La Terra Research Articles

The “breathing” Earth (la terra che respira) at Solfatara-Pisciarelli (Campi Flegrei, southern Italy) during 2005-2024: Nature’s way of attenuating the effects of bradyseism through gradual and episodic release of subsurface pressure.

The “breathing” Earth (la terra che respira) at Solfatara-Pisciarelli (Campi Flegrei, southern Italy) during 2005-2024: Nature’s way of attenuating the effects of bradyseism through gradual and episodic release of subsurface pressure.

The Senegal Delta and Global Capitalism

As Pietro Daniel Omodeo observes in this review, "environmental politics cannot be separated from political decision-making." Using the example of the Senegal delta, as explored in Maura Benegiamo's La terra dentro il capitale, Omodeo shows that the neocolonial "Great Expropriation of the global commons" is underway in the Global South, with grim ecological and social consequences for those living in the delta.

Luigi Nono’s Works from the Late 1950s: The Emergence of a New Choral Style

At the center of attention in the article are Luigi Nono’s choral works from the late 1950s. On the example of analysis of two compositions created consecutively one after the other — La terra e la compagna (The Earth and the Female Friend, 1957) and Cori di Didone (Choruses of Dido, 1958), — the composer demonstrates innovative techniques expanding the arsenal of technical means and testifying of the intensity of the development of his personal choral style within the indicated period of time, and also manifests the tendencies characteristic for the choral texture of the subsequent years. Special attention is given to the texts of Cesare Pavese and Giuseppe Ungaretti that comprised the verbal basis of the analyzed compositions. It is noted that the pathos of the struggle for liberation of the earlier compositions is overshadowed by a lyricism connected to the composer’s focusing to the images of nature. During his work on the texts, Nono actively experiments with the phonetics establishing its impact on the vocal sound. Among the specific peculiarities of the choral writing in the examined compositions, the techniques of timbral modulation, as well as poly-timbral and mono-timbral stereo-monody are emphasized. In the sphere of the organization of the sound material, the transition from serial technique to the technique of sound masses is noted. On the basis of the carried out analysis, the tendencies conducive to the transformation of the image of the choral texture are indicated: the reduction of the melodic horizontal motions to sound-points; the acceleration of attention in mixing timbres within the framework of the unison; and the expansion of the functions of the verbal text (the process of its delinearization and phonetic disintegration).

The view from Warsaw: Italian neorealism in Stalinist-era Poland

Italian neorealist films were quite popular in Stalinist-era Poland (1945–53). As part of the propaganda strategy, they were used to create a negative image of life in western countries, thus confirming the omnipresent vision of ‘rotten capitalism’. The social criticism contained in neorealism was manipulated through a modal framework that explained to the Polish audiences all phenomena as a product of a bad social system based on injustice and exploitation. The aim of this article is to examine Polish reviews of two neorealist films: Ladri di biciclette ( Bicycle Thieves ) () and La terra trema ( The Earth Trembles ) () both presented to Polish audiences in 1951.

Représenter la flaua bilis: le portait du colérique dans l’Iconologia de Cesare Ripa

Representing the flaua bilis: the Portrait of the Choleric in Cesare Ripa’s Iconology. The theory of the four humours (blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile) forms the basis of ancient medicine. Coming from the Hippocratic corpus and completed by Galen of Pergamum (129–216 AD) in his De Temperamentis by means of individual complexions (blood, phlegmatic, angry, melancholic), this theory is essential in modern Europe after more than two thousand years of transmission, development and practice of medicine. Our article aims to examine its fortune in the Iconology of the Italian scholar Cesare Ripa (1555–1622). Starting with the Roman edition of 1603, he enriched his famous allegorical repertoire with a complex entry encoding the four temperaments: Collerico per il fuoco, Sanguigno per l’aria, Flemmatico per l’acqua, Malenconico per la terra. We work here only with the Choleric and undertake to determine the reasons which governed the choice of the attributes retained by C. Ripa (youth, nudity, sword, shield adorned with a flame, lion, fury in the gaze) to offer poets, painters and sculptors the archetype of a figure dominated by yellow, hot and dry bile. To this end, we analyze the medical, literary and iconographic sources on which the author relies, considering also the richness and complexity of the medical discourse he had at his disposal and the very purpose of his Iconology.

Review: Italian Neorealism: A Cultural History, by Charles L. Leavitt IV

Review: <i>Italian Neorealism: A Cultural History</i>, by Charles L. Leavitt IV

Un crocevia di generi e forme: il graphic novel di Gipi incontra la finzione post-apocalittica

La terra dei figli is a graphic-novel which consciously encounters post-apocalyptic fiction. Gipi offers his readers a narration of the world written beyond the end of the world and engages in a type of story that is among the most popular of recent times: post-apocalyptic fiction, which is perhaps the most suitable literary and cinematographic genre to entertain a political dialogue with his audience. The author works with the typical tools of comics and yet engages with archetypes that no longer belong only to the apocalyptic fiction, but to the fairy tale and the coming-of-age novel.

