Italian Literature Research Articles

Récits de l’entente criminelle dans la « société en réseaux » : Quelles reconfigurations littéraires pour quels complots ?

This article argues that contemporary fictions of organized crime reinscribe, in many ways, the imaginary of conspiracy in narrative structures rooted in immediate history, while aiming to critique new ramified and diffuse systems of power. Which procedures are used to uncover the secrecy surrounding these organizations? How do these works reformulate concerns about the localization of power in today’s “network society” that has emerged with economic globalization? Using examples from contemporary Italian literature, I will examine the ways in which authors write about mafia practices, accompanying the social sciences’ reclassification of organized crime as a phenomenon of power. I will also ponder the effects generated by these narratives, in which the distancing of conspiracy theories does not exclude certain reformulations of them with other terms.

Love poetry as social practice: On the function of medieval Sicilian love lyric in Arabic and Italian

AbstractThis article problematizes the traditional narrative of Le Origini, according to which the beginnings of Italian literature were based on Provençal examples. I contend that this narrative is incomplete, as it overlooks entirely the rich heritage of Sicilian Arabic poetry that predates the Sicilian romance lyric by only a few decades. Based on a comparative analysis, I aim to demonstrate how the Sicilian romance lyric is also rooted in Sicily’s Islamic past. In support of my argument, I analyze excerpts from three Arabic poems from Islamic and Norman Sicily and then read them alongside Pier della Vigna’s canzone ‘Amor da cui move tuttora e vene’ (Love, from which always come). With my comparison, I call attention to how the poets of the Scuola Siciliana, like their Arabic predecessors at the Kalbid court of Palermo, used verse to craft a code of social competence shaped by the lore and language of the love poem. My comparison opens up a re-examination of Le Origini: can the Sicilian-Arabic poems penned in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries cast new light on the rhymes of the Scuola Siciliana?

Manuscript Poetics: Materiality and Textuality in Medieval Italian Literature by Francesco Marco Aresu (review)

Manuscript Poetics: Materiality and Textuality in Medieval Italian Literature by Francesco Marco Aresu (review)

LETTERATURA ITALIANA E COSTRUZIONE DELL’IDENTITÀ NAZIONALE NELL’OTTOCENTO

In this article we are commenting the weak points of the Italian literary canon built during the 19th century, which was, at that time, linked to the legitimating of national identity and independence. The idea that an Italian literary canon existed, even in the absence of a national state, had been discussed by Foscolo, Nievo, and Leopardi, and became a central point in Francesco de Sanctis’ History of Italian Literature. De Sanctis describes the evolution of Italian literature seen as a coherent pattern, starting with the Middle Ages and Dante Aligheri who is presented as a national poet. But this type of conception reduces the complexity and variety of regional and local cultures, like for example the poems in roman dialect by Giuseppe Gioachino Belli, and completely ignores women writers, such as, for example, Cristina Trivulzio.

Colonial Traces in Contemporary Italian Literature: The Cases of Giulia Caminito’s La Grande A (2016) and Mario Tobino’s Il deserto della Libia (1952)

ABSTRACT This article examines Giulia Caminito’s novel La grande A (2016) to show how descriptions of colonial subjects and spaces rely on stereotypes and exoticisations derived from colonial discourse. By analysing formal aspects and the intertextual relationship with Mario Tobino’s Il deserto della Libia (1952), the article underscores a continuity in terms of modes of representation between La grande A and its main sourcetext, suggesting a lack of interactions or connections with the transnational African/Italian authors who have confronted the legacy of Italy’s colonial past. In a mainly white European figurative framework, the novel marginalises and forecloses Black/African subjects while, at the same time, providing readers with orientalist descriptions of the former colonies. Although the novel addresses a frequently overlooked topic in Italian literature, namely colonialism and women’s experiences in the overseas territories, it also problematically reproduces stereotypes about Africa/Africans rather than effectively exposing and debunking them.

