult modernity’ - from war to the city, from language to geography, from marginal groups to avant-garde movements - through a wide array of writers and texts. ... Read more

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For Those Who Like Experimental Writing
This book was published in 2004 and contained 18 selections by as many authors. The great majority of the pieces were published in the 1980s and 90s. More than half were excerpts from novels. One, by Gianni Celati, was a nonfiction account of a trip along the Po River. The oldest writers were Lalla Romano and Pier Maria Pasinetti. The youngest, Pier Vittorio Tondelli and Paola Capriolo.

As background to the stories, in his introduction the compiler mentioned key factors in contemporary Italian literature such as the impact of global media culture, which both contaminated and energized local idioms while offering technological forms rivaling the novel; the continuing tension between the national language and regional dialects, particularly for writers from the south; the comparatively marginal position in the postcolonial world of the nation's literature in regard to other Western languages such as English, French and Spanish; the continuing interplay between tradition and innovation, leading to a return to traditional narrative styles alongside exploration of new forms and styles; and continuing dramatic social and political change.

Key events in Italian literature over the past 40 years, as described in the introduction, included the revival of the historical novel by writers such as Elsa Morante; the widespread success around 1980, both domestically and abroad, of postmodern novels by Calvino and Eco, which combined storytelling with montages of various popular genres; and the posthumous publication in 1990 of an experimental novel by Pasolini, which was described as an act of resistance against global mass culture in the name of marginal realities. For the 1980s in particular, the compiler mentioned a surge in the amount of published fiction, the emergence of prominent new writers such as Celati, Del Giudice and Tabucchi, profound disillusionment with public life and radical politics, and a retreat into concern with private life.

For this anthology, the compiler sought to include established, enduring writers who'd been active for at least the previous two or three decades and reflected the "multiplicity" and "fragmentation" of contemporary writing.

Unfortunately, here this meant that the great majority of the stories consisted of a narrator musing in stream-of-consciousness fashion about his or her surroundings, buildings, history, a labyrinth, cigarettes, screws, matches and myriad other things. There was almost no interaction between characters, dialogue, or conventional story-telling.

One piece, in the course of which a narrator was invited to a prayer session of Buddhists, repeated a few religious terms and concepts but seemingly had little of interest to communicate about the narrator's experience, other than his lack of understanding. Even the travelogue was a recounting of minor events without context, summary or insight. The only works I was able to enjoy were the one by Del Guidice, which partway through contained a funny dialogue of meaningless verbiage between an air traffic controller and a pilot, showing their mutual incomprehension, and Fabrizia Ramondino's "The Piazza," which was a comparatively straightforward description of a square and its inhabitants during wartime.

In my opinion, the pieces in this anthology suffer greatly in comparison with short stories by earlier, nonexperimental writers such as Verga, Deledda, Buzzati, Pavese, Piovene, Moravia or Sciascia. Or, in the case of the travelogue, with the writer Comisso, who in his own prewar travel writing described well his sense impressions and interaction with the people around him. ... Read more

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Un vecchio scomparso nel nulla, una macchina abbandonata in fiamme nel bosco, un ciclista che incrocia un Suv...
Un candidato politico rischia di perdere la vittoria al ballottaggio per una donna che non è sua moglie; per fortuna interviene il Risolutore.
Un imprenditore con il brutto vizio di rubacchiare, e una giovane donna che vive in un prefabbricato, da sola.
Tre racconti di un'Italia di provincia, tre istantanee su una realtà stanca, violenta, incapace di serenità e futuro.

