Calvino and the Age of Neorealism

Calvino and the Age of Neorealism

Author:

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 1990-08

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 0804766576

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Italo Calvino's reputation as one of the great writers of our century rests chiefly on his allegorical fables and fantastic narratives, whose inventiveness, irreverence, and elegant style are universally admired. In this study, the author focuses on Calvino's first novel, The Path to the Nest of Spiders (1947), because in it she discerns a critical point of origin for Calvino's entire 'ethics' of writing. She shows how, in The Path, he challenges the poetics of objectivity of the Italian neorealists movement and offers a complex and ironic representation of the anti-Fascist armed resistance in Italy. Situating Calvino's early work in its historical and cultural context, the author reassesses Italian neorealism in terms of the theories and critical debates about realism of such critics as Lukacs, Sartre, Brecht, Adorno, and Barthes. She analyzes neorealism's narrative practices and cultural and political implications, while setting neorealism in the context of the resistance and the postwar Reconstruction in Italy and giving readings of major neorealist texts (novels by Pavese and Vittorini, films by Rossellini, Visconti, and others) as well as relatively obscure minor ones. The heart of the book consists of readings of The Path from four different but intersecting critical perspectives: formalist-narratological, sociohistorical, psychoanalytic, and Bakhtinian. The readings assess the importance of Calvino's beginnings for the body of his work and incorporate relevant references to his later fiction and critical essays. Out of these multiple readings, the ironic estrangement of the real through the act of writing itself emerges as his key narratological strategy.


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Download or read book Calvino and the Age of Neorealism written by and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1990-08 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Italo Calvino's reputation as one of the great writers of our century rests chiefly on his allegorical fables and fantastic narratives, whose inventiveness, irreverence, and elegant style are universally admired. In this study, the author focuses on Calvino's first novel, The Path to the Nest of Spiders (1947), because in it she discerns a critical point of origin for Calvino's entire 'ethics' of writing. She shows how, in The Path, he challenges the poetics of objectivity of the Italian neorealists movement and offers a complex and ironic representation of the anti-Fascist armed resistance in Italy. Situating Calvino's early work in its historical and cultural context, the author reassesses Italian neorealism in terms of the theories and critical debates about realism of such critics as Lukacs, Sartre, Brecht, Adorno, and Barthes. She analyzes neorealism's narrative practices and cultural and political implications, while setting neorealism in the context of the resistance and the postwar Reconstruction in Italy and giving readings of major neorealist texts (novels by Pavese and Vittorini, films by Rossellini, Visconti, and others) as well as relatively obscure minor ones. The heart of the book consists of readings of The Path from four different but intersecting critical perspectives: formalist-narratological, sociohistorical, psychoanalytic, and Bakhtinian. The readings assess the importance of Calvino's beginnings for the body of his work and incorporate relevant references to his later fiction and critical essays. Out of these multiple readings, the ironic estrangement of the real through the act of writing itself emerges as his key narratological strategy.

Italo Calvino and the Compass of Literature

Italo Calvino and the Compass of Literature

Author: Eugenio Bolongaro

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2003-01-01

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 9780802087638

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Looking at five of Italo Calvino's often neglected early novels: The Young People of Po, The Cloven Viscount, The Baron in the Trees, The Non-Existent Knight, and The Watcher, Eugenio Bolongaro argues that these works, written between 1948 and 1963, contain a sustained meditation on the role of the intellectual and on the irreducible ethical and political dimension of literature. This meditation provides an insight into a crucial moment in Calvino's development as a writer, and allows Bolongaro to lay the groundwork for a more 'political' reading of Calvino's later work. Italo Calvino and the Compass of Literature firmly situates Calvino within his historical context - the cultural revival of post-World War II Italy - by relating these early novels to Calvino's political and critical writings which played an important role in the cultural debates of the time. This approach provides a key to understanding Calvino's work in a new light, ably demonstrating that Calvino's full literary significance cannot be understood in isolation from the politics and cultural movements of the period. One of the few book-length English-language works on Calvino's early writings, Italo Calvino and the Compass of Literatur will prove to be an indispensable tool to Italianists and literary studies scholars.