From Mater Dolorosa to Mater Degenerata: Sacrifice and Subversion in Deledda’s Cenere and Duse’s Film

ABSTRACT In this article, I explore the presence of positivist and proto-Eugenic discourses in Grazia Deledda’s novel Cenere (1904) and the eponymous film adaptation by Febo Mari and Eleonora Duse, Cenere (1916). I introduce the term ‘mater degenerata’ as a trope that shows a direct influence of Lombrosian ideas on Italian literature and early Italian cinema. I argue that both authors are obsessed with the mother’s body, and their work reflects a diffused anxiety in Italian culture regarding unfit mothers. The essay has two main parts. In the first part, I introduce the ‘mater degenerata’ trope. In the second part, I offer a comparative analysis of Grazia Deledda’s novel and Febo Mari and Eleonora Duse’s film and highlight how Lombrosian positivist imageries were used in early twentieth-century Italian literature and cinema to depict the degenerate mother and to express social concerns regarding motherhood, reproduction, and national identity in liberal Italy.

Circulation of books, manuscripts, and ideas between Hungary and Italy. Cultural transfers in the environment of György Klimo, Bishop of Pécs (1751-1777)

The period between 1750 and 1800 witnessed a significant transformation in the modernization of Hungarian culture and literature. The members of the ecclesiastical elite, who had completed their studies at the Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum in Rome, played a pivotal role in this process; they emerged as key figures in the Catholic renewal upon their return to Hungary following their studies in Rome. Their contributions extended beyond the revitalization of the Hungarian Catholic Church and religious life, encompassing the reconstruction of bishoprics, the establishment of educational institutions and libraries, and the publication and dissemination of both religious and secular literary works. This dissemination of knowledge was also closely intertwined with the influential court in Vienna. On the one hand, the rich heritage of ancient Rome played a crucial role in reshaping the baroque tradition. High-ranking clerics began to take a keen interest in the historical context of their immediate surroundings, initiating local excavations and conducting research in the Vatican Archives. On the other hand, they were greatly influenced by the vibrant culture of contemporary Rome, including Catholic reform efforts, the patronage of the Roman aristocracy, and the volumes of recent Italian literature. This paper explores the cultural influence of Bishop György Klimo of Pécs through an analysis of his correspondence with members of the ecclesiastical aristocracy in Rome and Vienna. Notably, Klimo made significant contributions to the spreading of Ludovico Antonio Muratori’s ideas in Hungary. He also played a pioneering role in disseminating knowledge by being the first among his contemporaries to open his personal library to the public. Furthermore, he commissioned research at the Vatican to compile a comprehensive history of his diocese. By examining Klimo’s endeavors, we gain valuable insights into the transformative influence of Roman culture on the Baroque tradition in Hungary. Moreover, the analysis sheds light on the distinct and organic development of the Italian line within Hungarian culture.

International migration, food insecurity, and mental health: A scoping review protocol.

Food insecurity is a global priority that has been found to negatively impact mental health, increasing the risk of mental disorders and severe mental illness. International migrants may face food insecurity throughout their migratory cycle due to a range of risk factors, such as poor transit conditions, precarious employment, financial pressure, discrimination, and lack of availability and access to culturally relevant food, among others. Although there are multiple reviews on migration, food insecurity, and health in general, no scoping review has been conducted on food insecurity among international migrants focusing on mental health. To investigate the available evidence on food insecurity and mental health among international migrants. A search of scientific literature in English, Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese published since 2013 will be performed in the Web of Science, PubMed, Medline, APA PsycArticles, Cinahl, and ASSIA databases, including grey literature available in Google Scholar. Two authors will independently review titles, abstracts, and full texts before extracting data from publications complying with the eligibility criteria. Extracted data will be descriptively mapped according to emerging thematic categories. The review will contribute to identifying what is known about international migration, food insecurity, and mental health, gaps in the literature, opportunities for specific research subtopics, and how food insecurity and mental health can be linked in the existing literature.

P. B. Shelley, George William Tighe, and the Irish Roots of ‘The Sensitive-Plant’

This essay investigates the literary exchanges between the Irish poet and agronomist George William Tighe and Percy Bysshe Shelley in Pisa, where the former lived with Margaret King Mount Cashell, alias ‘Mrs Mason’, a radical Irish writer and former pupil of Mary Wollstonecraft. After moving to Pisa in 1820, Shelley began daily visits to the Mason-Tighe household, sourcing from Tighe's library a wealth of reading material on agricultural chemistry and botany, alongside Irish political and historical titles. Tighe's previously unexamined papers showcase his interests in Irish and Italian literature, republicanism, botany, and agriculture and reveal his links with the Lunar Society of Birmingham. Taking as a case study the first poem Shelley composed in Pisa, I argue that Tighe's agricultural pursuits shaped Shelley's political and botanical imagination in ‘The Sensitive-Plant’ and exerted a significant influence on Shelley's later poetry as a whole.

