Italian Novels Research Articles

Stylometric analysis of French plays of the 17th century

Abstract The automatic assignment of a text to one or more predefined categories presents multiple applications. In this context, the current study focuses on author attribution in which the true author of a doubtful text must be identified. This analysis focuses on the style of sixty-six French comedies in verse written by seventeen supposed authors during the 17th century. The hypothesis we want to verify assumes that the real author is the name appearing on the cover (called the signature hypothesis). In order to validate the reliability of two attribution procedures, we used two additional corpora based on 200 extracts of novels written in French, with thirty authors and 140 Italian novels authored by forty persons. After this verification, we propose an improvement of the Delta method as well as a new analysis grid for this model. Finally, we applied these approaches to our French comedy corpus. The results demonstrate that the signature hypothesis must be discarded. Moreover, these works present similar styles, making any attribution difficult to support with a high degree of certainty.

FORSTER’S ITALIAN NOVELS AS A TESTGROUND FOR A PASSAGE TO INDIA

M. Forster is one of the authors whose auto-referentiality manifests itself on several levels, from the choice of themes regarding his novels and short stories, over his styllistic features, leitmotifs, symbols, and clear social engagement with concern to major global issues, to the transtextuality of his characters as, probably, the most outstanding one.
 Through the prism of some key notions of colonial/postcolonial discourse, the paper deals with Forster's 'Italian novels' (A Room with a View and Where Angels Fear to Tread) as a testground for some of the themes and motifs elaborated in A Passage to India.

Italian Nostalgia: National and Global Identities of the Italian Novel

The production, distribution and consumption of the Italian novel in the global editorial market has accompanied the gradual creation of a national branding process that does not coincide with the literary identity Italy tends to associate with. When considering the main analysis approaches of the Italian literary canon—the top-down one of the country’s yearly national bestsellers, literary prizes, suggested readings in Literature courses at University and school anthologies—and the larger-scale, bottom-up view of digital platforms like Amazon and Goodreads, Wikipedia stands in a middle, unexplored ground between the two. Through the comparative quantitative analysis of data derived from some of these sources, this article aims to gain more awareness on Italian literature from 1980 to 2021, to start addressing why national book prizes winners do not make it to the global market and if it is possible to talk about a national cultural resistance, which allowed authors like Elena Ferrante and Goliarda Sapienza to become literary sensations abroad before it happening in their own country. While some studies have already dealt with the unchanging aspect and the lack of diversity of the Italian literary canon, there has been little quantitative research on the two brands of the country, the national and the global, and on the dynamics between them. As well as proposing a methodology for the ongoing study of literary reception of Italian novels under multiple points of view, this article contributes to the discussion on the reliability of measures for studying the canon.

One hundred years after the death of the writer and novelist Giovanni Verga (1922) and his relationship with public health: a glimpse of the past in the era of the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic.

In 1922 the famous Italian novelist Giovanni Verga died in Catania (Italy). In Verga's works there are many suggestions to the world of medicine, in particular the diseases described in the poor society of southern Italy of that time. One of the most common diseases described by Verga was cholera.The authors researched and reviewed Verga's works, detecting references to public health. These are topical issues in the current period of the COVID pandemic. In Verga's works the theme of hygiene, epidemiology, and infectious diseases occur. There are many hints related to medicine, especially as far as the typical diseases of poor society and the difficult social environments of the time are concerned. One of the most common diseases described by Verga was cholera but also malaria and tuberculosis occur.It was estimated that 69,000 people died of cholera in Sicily, of whom 24,000 in Palermo. The public health situation in Italy was difficult. Verga denounces people's ignorance and the survival of past beliefs.Verga describes a culturally and economically humble society, in a region characterized by large class gaps. It draws a difficult picture of the public health situation in the second half of the 19th Century and people's daily lives. The authors believe that today it is important that the centenary of Verga's death be an opportunity to read his works, also from a medical historical point of view.