Book Synopsis Italo Calvino and the Compass of Literature by : Eugenio Bolongaro

Download or read book Italo Calvino and the Compass of Literature written by Eugenio Bolongaro and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looking at five of Italo Calvino's often neglected early novels: The Young People of Po, The Cloven Viscount, The Baron in the Trees, The Non-Existent Knight, and The Watcher, Eugenio Bolongaro argues that these works, written between 1948 and 1963, contain a sustained meditation on the role of the intellectual and on the irreducible ethical and political dimension of literature. This meditation provides an insight into a crucial moment in Calvino's development as a writer, and allows Bolongaro to lay the groundwork for a more 'political' reading of Calvino's later work. Italo Calvino and the Compass of Literature firmly situates Calvino within his historical context - the cultural revival of post-World War II Italy - by relating these early novels to Calvino's political and critical writings which played an important role in the cultural debates of the time. This approach provides a key to understanding Calvino's work in a new light, ably demonstrating that Calvino's full literary significance cannot be understood in isolation from the politics and cultural movements of the period. One of the few book-length English-language works on Calvino's early writings, Italo Calvino and the Compass of Literatur will prove to be an indispensable tool to Italianists and literary studies scholars.

Italian Neorealist Cinema

Italian Neorealist Cinema

Author: Christopher Wagstaff

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2007-12-29

Total Pages: 537

ISBN-13: 144269243X

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The end of the Second World War saw the emergence of neorealist film in Italy. In Italian Neorealist Cinema, Christopher Wagstaff analyses three neorealist films that have had significant influence on filmmakers around the world. Wagstaff treats these films as assemblies of sounds and images rather than as representations of historical reality. If Roberto Rossellini's Roma città aperta and Paisà, and Vittorio De Sica's Ladri di biciclette are still, half a century after they were made, among the most highly valued artefacts in the history of cinema, Wagstaff suggests that this could be due to the aesthetic and rhetorical qualities of their assembled narratives, performances, locations, lighting, sound, mise en scène, and montage. This volume begins by situating neorealist cinema in its historical, industrial, commercial and cultural context, and makes available for the first time a large amount of data on post-war Italian cinema. Wagstaff offers a theoretical discussion of what it means to treat realist films as aesthetic artefacts before moving on to the core of the book, which consists of three studies of the films under discussion. Italian Neorealist Cinema not only offers readers in Film Studies and Italian Studies a radically new perspective on neorealist cinema and the Italian art cinema that followed it, but theorises and applies a method of close analysis of film texts for those interested in aesthetics and rhetoric, as well as cinema in general.


Book Synopsis Italian Neorealist Cinema by : Christopher Wagstaff

Download or read book Italian Neorealist Cinema written by Christopher Wagstaff and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2007-12-29 with total page 537 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The end of the Second World War saw the emergence of neorealist film in Italy. In Italian Neorealist Cinema, Christopher Wagstaff analyses three neorealist films that have had significant influence on filmmakers around the world. Wagstaff treats these films as assemblies of sounds and images rather than as representations of historical reality. If Roberto Rossellini's Roma città aperta and Paisà, and Vittorio De Sica's Ladri di biciclette are still, half a century after they were made, among the most highly valued artefacts in the history of cinema, Wagstaff suggests that this could be due to the aesthetic and rhetorical qualities of their assembled narratives, performances, locations, lighting, sound, mise en scène, and montage. This volume begins by situating neorealist cinema in its historical, industrial, commercial and cultural context, and makes available for the first time a large amount of data on post-war Italian cinema. Wagstaff offers a theoretical discussion of what it means to treat realist films as aesthetic artefacts before moving on to the core of the book, which consists of three studies of the films under discussion. Italian Neorealist Cinema not only offers readers in Film Studies and Italian Studies a radically new perspective on neorealist cinema and the Italian art cinema that followed it, but theorises and applies a method of close analysis of film texts for those interested in aesthetics and rhetoric, as well as cinema in general.