Integrating Digital Editions and Methods for Text Editing and Analysis in Undergraduate Literary Studies

This article evaluates the integration of digital editions, computational text analysis and digital scholarly editing in the context of an introductory undergraduate course on Italian literature and digital humanities taught at a US university. It offers specific examples of employing the apparatus of several digital platforms dedicated to the study of foundational authors in the Italian literary tradition (Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio and Leopardi), and of gaining familiarity with a suite of digital tools for text analysis and editing, namely Voyant Tools, Recogito, Oxygen, Gephi, Transkribus Lite and OpenRefine. The discussion of digital project interfaces examines the student user experience of different design approaches, while the illustrations of tool exercises explore how these could support the close attention to a text and facilitate the navigation between its micro and macro frameworks of interpretation. The article furthermore suggests that digital text analysis could reinforce student appreciation of the signifying value of textual form and genre, and that the pedagogical method of digital text editing creates opportunities for situated learning. In conclusion, it argues that the academic work of students at the undergraduate level could be harnessed by the scaffolded methods of faculty-led digital research projects and contribute to the creation of public knowledge.

ŠUŠA, Ivan. 2023. Italian literature: filling in the blanks of its Slovak translation.

ŠUŠA, Ivan. 2023. Italian literature: filling in the blanks of its Slovak translation.

ŠUŠA, Ivan. 2023. Italian Literature: Filling in the Blanks of its Slovak Translations.

ŠUŠA, Ivan. 2023. Italian Literature: Filling in the Blanks of its Slovak Translations.

Displacing perspectives on Renaissance: Cultural translation and the politics of Italian literature at the onset of the Cold War

ABSTRACT While the popularity achieved by several Italian cultural objects in the United States during the aftermath of World War Two has been largely acknowledged, the meanings these artefacts took on in their new cultural context are yet to be understood. To unravel the complex, multi-layered processes of cultural translation at play in transatlantic transfers at the onset of the Cold War, this article explores the U.S.-American reception of Italian culture from the vantage point of translated fiction. Retracing the public discourse around new Italian books in the United States means to recognize the emergence of a new framing narrative, that of a novel Renaissance taking place in Italy after the end of the Fascist period. Understanding the concept of a new Renaissance from a transnational perspective, at a time in which the public discourse was being reorganized across all media in response to the new geopolitical order, allows us to identify the politics of newly translated Italian fiction in the U.S. I argue that, through its framing, Italian fiction was made an ally in the cultural Cold War, coming to represent Western democracy, freedom, and creativity.

Rehumanizing the world: Paolo Milano’s transatlantic cultural politics

ABSTRACT This article examines the transatlantic cultural politics of Paolo Milano (1904–1988), an Italian-Jewish exile who acted as an editorial disseminator of both Italian literature in the United States and American Literature in Italy during World War II and through the 1950s. Milano’s efforts to revitalize Italian and American cultural politics include his project for an Italian anthology of classic American writers and book reviews for American magazines and newspapers, especially his contributions to The New York Times Review of Books dedicated to Ignazio Silone and Carlo Levi’s novels. The article concludes that, despite presenting sometimes contradictory stances, such as supporting brotherhood and homophilic initiatives while also turning a blind eye to American imperialism, Milano’s transatlantic cultural politics worked to reorient the discussion on the role of culture and intellectuals in the context of an increasingly technocratic and dehumanizing society both in Italy and in the U.S.

Георгий Брейтбурд и советская рецепция итальянского неоавангарда

The article analyzes the Soviet reception of Italian Neo-Avant-Garde (Group 63), including the contribution by Georgij Breitburd, translator, consultant on Italian literature at the Foreign Commission of the Union of Soviet Writers, one of the key figures in Soviet-Italian cultural relations. The study focuses on the focal episode of Neo-Avant-Garde polemics, that is, on Breitburd’s article in “Novy Mir” (March 1967) dedicated to Group 63 and on Italian discussion around it, which took place mainly in left-wing periodicals, like newspaper “Unità,” magazines “Rinascita” and “Quindici,” but also in moderate and center-right newspapers “Il Messaggero” and “La Discussione.” The article proves that Breitburd played a crucial role in the Soviet reception of Italian Neo-Avant-Garde. It was his article in “Novy Mir” that made possible profound and academically correct discussions around this movement in “Inostrannaya Literatura” and “Voprosy Literatury.” Breitburd’s ideological fight against Group 63 in the late 1960s and early 1970s paradoxically increased the popularity of the movement in the USSR. After Breitburd died and the fight stopped, Italian Neo-Avant-Garde literature was nearly forgotten by Soviet critics and researchers and now, in modern Russia, is known only to a narrow circle of specialists. Most of Neo-Avant-Garde fiction was not translated and published either in Soviet or in post-Soviet times and still remains practically unavailable to Russian-speaking readers.