Luigi Donato Ventura, a Trilingual Self-translator

Luigi Donato Ventura, a Trilingual Self-translator

Austrian-Italian Encounters: Notes on Some Films Produced Between Rome and Vienna in the 1930s

Abstract This essay deals with a number of Italian and Austrian films produced around the mid-1930s as a result of the cinematic cooperation that developed between Rome and Vienna at the time. The essay’s goal is to investigate a complex chapter in the history of Italian and Austrian film which has yet received little attention. The Austro-Italian cooperation in the field of film, which developed against the backdrop of the political alliance between Fascist Italy and Austria’s so-called Corporate State, involved some of the biggest names in Italian and Austrian cinema of the time, including Italian directors Carmine Gallone, Augusto Genina and Goffredo Alessandrini, Viennese screenwriter Walter Reisch, and Italian novelist Corrado Alvaro. In particular, the essay will consider the Italian film Casta Diva (1935) and its debt to one of the most famous Austrian productions of the 1930s, Willi Forst’s film Leise flehen meine Lieder (1933). Further films to be discussed include Tagebuch der Geliebten (1935), Una donna tra due mondi (1936), Opernring (1936), and Blumen aus Nizza (1936). Tagebuch der Geliebten was based on the diary of Russian painter Marie Bashkirtseff, who lived in Paris in the late 19th century. Una donna tra due mondi starred Italian diva Isa Miranda, Opernring Polish tenor Jan Kiepura, Blumen aus Nizza German singer Erna Sack.These films should be truly regarded as transnational productions, in which various cultural traditions and stylistic influences coalesced. By investigating them, this essay aims to shed light on a crucial period in the history of European cinema.

TO THE QUESTION OF GOALS AND OBJECTIVES ROMAN PUBLIC LAW IN THE WRITINGS OF ANTONIO GUARINO

The article will consider the main goals and objectives of Roman public law, reflected in the works of the outstanding Italian lawyer - novelist Antonio Guarino. In his works on Roman jurisprudence, Professor Guarino studied not only Roman private law, but also the concept and content of Roman public law. And also, Professor Guarino in his writings pays special attention to the issue of limiting the powers of Roman magistrates who exercised executive and judicial power. Since the problems of Roman public law are poorly covered in modern legal science, the works of Professor Guarino become relevant for us in the field of constitutional law (in the field of human rights protection). The purpose of this article is to analyze the limitation of the powers of Roman magistrates in Roman public law. The objectives of the article are a brief analysis of Roman criminal law, the study of the nature of magistrate edicts, the disclosure of the role of the people's tribunate in limiting state power. The article will apply the formal legal method, as well as general scientific methods of cognition, which include analysis, synthesis, deduction, induction, comparative method, historical method. In the course of the research, this article will analyze and consider the issues of limiting the powers of public authorities in Roman public law. The results obtained can be used in the field of constitutional law and in the protection of human and civil rights. It should be noted that the works of the Italian novelist Antonio Guarino in the field of Roman public law are of great interest to legal science. His theoretical developments and ideas may be useful for improving the legal system of Kazakhstan.

The problem of postcolonial identity in novels “Queen Of Flowers And Pearls” by Gabriella Ghermandi and “The color of my name” by Vittorio Longhi

The article considers the problem of postcolonial identity in contemporary Italian novels written by authors of mixed Afro-Italian origin that speak about colonisation in territories under Italy’s control. After a short overview of specific features of Italian postcolonial literature comes the analysis of some important topics and artistic methods in the following novels: “Queen Of Flowers and Pearls” by Gabriella Ghermandi and “The Colour of my Name” by Vittorio Longhi. Common techniques in depiction of characters and presentation of the theme of colonisation are revealed. As a result, it is possible to trace a gradual process of realisation of one’s own identity by residents of colonies that find their voice in fiction.