Italo Calvino's Architecture of Lightness

Italo Calvino's Architecture of Lightness

Author: Letizia Modena

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2011-05-09

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 1136730591

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This study recovers Italo Calvino's central place in a lost history of interdisciplinary thought, politics, and literary philosophy in the 1960s. Drawing on his letters, essays, critical reviews, and fiction, as well as a wide range of works--primarily urban planning and design theory and history--circulating among his primary interlocutors, this book takes as its point of departure a sweeping reinterpretation of Invisible Cities. Passages from Calvino's most famous novel routinely appear as aphorisms in calendars, posters, and the popular literature of inspiration and self-help, reducing the novel to vague abstractions and totalizing wisdom about thinking outside the box. The shadow of postmodern studies has had a similarly diminishing effect on this text, rendering up an accomplished but ultimately apolitical novelistic experimentation in endless deconstructive deferrals, the shiny surfaces of play, and the ultimately rigged game of self-referentiality. In contrast, this study draws on an archive of untranslated Italian- and French-language materials on urban planning, architecture, and utopian architecture to argue that Calvino's novel in fact introduces readers to the material history of urban renewal in Italy, France, and the U.S. in the 1960s, as well as the multidisciplinary core of cultural life in that decade: the complex and continuous interplay among novelists and architects, scientists and artists, literary historians and visual studies scholars. His last love poem for the dying city was in fact profoundly engaged, deeply committed to the ethical dimensions of both architecture and lived experience in the spaces of modernity as well as the resistant practices of reading and utopian imagining that his urban studies in turn inspired.


Book Synopsis Italo Calvino's Architecture of Lightness by : Letizia Modena

Download or read book Italo Calvino's Architecture of Lightness written by Letizia Modena and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2011-05-09 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study recovers Italo Calvino's central place in a lost history of interdisciplinary thought, politics, and literary philosophy in the 1960s. Drawing on his letters, essays, critical reviews, and fiction, as well as a wide range of works--primarily urban planning and design theory and history--circulating among his primary interlocutors, this book takes as its point of departure a sweeping reinterpretation of Invisible Cities. Passages from Calvino's most famous novel routinely appear as aphorisms in calendars, posters, and the popular literature of inspiration and self-help, reducing the novel to vague abstractions and totalizing wisdom about thinking outside the box. The shadow of postmodern studies has had a similarly diminishing effect on this text, rendering up an accomplished but ultimately apolitical novelistic experimentation in endless deconstructive deferrals, the shiny surfaces of play, and the ultimately rigged game of self-referentiality. In contrast, this study draws on an archive of untranslated Italian- and French-language materials on urban planning, architecture, and utopian architecture to argue that Calvino's novel in fact introduces readers to the material history of urban renewal in Italy, France, and the U.S. in the 1960s, as well as the multidisciplinary core of cultural life in that decade: the complex and continuous interplay among novelists and architects, scientists and artists, literary historians and visual studies scholars. His last love poem for the dying city was in fact profoundly engaged, deeply committed to the ethical dimensions of both architecture and lived experience in the spaces of modernity as well as the resistant practices of reading and utopian imagining that his urban studies in turn inspired.

Italian Post-Neorealist Cinema

Italian Post-Neorealist Cinema

Author: Luca Barattoni

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2013-12-16

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 0748650938

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This book brings to the surface the lines of experimentation and artistic renewal appearing after the exhaustion of Neorealism, mapping complex areas of interest such as the emergence of ethical concerns, the relationship between ideology and representati


Book Synopsis Italian Post-Neorealist Cinema by : Luca Barattoni

Download or read book Italian Post-Neorealist Cinema written by Luca Barattoni and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2013-12-16 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings to the surface the lines of experimentation and artistic renewal appearing after the exhaustion of Neorealism, mapping complex areas of interest such as the emergence of ethical concerns, the relationship between ideology and representati