Marco Freccero dopo alcuni libri elettronici dedicati alla piattaforma Mac, si cimenta con la narrativa, confezionando tre racconti: "Insieme nel buio"; "Il Risolutore" e "La lezione". ... Read more

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This revised and expanded edition of the only English-language dictionary of Italian literature provides some 400 alphabetically arranged entries on Italian writers, periods, literary movements, and versification, and on critical problems related to literary history. The volume covers Italian literature from the Middle Ages to the present and includes a number of new entries for contemporary writers. The entries, written by expert contributors, include current bibliographical information and have often been updated to reflect new scholarship. Unlike most Italian dictionaries, this book is aimed specifically at the English-language market and provides copious information on English translations as well as a guide to Italian literature in comparative contexts. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Competent anthology
The editors have little to add, and little has been added indeed, beyond the included works.
Choices will be arbitrary in any such compilation and some could be called into question here.
For the reader who wants a particularly large dose of Benevenuto Cellini and is not bothered by the lack of any of Alberti's tracts on Art or Architecture, this volume is economical and well translated.Perhaps somewhat more flexibility in selections could have been made for my tastes.
The reader will certainly get a flavor for the period writings in a very economical and easily accessed format that is not easily found elsewhere.

Excellent Introduction to Italian Literature
This is a very good book to introduce students to prominent Italian Renaissance authors and their works.These particular selections cover a broad range of literary works that promote readers to want to further read more from these writers.For example, one could discover an interest in Boccaccio's "The Decameron" through reading a couple of the stories and that person may then want to also read the full translation by Mark Musa.This book acquaints readers to works where they may have once had no previous familiarity, yet after discovery, people can gain a love of these influential Renaissance thinkers. ... Read more

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ITALIAN STORIES pays homage to the Italian-American experience, celebrating an Italian neighborhood in the Bronx in the 1940s and mourning the loss of a righ ethnic identity when the next generation moves to the suburbs. With stories that are both melancholy and comic, Papaleo explores the contradictory desires of assimilation: his characters want to live the life of the average American while maintaining a link to their rich heritage. At the same time, Papaleo rails against the damaging stereotypes of Italian-Americans propogated by the media in popular films and television programs. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

PURE DELIGHT!
Italian Stories is a must read for anyone with the experience or the curiousity of living with stereotypes.Papaleo has very eloquently presented the challenges and issues Italian-Americans have faced for so long.It is a pure delight to read these extraordinarily well written stories which leave you wanting more when you are finished.Let's hope there is more to follow from him!

Italian Stories
Joe Papaleo's voice is loud and clear.The struggling ethnic attempting to dispel the mafia image.At a time when the Soprano's has replaced the Godfather, the italo-americans need this reality.We are not all connected, spaghetti eating, greasy monkeys.Papaleo tells it like it is.He is articulate and breathes a breath of fresh air into the otherwise cigar smoking, garlic breath of the italo-american. ... Read more

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Offers information and insights
The many available scholarly works on Italian Americans are of little practical help to the undergraduate or high school student who needs background information when reading contemporary fiction with Italian characters, watching films that require a familiarity with Italian Americans, or looking at works of art that can be fully appreciated only if one understands Italian culture.This basic reference work for non-specialists and students offers quick insights and essential, easy-to-grasp information on Italian American contributions to American art, music, literature, motion pictures, and cultural life.

Spotlights the uniquely Italian in American Life
This rich legacy is examined in a collection of original essays that range from portrayals of Italian characters in the films of Francis Coppola to Italian American poetry, from the art of Frank Stella to the music of Frank Zappa, from a survey of Italian folk customs to an analysis of the evolution of Italian American biography.Comprising 22 lengthy essays written specifically for this volume, the book identifies what is uniquely Italian in American life and examines how Italian customs, traditions, social mores, and cultural antecedents have wrought their influence on the American character. Filled with insights, trenchant observations, and ethnic facts and fictions, this volume is a valuable source of information for scholars, researchers, and students interested in pinpointing and examining the cultural, intellectual, and social influence of Italian immigrants and their successors.

Includes an Extensive Lexicon of Important Terms
This informative lexicon provides definitions of Italian terms that are central to the Italian American experience and that serve as indexes of the Italian American worldview.Whenever appropriate, the editor refers readers to a source in which the meaning of the term is more fully explored.