Zemepisná a cestopisná literatúra v šľachtickej knižnici Zičiovcov vo Voderadoch

The Slovak National Archives in Bratislava contain a large manuscript catalogue of an extensive book collection formerly located in one of the numerous residences of the branched aristocratic family Ziči, namely in Voderady near Trnava. The manuscript catalogue, entitled Catalogus Librorum Bibliothecae Vedrodiensis 1894 [A Catalogue of the Books of the Voderady Library 1894], presents a library which, according to information from the 19th century, contained about 12,000 volumes. In the catalogue, the books are divided into 19 thematic groups: theological works and prayer books, linguistic publications, dictionaries and manuals, periodicals, works on arts and crafts, Hungarian novels and short stories, German and Italian novels and short stories, French novels and short stories, English novels and short stories, the works of literature of other European and domestic provenance as well as ancient classics in various editions, memoirs, historical works, geographical literature and travelogues, natural-science publications, works on sports, specialised works on horse breeding, works on economy, legal and political works, and prints referred to as special works. This paper focuses on the thirteenth thematic group of the Voderady library, namely geographical literature and travelogues (Földrajz, Útleírás). This has been motivated by the fact that members of the Ziči family, the owners of the Voderady residence Jozef Ziči (1841–1924) and his brother Augustín (1852–1925), enjoyed not only travelling around Europe but also exploring distant exotic lands. Consequently, this group contains 717 registered titles, forming the largest group of the Voderady library. The presented literature in Hungarian, French, English and German comprises a wide range of works including travelogues, atlases and maps, tourist guides, manuals and professional geographical publications of both domestic and foreign provenance.

ANAFORA I UPOTREBA ČLANA U ITALIJANSKOM JEZIKU

Anaphora represents a complex linguistic phenomenon that enables the interconnection of textual information. It consists of an antecedent and anaphoric expression. The antecedent introduces an extratextual referent that is grammatically accompanied by indefinite article. In some cases the use of definite article is correct but such choices are usually based on pragmatic factors. The anaphoric expression is always introduced by the definite article, because the defi- nite article is the signal that the textual cohesion has taken place through the relation between the elements of the anaphora. The main goal of this paper is to investigate the types of bonding between the anteced- ent and the anaphoric expression. Depending on the prevalent type of bond we singled out four types of anaphora in our corpora based on six Italian novels: direct, indirect, associative anaphora and anaphoric encapsulator. Our research shows that the first two types are characterized by coreference, while the other two are not. This implies that the direct anaphora is based on lexical bonding, whereas the indirect is based on semantic bonding of various lexical substitutes such as equivalent expressions, hyponyms, hyperonyms, synonyms or diminutives. The associative anaphora requires strong logical and associative bond between the antecedent and the anaphoric expres- sion in order for cohesion to happen. The anaphoric encapsulator presents a single word that can summarize a whole segment of the previous text. We have concluded that all four types of anaphora successfully create textual cohesion and the reader is equipped to connect the antecedent to the anaphoric expression, regardless of whether there is a referential identity within the anaphora. The goal of this article is to point out the importance of pragmatic factors that enable this kind of referential recognition. They include the encyclopedia knowledge, the common knowledge, the knowing of the context and the co-text, the discourse universe and the cooperative principle that depends on the reader’s willingness to accept the referential connections within anaphoric elements.

К вопросу о происхождении мадригальной комедии и ее связи с культурными традициями и идеями ренессансного гуманизма

