Italian Narrative Research Articles

Fragments of 'impegno': Interpretation of Commitment in Contemporary Italian Narrative, 1980-2000 by Jennifer Burns (review)

222 Reviews Fragments of 'impegno': Interpretation of Commitment in Contemporary ltalian Nar? rative, 1980-2000. By Jennifer Burns. Leeds: Northern Universities Press. 2001. vi +204 pp. ?36. ISBN 1-902653-37-8. For the generation of ltalian writers which emerged afterthe Second World War, the notion of a particular relationship between narrative production and socio-political commitment was inescapable. In this book Jennifer Burns asks to what extent this particular trait has informed later generations of ltalian fiction writers. It is an am? bitious task which does not allow for generic definitions of impegno or for generic notions of literary history. For this reason, Burns is very careful in first assessing the practices of political commitment in the literary work of ltalian writers up until the 1980s. In Chapter 1, to 'counter the commonly-held opinion that the concept of impegno was a monological one' (p. 13), Burns concentrates on the literary practices of three differentauthors: Elio Vittorini, Italo Calvino, and Pier Paolo Pasolini. One might question the limitations of such a selection, but there is no doubt that Burns's critical approach is both helpful and stimulating. It presents us with a concrete and well-developed analysis of the differentways in which the three authors struggled to infuse their writing with a sense of ethical and social responsibility. The following chapter moves on to the 1970s, and here the work of Gianni Celati is convincingly presented as a link between the previous generation and what will follow. With Chapter 3 we enter the actual analysis of a selection of authors whose work spans the twenty years from 1980 to 2000. Antonio Tabucchi is considered as the one who, more than any other, retains traits ofhis forerunners in his Vittorini-esque belief in the impact of literature on people's social conscience. Chapter 4 then concentrates on the work of Fabrizia Ramondino, whose interest in questions of personal and social identity bears marks of a 'Pasolinian' viewpoint. Although Burns does not try to define a female-specificform ofimpegno,the relevance ofgender issues is implicit in the entire book through the use ofthe feminine personal pronoun whenever a generic notion of writer is discussed. It is difficult to condense in a few lines the many interesting considerations re? garding the rest of the selected writers. Andrea De Carlo is studied as an example of unconvincing impegno as betrayed by his simplistic and ambiguous treatment of contemporary social issues. At the other end of Burns's qualitative spectrum, Pier Vittorio Tondelli's fictional production is praised for 'his profound commitment to creating and maintaining a space for literature in contemporary culture' (p. 117). His effortsto promote the writings of the following generation posit Tondelli as an important figure in the development of contemporary ltalian literature and, as Burns points out, the 'fault line' has developed to include the writings of Silvia Ballestra. In the following chapter Ballestra, the youngest of the selection, is discussed as the most promising of the current generation of ltalian writers. In her work Burns sees the progressive establishment of a self-assured identity as a writer and as an observer of social phenomena. The eighth and final chapter is devoted to an overview of immigrant writing in ltalian. Various examples of works by North African writers are discussed, some for their limitations, others for their original traits. The conclusion regroups the many strands of each chapter under the umbrella notion of postmodernism. Within this dimension, furtheranalysis could have focused on the role of the historical novel and detective fiction (both of which would have seen Sciascia as a fourth impegno father figure). The conclusion also returns to the overall thesis of the book, that the latest generation of writers have had their sense of responsibility towards readers and literature woken up by the political crises of the 1990s. Within the selected range of authors, this is a convincing interpretation; particularly illuminating is the reconstruction of a sense oflegacy descending fromthe idealism ofthe early post-war years. On the other hand, the uncharted territories of MLR, 99.1, 2004 223 Catholic culture remain unexplored. This is a pity since the work of a highly popular writer such as...