The Italian Cinema Book

The Italian Cinema Book

Author: Peter Bondanella

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-07-25

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 1839020253

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THE ITALIAN CINEMA BOOK is an essential guide to the most important historical, aesthetic and cultural aspects of Italian cinema, from 1895 to the present day. With contributions from 39 leading international scholars, the book is structured around six chronologically organised sections: THE SILENT ERA (1895–22) THE BIRTH OF THE TALKIES AND THE FASCIST ERA (1922–45) POSTWAR CINEMATIC CULTURE (1945–59) THE GOLDEN AGE OF ITALIAN CINEMA (1960–80) AN AGE OF CRISIS, TRANSITION AND CONSOLIDATION (1981 TO THE PRESENT) NEW DIRECTIONS IN CRITICAL APPROACHES TO ITALIAN CINEMA Acutely aware of the contemporary 'rethinking' of Italian cinema history, Peter Bondanella has brought together a diverse range of essays which represent the cutting edge of Italian film theory and criticism. This provocative collection will provide the film student, scholar or enthusiast with a comprehensive understanding of the major developments in what might be called twentieth-century Italy's greatest and most original art form.


Book Synopsis The Italian Cinema Book by : Peter Bondanella

Download or read book The Italian Cinema Book written by Peter Bondanella and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-07-25 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE ITALIAN CINEMA BOOK is an essential guide to the most important historical, aesthetic and cultural aspects of Italian cinema, from 1895 to the present day. With contributions from 39 leading international scholars, the book is structured around six chronologically organised sections: THE SILENT ERA (1895–22) THE BIRTH OF THE TALKIES AND THE FASCIST ERA (1922–45) POSTWAR CINEMATIC CULTURE (1945–59) THE GOLDEN AGE OF ITALIAN CINEMA (1960–80) AN AGE OF CRISIS, TRANSITION AND CONSOLIDATION (1981 TO THE PRESENT) NEW DIRECTIONS IN CRITICAL APPROACHES TO ITALIAN CINEMA Acutely aware of the contemporary 'rethinking' of Italian cinema history, Peter Bondanella has brought together a diverse range of essays which represent the cutting edge of Italian film theory and criticism. This provocative collection will provide the film student, scholar or enthusiast with a comprehensive understanding of the major developments in what might be called twentieth-century Italy's greatest and most original art form.

Italian Neorealist Cinema

Italian Neorealist Cinema

Author: Torunn Haaland

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2013-12-17

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 0748664785

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This book traces the roots of neorealist film and draws parallels to neorealist fiction, by surveying the major creative contributions to and critical receptions of this trend in Italian postwar cinema.


Book Synopsis Italian Neorealist Cinema by : Torunn Haaland

Download or read book Italian Neorealist Cinema written by Torunn Haaland and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2013-12-17 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book traces the roots of neorealist film and draws parallels to neorealist fiction, by surveying the major creative contributions to and critical receptions of this trend in Italian postwar cinema.

A History of Italian Cinema

A History of Italian Cinema

Author: Peter Bondanella

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2017-10-19

Total Pages: 752

ISBN-13: 1501307657

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A History of Italian Cinema, 2nd edition is the much anticipated update from the author of the bestselling Italian Cinema - which has been published in four landmark editions and will celebrate its 35th anniversary in 2018. Building upon decades of research, Peter Bondanella and Federico Pacchioni reorganize the current History in order to keep the book fresh and responsive not only to the actual films being created in Italy in the twenty-first century but also to the rapidly changing priorities of Italian film studies and film scholars. The new edition brings the definitive history of the subject, from the birth of cinema to the present day, up to date with a revised filmography as well as more focused attention on the melodrama, the crime film, and the historical drama. The book is expanded to include a new generation of directors as well as to highlight themes such as gender issues, immigration, and media politics. Accessible, comprehensive, and heavily illustrated throughout, this is an essential purchase for any fan of Italian film.


Book Synopsis A History of Italian Cinema by : Peter Bondanella

Download or read book A History of Italian Cinema written by Peter Bondanella and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-10-19 with total page 752 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A History of Italian Cinema, 2nd edition is the much anticipated update from the author of the bestselling Italian Cinema - which has been published in four landmark editions and will celebrate its 35th anniversary in 2018. Building upon decades of research, Peter Bondanella and Federico Pacchioni reorganize the current History in order to keep the book fresh and responsive not only to the actual films being created in Italy in the twenty-first century but also to the rapidly changing priorities of Italian film studies and film scholars. The new edition brings the definitive history of the subject, from the birth of cinema to the present day, up to date with a revised filmography as well as more focused attention on the melodrama, the crime film, and the historical drama. The book is expanded to include a new generation of directors as well as to highlight themes such as gender issues, immigration, and media politics. Accessible, comprehensive, and heavily illustrated throughout, this is an essential purchase for any fan of Italian film.