In order to understand such a unique phenomenon of European civilization as the Renaissance, it is necessary to immerse yourself in its musical culture, which reflects the complex and often contradictory processes taking place in the inner world of a person of that era. Under the influence of these processes, a wide variety of qualitatively new musical forms was formed, which served as the basis for interesting phenomena of musical culture, reflecting the characteristic traits of the Renaissance. Among these forms is the Italian madrigal comedy, a genre that lies at the intersection of musical and stage arts, which has not been sufficiently studied to date. In this regard, it is of interest to study its genesis and connection with elements of folk musical culture. Several samples of medieval prose could be considered the origins of the madrigal comedy -in particular, related to the tradition of the Italian novella. Among the examples of these, originally oral, genres was the 13th-century digest “Il novellino”, echoes of which can also be found in the typically Renaissance “Decameron” by G. Bocaccio, which reflects the characteristic features of the secularization of European society, including the enjoyment of man on earth existence. The novella itself is a kind of “construction genre”, opening up wide opportunities for improvisation - which makes it related to late theatrical genres. A mature literary genre that influenced the formation of the madrigal comedy was the farce that has existed since the 15th century. The difference between a farce and a novella is a pronounced stereotyping of certain characteristic features of the components of the Renaissance society (such as social classes, estates and professions), which can be considered as a phenomenon that precedes the appearance of masks of the madrigal comedy. The musical basis of the madrigal comedy was based on medieval song genres, which have a simple, lively and energetic harmony, which corresponds to the spirit of love of life and fun, embodied in the ideals of the Renaissance. The typology of madrigal comedies includes at least two types. The first is the simplest, representing a thematic cycle of madrigals without a pronounced stage component (“Caccia” by A. Striggio). A mature type, including independent solo parts, division into parts and a pronounced storyline, is reflected in the work of A. Banchieri and O. Vecchi. O. Veechi's comedy, the “Amphiparnassus”, among other things, also has pronounced farcical features, reflected in the vivid images of the heroes of the work. The short life of the madrigal comedy, apparently, was associated not so much with its content, but with the absence of a pronounced visual component, which did not allow it to find a response among the people and significantly reduced its competitiveness with the new visual genre of opera. Thus, the madrigal comedy can be considered as an organic combination of elements of traditional Italian culture and the ideas of Renaissance humanism, and its pronounced national flavor reflects the basic trends in the musical culture of the Renaissance.

The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot as a modern epic

‘The Waste Land’, of course by T. S. Eliot has been treated as the magnum opus of T. S. Eliot on account of its big canvas, wide range of themes, saga of suffering, with epic grandeur. It concludes with an optimistic note- “ Shantih, Shantih, Shantih'' as well as “Da, Datta, Dayadhvam'' The mental journey from ‘The Burial of the Dead’ to ‘What the Thunder Said’ via ‘A Game of Chess’, ‘The Fire Sermon’ and Death by Water’ undertaken by Tiresias symbolizes the journey of the Christiana in John Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress. In Spite of this, the complexity of theme prompted a sensitive Hindi poet Nirala to remark- “ Kahan ka ianta kahan ka roda, T. S. Eliot ne kunwa joda'' The elegiac note of the opening part visualizes ‘a ray of hope’ when the poet refers to ‘the Holy river’ Ganga and the Himavant i.e. the snowbound mountains in Himalayan Ranges. Suddenly, the attention is shifted towards the famous fable of the ‘Brihadaranyaka Upanishad’ The three-fold offspring of the Creator, Prajapati, Gods, men and demons; these three approached Prajapati for instruction after completing their formal education. To each group, He uttered the single syllable ‘Da’. The message was sent to all three in the form of encoding but they interpreted or decoded in their own ways. The Gods decode it as ‘Damyata’ (Control Yourselves). The Gods decoded it as ‘Datta’ (give). The demons interpreted it as ‘Dayadhvam’ ( be compassionate). When these three meet Prajapati, aware of their interpretations, He responds with ‘OM’ signifying that they have fully understood. This concludes with the thrice repetition of thunder - Da. Da. Da. viz, control yourselves, give, be compassionate.This episode reminds us of T.S. Eliot’s focus on Charles Lanman, his Sanskrit teacher at Harvard University who gave Eliot a copy of ‘Vasudev Lakshman Shastri Phansikar’s Sanskrit edition of ‘The Twenty Eight Upanishads'. While interpreting ‘Dayadhvam”, Eliot refers to Dante’s Ínferno’Book 33, line 46 - “And below I heard the outlet of / The horrible tower locked up”. These words are uttered by Ugonio della Gherardesca, a 13th century Italian novelist as he recalls his imprisonment in a Tower with his two sons and two grandsons where they starved to death. This allusion communicates a sense of finality and suggests the terrifying consequences of imprisoning oneself within one’s own ego or consciousness. Eliot feels that only by confining to one’s own faith one is ought to transcend the boundaries of tradition. According to the European tradition or Christianity ‘Shantih ‘has been interpreted as ‘Peace Which passeth understanding ' . Indeed, It is a feeble translation of the inherent meaning of the world. Eliot anticipates something absolute and sublime as has been suggested by the Upanishadic Connotation. To conclude it can be said that this poem begins with pessimistic suffering but concludes with robust optimism.