Fragments of 'impegno': Interpretation of Commitment in Contemporary Italian Narrative, 1980-2000

This thesis explores the representation of political and social issues in the work of a selection of contemporary Italian authors, aiming to assess what has become of the notion of political commitment ('impegno'), as debated by intellectuals in the sharply-defined political climate following World War II, and whether the institutional seizure then crisis of the 1980s and 1990s has encouraged a comparable literary response. In part one, I examine the critical works of Vittorini and Calvino, two authors central to the early discussion about the social role of literature, revealing the tensions between their conceptions of the relationship between writers and society, which, despite their close collaboration, are identifiable in their writings of the 1950s and 1960s. I then trace these different veins of thinking - which I have termed 'fault lines' in the solid mass of 'impegno' - into the works of Celati and Palandri, who express the socio-political consciousness of youth in the 1960s and 1970s. In the six chapters of the main body of my thesis, I consider the further breakdown, in the recent climate of political diffidence, of the traditional sense of commitment to a specific cause, into a fragmentary exposure of a variety of 'minority' issues in the work of individual authors or groups of the 1980s and early 1990s, broadly classifiable under the 'giovani narratori' label. This allows me to consider well-known contemporary authors, such as Tabucchi, De Carlo and Tondelli, from a specific perspective, alongside Ballestra, a young and little studied writer. My last two chapters discuss a selection of established women writers and barely-known African immigrant writers, assessing the impact of specific interest-groups on the 'impegno' question. I conclude by considering the specificity of these 'fragments' to Italian culture, within the general context of the postmodern lapse of faith in ideologies.

Prison terms: representing confinement during and after Italian fascism

In this ground-breaking work, Ellen Nerenberg offers an analysis of the confinement experience in Italian narrative between 1930 and 1960, the last fifteen years of Fascism and the fifteen that followed. Nerenberg diverges from the notion that a radical break from Fascism coincided with Mussolini's fall, instead revealing a disturbing continuity of social restraints following World War II. Drawing on critical discourses of architectural design, urban planning, and cultural geography, Nerenberg offers readings of Buzzati, Piovene, de Cespedes, Banti, Morante, Pratolini, and Gadda. Not limiting herself to prisons, she also explores military barracks, convents, brothels, and homes as carceral homologue. In a surprising investigation of the male body as defined by the architectural space of the barracks and the discursive practices of military guides and journals, she challenges the notion circulated during Fascism of a homogenous model of masculinity. She also probes the social and symbolic positions of women in relation to confinement, the law, power, and liberty. In a chapter titled .House Arrest,. she treats the ominous space of the home as a homologue for prison wherein .women are induced into criminality. A study of literal and literary spaces during and after Italian Fascism, this work examines the ways in which Fascist cultural and discursive practices and ideology endure in other guises past the fall of the Regime.

Incipitque Semper

Incipitque Semper Richard Macksey After an interregnum, we are happy to welcome a new editorial assistant to the masthead with this issue: Ivan Grabovac. His timely dedication has been deeply appreciated. We are also grateful to Matthew Roller, William D. Scott, Michael Sprinker, and Henry Sussman for their generosity in lending editorial advice. Gregory L. Lucente A memorial will appear in the Italian issue to our friend and former editorial colleague, Gregory Lucente, whose sudden death earlier this year was a loss to the profession and to all those who knew him. He was a member of the Department of Romance Languages at Hopkins from 1979 to 1988, whence he moved to the University of Michigan as Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature. Two of his books of criticism were published by the Johns Hopkins University Press: The Narrative of Realism and Myth: Verga, Lawrence, Faulkner, Pavese (1981) and Beautiful Fables: Self-Consciousness in Italian Narrative from Manzoni to Calvino (1986), which received the Presidential Book Award of the AAIS for 1987. A writer of fiction as well as a critic of fiction, he published a novel, Over the Mountain, in 1996. He served actively for a decade on the Editorial Board of MLN, where his continuing counsel, contributions, and wit will be sorely missed. Civility and Civilization The Departments of Hispanic and Italian Studies, Classics, and History at the Johns Hopkins University, in collaboration with the Office of Culture Affairs at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, have launched The Civility Project, a cluster of activities—involving both the University and the city of Baltimore—that will center this spring on an international symposium, “Reassessing Civility: Forms and Values at the Turn of the Century.” The organizers, Pier Massimo Forni and Giulia Sissa, identify the project’s paramount goals: “To assess the relevance of notions such as civility, manners, and politeness for American society today and to foster scholarly research on civility.” They add the following remarks about the project’s theme: [End Page 1014] In the past several years, an increasing discourse on values, civic virtues, morality, civility, integrity, courtesy, and manners has come to the fore in the public arena. In many cases newspaper articles and radio and television stories have discussed the perceived decline of civility in rather superficial terms. This seems to be an auspicious time for a serious reassessment of civility—one aimed at providing strong intellectual moorings to the current debate. It is primarily important to identify ways in which the humanities can be brought to the core of such debate. The symposium will take place at Hopkins on March 26–28, 1998. In formal presentations and round-tables, scholars from a wide range of disciplines will present their most recent work to an audience including fellow scholars, college administrators, and students. Anthropology, history, philosophy, linguistics, psychology, sociology, literary and cultural studies will be among the represented fields of research. The first full day of sessions (March 27) will be devoted to tracing the historical and theoretical boundaries of the topic. A seminal point of interest will be the notion of the “civilizing process” as it was articulated in Norbert Elias’s monumental study. Other powerful interpretive models of civilized life and social rituals, such as those of Freud, Mauss, and Goffman, will be at the core of this theoretical segment. On the second full day of sessions (March 28), the intellectual models outlined on the first day will be tested with reference to specific fields of human social interaction. (The programs of the Civility Project will run concurrently with a year-long series on “The Manners of Healing: Communication and Civil Exchange” sponsored at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions by the Office of Cultural Affairs [fax: 410-614-2828].) Additional information about the symposium may be obtained by addressing Professor Sissa at the Classics Department, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218 (e-mail: sissa@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu). La Planche Colloquium An international committee honoring the theoretical premises and psychiatric practice of Jean Laplanche has announced that its Fourth International Colloquium will take place on August 1–3, 1998, in Gramado (Hotel Serrano), Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The topic to be developed...