The Author in Criticism

The Author in Criticism

Author: Elio Attilio Baldi

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2020-03-11

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 1683931920

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The Author in Criticism:Italo Calvino’s Authorial Image in Italy, the United States, and the United Kingdom explores the cultural and historic patterns and differences in the critical readings of Italian author Italo Calvino’s works in the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and Italy. It considers the external factors that contribute to create recognizable patterns in the readings of Calvino’s texts in different contexts. This volume therefore covers, most notably, matters of genre (science fiction, postmodernism), cultural perceptions and conventions, the (re)current image of the author in different media, academic schools, -curricula and -canons, biographical information (such as gender and background), and translation and the language in which the author speaks (or fails to speak) to us. It traces the influence of these aspects in the academic discourse on Calvino. The Author in Criticism also analyzes Calvino’s various professional roles as writer, editor, essayist, journalist, private correspondent, and public, cosmopolitan intellectual, reappraising their often little acknowledged importance for academic criticism. An important underlying idea is that the preconceived image that every critic has of Calvino before even opening one of his books is often solidified and repeated even in the most refined and complex critical analyses. This volume purposefully foregrounds the textual and non-textual parts that are usually considered peripheral to the works of an author, such as book covers, blurbs, reviews, talks, interviews, etc. In this way, this book provides insight into the reception of Calvino’s works in different countries. Moreover, it forms a broader reflection of and on important constants in the workings of literary criticism, and on the way academic discourses have developed in various cultural contexts over the last decades.


Book Synopsis The Author in Criticism by : Elio Attilio Baldi

Download or read book The Author in Criticism written by Elio Attilio Baldi and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-03-11 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Author in Criticism:Italo Calvino’s Authorial Image in Italy, the United States, and the United Kingdom explores the cultural and historic patterns and differences in the critical readings of Italian author Italo Calvino’s works in the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and Italy. It considers the external factors that contribute to create recognizable patterns in the readings of Calvino’s texts in different contexts. This volume therefore covers, most notably, matters of genre (science fiction, postmodernism), cultural perceptions and conventions, the (re)current image of the author in different media, academic schools, -curricula and -canons, biographical information (such as gender and background), and translation and the language in which the author speaks (or fails to speak) to us. It traces the influence of these aspects in the academic discourse on Calvino. The Author in Criticism also analyzes Calvino’s various professional roles as writer, editor, essayist, journalist, private correspondent, and public, cosmopolitan intellectual, reappraising their often little acknowledged importance for academic criticism. An important underlying idea is that the preconceived image that every critic has of Calvino before even opening one of his books is often solidified and repeated even in the most refined and complex critical analyses. This volume purposefully foregrounds the textual and non-textual parts that are usually considered peripheral to the works of an author, such as book covers, blurbs, reviews, talks, interviews, etc. In this way, this book provides insight into the reception of Calvino’s works in different countries. Moreover, it forms a broader reflection of and on important constants in the workings of literary criticism, and on the way academic discourses have developed in various cultural contexts over the last decades.

Kafka’s Italian Progeny

Kafka’s Italian Progeny

Author: Saskia Elizabeth Ziolkowski

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 1487506309

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This book explores Kafka's sometimes surprising connections with key Italian writers, from Italo Calvino to Elena Ferrante, who shaped Italy's modern literary landscape.


Book Synopsis Kafka’s Italian Progeny by : Saskia Elizabeth Ziolkowski

Download or read book Kafka’s Italian Progeny written by Saskia Elizabeth Ziolkowski and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2020 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores Kafka's sometimes surprising connections with key Italian writers, from Italo Calvino to Elena Ferrante, who shaped Italy's modern literary landscape.