The Merchant of Venice and the Demise of Hospitality

ABSTRACT The Merchant of Venice explores usury and the violation of hospitality’s codes in a world where hospitality is no longer a charitable act. Rather, money is the primary motivation and relationships revolve around commercial transactions not social bonds. Robert Wilson’s Elizabethan morality play The Three Ladies of London provides an important antecedent to Shakespeare’s play in its depictions of Usury, Hospitality, and the usurer-Jew Gerontus. The flesh bond and the wealthy Lady of Belmont appear in one of the probable sources for Shakespeare's play: Giovanni Fiorentino’s medieval Italian novella Il Pecorone. In The Merchant of Venice Shakespeare seems to have developed from Il Pecorone the idea that insincere hospitality can have serious consequences. Shakespeare also appears to consolidate distinct concepts from Wilson’s Three Ladies by reshaping the figure of Usury (the sin of medieval morality) and Gerontus (the reasonable Jewish moneylender), into Shylock, a complex figure who elicits both sympathy and revulsion. Where Hospitality is murdered by Usury in Wilson’s play, Shakespeare presents Shylock’s isolation in terms of alterity, dehumanisation, and social exclusion in a world where loyalty and moral obligations have been replaced by the demands of the market.

Plague and Literature in Western Europe, from Giovanni Boccaccio to Albert Camus

In medieval times the plague hit Europe between 1330 and 1350. The Italian novelist Giovanni Boccaccio, one of the exponents of the cultural movement of Humanism, in the introduction (proem) of his “Decameron” described the devastating effects of the ‘black plague’ on the inhabitants of the city of Florence. The pestilence returned to Western Europe in several waves, between the 16th and 17th centuries. William Shakespeare in “Romeo and Juliet” and other tragedies, and Ben Jonson in “The Alchemist” made several references to the plague, but they did not offer any realistic description of that infective disease. Some decennials later Daniel Defoe, in his “A Journal of the Plague Year” (1719), gave a detailed report about the ‘Great Plague’ which hit England in 1660, based on documents of the epoch. In more recent times, Thomas S. Eliot, composing his poem “The Waste Land” was undoubtedly influenced by the spreading of another infective disease, the so-called “Spanish flu”, which affected him and his wife in December 1918. Some decennials later, the French writer and philosopher Albert Camus, in his novel “The Plague”, symbolized with a plague epidemic the war which devastated Europe, North Africa and the Far East from 1937 to 1945, extolling a death toll of over 50 million victims. Those literary works offered a sort of solace to the lovers of literature. To recall them is the purpose of the present paper, in these years afflicted by the spreading of the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Homo Oeconomicus and the Limits of Storytelling: Italian Apocalyptic Fiction of the Long Downturn

This paper focuses on three contemporary Italian novels that operate within the apocalyptic paradigm and voice a sense of collapsing reality that characterized Italy in the wake of the global financial crisis. Ruggero Cappuccio's Fuoco su Napoli (2010), Gianni Miraglia's Muori Milano muori! (2011), and Francesca Genti's La febbre (2011) represent worlds in which the disruption of daily life exposes the invisible conventions that make it possible. In shaping narratives in which their characters attempt to cope with the fact that their worlds are coming to a definitive end because of their relationship to profit, power, and spectacle, the authors articulate an underlying critique of the present socio-economic system and its ancillary effects. From this perspective, these novels highlight the ways in which the neoliberal economic system of the long downturn undermines the conditions that guarantee the future of social and biophysical life as we know it. I argue that the manipulation enacted by the authors in relation to established genre paradigms invites a rearrangement of values and of human relations with respect to homo oeconomicus, thus envisioning a new ethics as the pulsing core for activating a political shift and bringing about a new future.