The Flavors of Modernity: Food and the Novel

Although its title would appear to promise some kind of comparative perspective, Biasin does in fact restrict his analysis to the Italian novel, although there are often useful references to the wider European context (for example, Woolf, Joyce, Proust). Whilst the book is, therefore, mainly of interest to students and scholars of modern Italian narrative, it can be read with profit by non-Italianists (who are also helped by Biasin's decision to quote in English from the novels he examines). Indeed, the numerous references to theorists, philosophers, and anthro- pologists as diverse as Levi-Strauss, Barthes, Bakhtin, Bourdieu, and Piero Camporesi also help to broaden the potential readership of the book.

The politics of location: Italian narratives of Mme de Staël and George Sand

The politics of location: Italian narratives of Mme de Staël and George Sand

Italian Storytellers. Essays on Italian Narrative Literature

Italian Storytellers. Essays on Italian Narrative Literature

Beautiful Fables: Self-consciousness in Italian Narrative from Manzoni to Calvino

Beautiful Fables: Self-consciousness in Italian Narrative from Manzoni to Calvino

Beautiful Fables: Self-Consciousness in Italian Narrative from Manzoni to Calvino

Beautiful Fables: Self-Consciousness in Italian Narrative from Manzoni to Calvino

Beautiful Fables: Self-Consciousness in Italian Narrative from Manzoni to Calvino

Beautiful Fables: Self-Consciousness in Italian Narrative from Manzoni to Calvino

Beautiful Fables: Self-Consciousness in Italian Narrative from Manzoni to Calvino

Beautiful Fables: Self-Consciousness in Italian Narrative from Manzoni to Calvino

The Uses of Literature , and: Beautiful Fables: Self-consciousness in Italian Narrative From Manzoni to Calvino (review)