Пьер Паоло Пазолини на страницах журнала «Иностранная литература»

The paper evaluates the contribution of the journal “Inostrannaia literatura” to the reception of P.P. Pasolini’s work in Russia. The research is based on an analysis of the archives of the journal and all published materials related to Pasolini in it, such as translations of his works, informational notes, articles by Ts. Kin, G. and A. Bogemskii, a Literary guide to the 100th anniversary of his birth. Reviewing the materials in chronological order allows us to trace how the attitude towards Pasolini has changed over time, in which measure his creative work has been covered. The publications in the journal do not reflect sufficiently the importance of Pasolini as one of the most original and multifaceted personalities in Italian literature and culture — poet, writer, philologist, literary critic, cinematographer, and influential intellectual — mainly because of the originality of his poetic and prosaic works, which did not correspond in Soviet times to the idea of progressive literature, Pasolini’s scandalous fame, and negative assessments given by authoritative critics. At the same time, the publications of the last years reflect the aspiration to fill this regrettable gap.

Italian Literature in the Nuclear Age: A Poetics of the Bystander by Maria Anna Mariani (review)

Italian Literature in the Nuclear Age: A Poetics of the Bystander by Maria Anna Mariani (review)

Альберто Моравиа в СССР (по материалам РГАЛИ)

This publication presents some documents from the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI) regarding two trips to the USSR made by Alberto Moravia, one of thegreatest Italian writers of the 20th century, and his relationship with Georgij Breitburd, translator andconsultant on Italian literature at the Foreign Commission of the Union of Soviet Writers, one of thecrucial figures in Soviet-Italian cultural relations. Moravia, as an influential left-wing intellectual, was widely known and frequently published in the Soviet Union and was considered one of the “friends” of the USSR. The documents presented here are related to two of Moravia’s trips to the USSR in 1956 and 1972. These are reports on both trips written by Breitburd, who accompanied Moravia as an interpreter; a stenographic transcript of a lecture on contemporary Italian literature given by Moravia at Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow; and Moravia’s correspondence with Mikhail Apletin and Georgij Breitburd after the trip of 1956. These documents give us valuable information about the programs of Moravia’s visits and the issues discussed at formal events and informal meetings. They also tell us a lot about Soviet “hospitality techniques” and demonstrate how the work with Western intellectuals was organized. The documents published here are accompanied by a detailed commentary and an introduction, briefly summarizing the history of relations between Alberto Moravia and the USSR.

Jewish Italian Literature before Primo Levi and Giorgio Bassani

Jewish Italian Literature before Primo Levi and Giorgio Bassani

Le “pagine sempre mediocri” di un premio Nobel per la letteratura. Excursus nella critica deleddiana del suo tempo

The reception of the work of Grazia Deledda (1871–1936) is a conspicuous paradox. Although she was a successful author and a Nobel Prize winner (1926), she is little known and little studied, especially when compared with the other Nobel laureates, in particular male ones. My aim is to investigate the origins of Deledda’s ‘misfortune’ by exploring the common issues critics raised with respect to Deledda’s books in her day. One of those was, prominently, Deledda’s alleged imperfect style, a recurring theme in criticism throughout her career. Also, the Sardinian dimension of her works left no critic indifferent and led to her writing often being reduced to ‘regional’ or ‘folkloric.’ Many critics insisted that Deledda’s Sardinia, little known on the ‘Continent’ at the time, enjoyed considerable success precisely because of its ‘exotic’ quality. Finally, Deledda’s status as a woman writer was a salient factor in the reception of her work. Indeed, critics tended to adopt a condescending, or even sexist, tone, whether their assessment of Deledda’s work was favourable or detractive, which was a real commonplace in the reception of women authors back then. My aim is to investigate the role of these issues in the exclusion from the canon of a writer who has remained unique in Italian literature to this day.