Retrieving or Revising? Using Mythology in Contemporary Italian Literature against Femicide

ABSTRACT This article investigates two contemporary Italian novels treating femicide: Undicesimo comandamento (2011) by Elena Mearini and Padreterno (2015) by Caterina Serra. It draws on feminist insights that consider practices of revising and retrieving mythology as an opportunity to launch a process of re-symbolisation, one capable of challenging patriarchal discrimination and violence. In particular, the article examines Mearini’s decision to rewrite the Christian myth of the cross in order to tell the story of a woman annihilated by her partner’s violence. It also explores Serra’s use of the Greek myth of Aristaeus to retrieve a story of femicide told by a male offender who undergoes a process of self-awareness. It approaches these texts as part of a contemporary Italian impetus to tackle lethal gender violence against women by means of literary representations and storytelling.

Archetypes of the pandemic.

This paper attempts to read the psychological and emotional impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic through the archetypal images contained in patients’ dreams. In these dreams, symbols related to the power of nature and to extreme danger are paired with feelings of detachment that seem to point to a traumatic dissociation, due to the archetypal experience that erupts in familiar surroundings. Through the humanization of the ineffable experience, dissociation, which in the beginning of the pandemic showed in high levels of anxiety, panic attacks and depersonalization, can be transformed into the overview needed for the search for meaning. The container for this process of transformation is the analyst, the real, virtual or imagined one, and his or her ability to relate and feel.

Orientalism in D. H. Lawrence’s Novelistic Representation of Italy

ABSTRACT Critical attention to D. H. Lawrence’s two Italian novels has focused on themes of sexual politics and leadership politics, and few critics have noted their engagement with colonial politics. Informed by postcolonial studies, this paper argues that Lawrence’s representation of Italy in The Lost Girl and Aaron's Rod is overloaded with Orientalist imagery in that Italy is imagined as an Other within Europe that contrasts with the industrialised and civilised North. Italy is portrayed as alternatively redemptive and destructive. While the Italian landscape is idealised as an exotic Other, its people and culture are demonised as a savage Other. Both representation modes are trapped in the logic of imperialist discourses. The celebration of the landscape marginalises Italy from the modern world and the demonisation of the community affirms the racial and cultural inferiority of Italy. Lawrence’s representation of Italy indicates that in the cultural imagination of Britain the racial and national others within Europe are often subject to the colonising gaze of the ‘imperial eyes’.

Violante, Violente, Violenta: la novella I. 42 di Matteo Bandello e le sue riscritture tra Francia, Inghilterra e Spagna

ABSTRACT This article gives an instance of the translation process involving the Italian novella in Renaissance Europe. It focuses on a meaningful case study, comparing one of Matteo Bandello’s novellas (I. 42) with its French, English, and Spanish rewritings by Pierre Boaistuau, William Painter, and Vicente de Millis Godínez. It is argued that these three translators changed the Italian plot in order to make the story acceptable from a moralistic point of view, specifically by re-characterising the female protagonist. The article examines Painter’s rewriting in particular: it suggests that the Elizabethan writer drew directly on both the Italian text and its French translation, but chose to follow Boaistuau’s changes on specific literary and cultural grounds. Indeed, the French model showed Painter a way to endow his work with moral rectitude, while preserving the violent and tragic narrative events that would satisfy his readers’ tastes.

Bad Romance: Toxic Masculinity, Love, and Heartbreak in Interwar Italian and Turkish Women's Novels, 1923–32

Bad Romance: Toxic Masculinity, Love, and Heartbreak in Interwar Italian and Turkish Women's Novels, 1923–32