Reviewed by: The Uses of Literature, and: Beautiful Fables: Self-consciousness in Italian Narrative From Manzoni to Calvino Joann Cannon Italo Calvino . The Uses of Literature. Trans. Patrick Creagh. New York: Harcourt, 1986. 341 pp. $17.95. Gregory Lucente . Beautiful Fables: Self-consciousness in Italian Narrative From Manzoni to Calvino. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1986. 390 pp. $32.50. As the only collection of Calvino's essays in English translation, The Uses of Literature is long overdue. These essays testify to the wide range of Calvino's interests—from philosophy of science to the classics, cybernetics to eroticism, Fourier to Roland Barthes, Northrop Frye to Stendhal. As we might expect, many of the essays shed light on a particular work by Calvino. "Cybernetics and Ghosts," a fascinating essay on the combinatory aspect of narrative, tells us a great deal about the rationale behind Calvino's literary experiment with tarot cards, The Castle of Crossed Destinies. Departing from the formalist analysis of narrative as a combination of a limited number of functions, the author speculates on the possibility that the writer might be replaced by a computer. Convinced that writers are already "writing machines," that it is the writing process itself and not the personality of the author that generates fiction, Calvino nonetheless argues for the "human" quality of fiction. "Once we have dismantled and reassembled the process of literary composition, the decisive moment of literary life will be that of reading. The work will continue to be born, to be judged, to be destroyed or constantly renewed on contact with the eye of the reader." The importance of the reader's role in fiction is dramatized not only in Calvino's The Castle of Crossed Destinies but also in If on a Winter's Night a Traveller. Perhaps the most striking aspect of these essays is Calvino's insistence that writing be "driven on by a thirst for knowledge," that literature be placed in the ranks of other cognitive activities. In "Philosophy and Literature" Calvino describes the ideal relation between literature, philosophy, and science: "We will not have a culture equal to the challenge until we compare against one another the basic problematics of science, philosophy, and literature, in order to call them all into question." In "Two Interviews on Science and Literature" the author maintains that Italian literature, from Dante to Galileo to Leopardi, has always had a vocation as "a map of the world and of the knowable." It is clear that Calvino, too, aspires to create a fiction that serves as a "map of the world." Cosmicomics and T zero, Calvino's fantastic science fictions, The Invisible Cities and Mr. Palomar, are all driven by the same "vocation" described by the author in these essays. The book is a translation of about one half of the essays collected in 1980 under the title Una pietra sopra. (In addition there are several articles that originally appeared in Italian newspapers and a number of Calvino's prefaces to works published by Einaudi.) The dust jacket tells us that Calvino himself made the selection of essays to be included in the volume. Missing are unfortunately some [End Page 747] of Calvino's most important essays, including "The Marrow of the Lion" (1955), "The Sea of Objectivity" (1959), and "The Challenge to the Labyrinth" (1962). These essays testify to the author's early conviction that, although literature cannot prescribe political agendas, it can embody the will to change. The absence of these essays gives us an image of a somewhat less "committed" writer than that which emerges from a reading of Calvino's 1980 collection of essays, appropriately subtitled Discorsi di letteratura e società ("Discussions of literature and society"). Nonetheless The Uses of Literature is an invaluable point of departure for the reader familiar only with Calvino's fiction. The title of the volume is particularly felicitous: although his perception of literature's uses certainly changed throughout his career, Calvino was a writer who seems never to have relinquished the idea of the "usefulness" of literature. Beautiful Fables is a valuable study of some of the most important texts to emerge in Italy in the last two centuries. In the introduction...

Boccaccio's <em>Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine</em> and literary dissociation: to allegorize or not to allegorize?

BOCCACCIO ^S COMEDIA DELLE NINFE FIORENTINE AND LITERARY DISSOCI ATION: TO ALLEGORIZE OR NOT TO ALLEGORI2E?* LUISA DEL GIUDICE fiorentine (also referred to as the body of criticism on the Comedia delle ninfe Ameto or the Ninfale d'Ameto) has generally focused on two areas: it has traced the narrative technique of the 'cornice /novelle' back to the quistioni d'amore of the Filocolo and forward to the Decameron; it has also interested itself in unraveling the puzzles regarding the nymphs' identities, which Boc- caccio, the gossip columnist, so deverly concealed in this 'roman a clef'.' Sansovino has labelled this work a quasi 'piccolo Decameron '^ The relatively limited while Di Pino has considered this the first pastoral of Italian narrative. The engaging question however, that a critic faces in dealing with this Comedia concerns the conceptual tramework in which this pastoral functions. The work is puUed in two directions; toward the real, dic- tated by the senses, and toward the allegorical, dictated by reason. The spiritual aspirations embodied in this Christian allegory seem to be at odds with the narrative realism, and, while the character of is Ameto spiritually elevated and integrated into the allegory, the I- narrator remains betrays the the tension bound by the earthly vision and therefore partially final allegory. The warring halves are not reconciled and is not resolved. The dissociation between narrator, who at This paper was read the 2nd annual American Association of University Pro- fessors of Italian conference held in Los Angeles from November 20-22,