Excerpt from a sample Lexicon entry:
al fresco: adv., adj.: outdoors, literally "in the cool," meaning fresh air: an Italian phrase now used in English as in the expression "dining al fresco". Conflating the idea that Italian cuisine is admirably suited to be eaten in the open air and the image of the Mediterranean climate, al fresco has become a signifier of the pleasurable way in which Italian life is conducted.
Excerpts from the book:
"Madonna fully plays out the Madonna/puttana (and its darker variation, Madonna/dominatrix) identities and her own internal division between sacred and profane; when she is good she is very bad, and when she is bad, she is very good."-from "Madonna:The Postmodern Diva as Maculate Conception" by Fosca D'Acierno, "I hate the hoity-toity view of art which is pretentious, airy, and filled with moral meanings.Most critics and scholars have no direct contact with artists; they would be uncomfortable with them.They pretend to talk about works of art, but in fact they are quite different from artists in personality.I have repeatedly said that the artist has more in common with the car mechanic -- getting yourself dirty -- which is why I have enormous rapport with artists."-from "Italian Catholic in My Bones: A Conversation with Camille Paglia" by Camille Paglia and Thomas J. Ferraro
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"If a piece of bread falls to the floor, it should be kissed and blessed with the sign of the cross.Bread should not be wasted, nor should one pierce it with knife or fork.Bread should be one of the first items brought into a new home, and keeping at least a crust of this food staple in the cupboard warded off famine."-from "Bread and Wine in Italian-American Folk Culture" by Frances M. Malpezzi and William M. Clement ... Read more

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Describes the last four years in the life of the famous English navigator of the early seventeenth century. ... Read more

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Gary P. Cestaro's Queer Italia includes essays on Italian literature and film, medieval to modern, and attempts to define a queer tradition in Italian culture. Contributors explore the multiform dynamics of sexuality in Italian texts and aim not to promote the mistaken notion of a single homosexuality through history; rather, they upset and undo the equally misguided assumption of an omnipresent heterosexuality by uncovering the complexities of desire in texts from all periods. Somewhat paradoxically, a kind of queer canon results. These essays open a much-needed critical space in the Italian tradition wherein fixed definitions of sexual identity collapse. Queer Italia will be of interest to a wide audience of Italianists, medieval to modern, and queer cultural theorists.
... Read more

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Selections by Dante Algheri, Petrarch and Pugliese are included. ... Read more

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Enhance Italian language skills & romance life.
This slim volume is a great help in enhancing your Italian language skills.Short readings like this are a great way to do this.They also give the reader some feel for the Italian way of looking at life.Can also enhance your Italian romance life. ... Read more

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This is the first comprehensive reference work on Italian literature to be published in English. With 2,400 entries from an international team of scholars, it provides a wealth of clear, up-to-date assessments of Italy's writers, famous and not so famous, from 1200 to 2000. It covers writers who wrote in Italian, dialect, or Latin, and offers vital background information on historical events, regional culture, and the other arts. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

customer beware
In terms of content this Companion sits comfortably alongside the rest of the Oxford series for scholarship andthe other qualities we customarily associate with this publishing house.However, that's where the story ends. In terms of the quality of publication you might expectto pick it up cheap on a news-stand or as a quick and inexpensive reprint in a remainder store. Oxford Companions usually come cloth-bound with dust-jacket, signature-sewn on acid-free paper and are a pleasure to handle. The current (US) 2006 reprint, "printed digitally[and poorly at that]...in order to ensure its continuing availability" (?), has agloss,cardboard cover with the dust-jacket image printed on it, is perfect-bound (so the pages will eventually drop out), and is on mediocre, non-acid-free paper.I have never seen a poorer quality product from Oxford at this end of the scale: I believe it is totally unacceptable. And the 1st. ed. is apparently still available. Shame on Oxford UP Inc., New York. ... Read more

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The first of its kind in English, Mafia and Outlaw Stories from Italian Life and Literature is a selection of readings from Italian fiction and non-fiction writers on the subject of the Mafia. Among the renowned writers featured are Giovanni Verga, Grazia Deledda, Anna Maria Ortese, Livia De Stefani, and Silvana La Spina, as well as famous witnesses such as Felicia Impastato, Letizia Battaglia, and Rita Atria who provide personal, often terrifying testimonies about their experiences with the Mafia. It is a historically diverse examination of criminal and outlaw institutions by some of the most significant figures in Italian literature.

These newly translated writings show the ways in which Italians perceived and wrote about the Mafia and crime from the 1880s to the 1990s. Among them are stories dealing with the important legends used by the Mafia as sources for their image and ideology, legends such as the brigand and the Blessed Paulists. Some of the fascinating themes discussed are connections between the Mafia, the State, and the Catholic Church; the Mafia and children; women and the Mafia; the Black Hand; and relations between the Mafia and the Allied Forces during the Second World War. Robin Pickering-Iazzi incorporates an invaluable introduction that charts key periods in the history of Italy and the Mafia, and profiles each of the authors in the collection, noting their major works in Italian as well as those available in English. These and other features make this text especially appropriate for courses in Italian studies.

Mafia and Outlaw Stories from Italian Life and Literature takes a unique and intriguing approach to the subject of the Mafia, and offers informed judgements about its historical impact on Italian society and culture.

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Pietro Aretino's literary influence was felt throughout most of Europe during the sixteenth-century, yet English-language criticism of this writer's work and persona has hitherto been sparse. Raymond B. Waddington's study redresses this oversight, drawing together literary and visual arts criticism in its examination of Aretino's carefully cultivated scandalous persona ? a persona created through his writings, his behaviour and through a wide variety of visual arts and crafts.

In the Renaissance, it was believed that satire originated from satyrs. The satirist Aretino promoted himself as a satyr, the natural being whose sexuality guarantees its truthfulness. Waddington shows how Aretino's own construction of his public identity came to eclipse the value of his writings, causing him to be denigrated as a pornographer and blackmailer. Arguing that Aretino's deployment of an artistic network for self-promotional ends was so successful that for a period his face was possibly the most famous in Western Europe, Waddington also defends Aretino, describing his involvement in the larger sphere of the production and promotion of the visual arts of the period.

Aretino's Satyr is richly illustrated with examples of the visual media used by the writer to create his persona. These include portraits by major artists, and arti minori: engravings, portrait medals and woodcuts.

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Over the last 20 years, there has been an increasing interest in feminist views of the Italian literary tradition. While feminist theory and methodology have been accepted by the academic community in the U.S., the situation is very different in Italy, where such work has been done largely outside the academy. Among nonspecialists, knowledge of feminist approaches to Italian literature, and even of the existence of Italian women writers, remains scant. This reference work, the first of its kind on Italian literature, is a companion volume for all who wish to investigate Italian literary culture and writings, both by women and by men, in light of feminist theory. Included are alphabetically arranged entries for authors, schools, movements, genres and forms, figures and types, and similar topics related to Italian literature from the Middle Ages to the present. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and summarizes feminist thought on the subject. Entries provide brief bibliographies, and the volume concludes with a selected, general bibliography of major studies. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Good Sourcebook
For a forum on Italian homecooking, I spent some time looking at sources that had a distinctly female point of view. While I found this book to be not terribly useful for my panel, I thought it was one of the best and most accessible sources. The encyclopedic format forces some choices on the compiler and I was surprised to see Natalia Ginzburg deprived of her own entry.
None the less, there are excellent summaries of the feminist critique of literature from the largely non-academic Italian feminist community. I lingered over this volume and browsed it with relish when my 'real' research was done.


Lynn Hoffman, author of New Short Course in Wine,The and the female-centric bang BANG: A Novel ... Read more

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This is the first critical edition with English translation of the prose compilation Tristano panciatichiano, preserved in a unique manuscript in the Biblioteca Nazionale of Florence (MS Panc. 33); it is the first time the Italian text has been published in its entirety in any form. Assembled by the mid-fourteenth century, the manuscript is an original compilation in Italian based on several French models: the Queste del San Graal, Joseph d'Arimathie, the Mort Artu, and notably, the Roman de Tristan en prose. While the edition itself will be of great interest, the translation into English is a major opportunity for Arthurians and other medievalists, and furnishes important new evidence for the study of Arthurian material in Italy. Apparatus includes a finding list of Arthurian manuscripts produced, owned or read by Italians; a select bibliography; and an index of proper names found in the narrative. ... Read more