The Pentateuch: Exodus–Deuteronomy

The PentateuchExodus–Deuteronomy Christopher T. Begg, Isaac M. Alderman, and Fred W. Guyette 1800. [Exodus] Pablo R. Andinach, “Encuetro entre la terra y el cielo en la liberación de los esclavos de Egipto,” RevCT 24 (2016) 41–65. A. reads the Book of Exodus as the presentation of a God who opens up a space that makes possible a meeting between himself and his people. This space is a privileged place to which one gains access by faith, whereby in times of oppression, anguish, and hopelessness [End Page 627] people turn to God as one who is solicitous of the needs of the poor and oppressed. Among the book’s key texts that serve to ground such a reading are those concerning the birth of Moses, the plagues of Egypt, the revelation of the divine name and its meaning, etc. Throughout the book, one notices God’s predilection for those who suffer oppression and put their faith in his liberating will. The approach to the book taken by A. favors a literary and symbolic reading of its narrative that seeks to explore the dynamics of the interactions among its characters and their function within the story’s unfolding. By way of conclusion, A. offers a synthesis of the biblical theology that emerges from his reading of Exodus. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 1801. [Exodus] Siegbert Riecker, “Die Erkenntnisverheißung im Buch Exodus: Ein verunglückter Sprechakt?” JAJ 8 (2017) 26–41. The impact of the exodus tradition on ancient Judaism has been the subject of various investigations that, in turn, have led to further questions about the formative and normative force (J. Assmann) of the exodus narrative. Rather than focus on the effect of this force, R.’s article employs a speech-act analysis of the biblical text in order to shed light on the causation of this. With reference to the “theory of infelicities” associated with J. Austin and R. Grimes, R. addresses the question of why the promise of Pharaoh’s coming to know Yhwh in the Exodus account apparently does not find fulfillment in the book. Five possible points for a “happy” fulfillment can be identified. However, at each of these points, a particular form of infelicity surfaces: (1) Pharaoh’s confessions of guilt (hitch); (2) his release of the Israelites (flaw) and even (3) the outcry of his drowning army (non-play) do not give convincing evidence of the king’s having attained knowledge of Yhwh. Ultimately, it is not (4) the Egyptians (contagion) but rather (5) the Midianite Jethro (substitution) who is described as coming to know Yhwh. It is the tenth in the series of ten recognition formulas used in reference to non-Israelites in Exod 18:11 in connection with the figure of Jethro that seems to provide a fulfillment for the book’s promise of non-Israelites would come to knowledge of Yhwh. This finding has implications for the structure of the exodus narrative as well as for its intended effect on readers of each new generation. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 1802. [Exod 1:15–22] Facundo Mela, fdp, “Propuesta de estructura y análisis de Ex 1,15–22,” RevistB 79 (2017) 75–87. M.’s article proposes and analyzes in detail a narrative structure for the account of the heroic midwives in Exod 1:15–22. On this basis, he then offers his reflections on the message that the structure proposed by him is intended to convey. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 1803. [Exod 2:1–3:15] Zdzisław Pawłowski, “Bóg i tożsamość Mojżesza: Lektura narracyjna Exodus 2,1–3,15 [God and Moses’s Identity: A Narrative Reading of Exod 2:1–3:15],” BibAn 7 (2017) 187–205. This article provides a narrative reading of Exod 2:1–3:15, which P. envisages as a more appropriate approach to the text than the traditional historical-critical one with its focus on the text’s origin and literary evolution. The passage consists of a number of well-conceived episodes which serve to establish Moses’ multi-faceted identity...

A Screenplay in the Form of a Comic Strip: Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Drawings for La terra vista dalla luna

This article analyzes the drawings that Pier Paolo Pasolini made for his short film, La terra vista dalla luna, in 1967. Pasolini originally intended to publish his sketches in a comic book that, in the end, he did not complete. These drawings eschew any clear-cut definition. They are an attempt at a comic book, but they also visualize Pasolini’s screenplay so closely that they could be the film’s storyboard. Whether they are functional to the film or conceived to tell the same story in a different medium, these drawings represent a residual text that sheds light on Pasolini’s conversion to the figurative arts. His hand-drawn images investigate the function of colour, while exemplifying Pasolini’s observations on linguistic contamination, the merging of high- and lowbrow expressive forms, free indirect style and the new literary monstra represented by hybrid narrative structures.

Bellissima dir. by Luchino Visconti (review)

Reviewed by: Bellissima dir. by Luchino Visconti Peter Kravanja Bellissima. Luchino Visconti, dir. Starring Anna Magnani. Eureka!, 2007 (1951). 1 DVD + 32-page booklet. $49.98. Italian neorealism emerged with Ossessione (Obsession, 1943), Luchino Visconti's first feature film, and gained international recognition with Roma, città aperta (Rome, Open City, 1945) by Roberto Rossellini. Unlike Ossessione and Visconti's following film, La terra trema (1948), however, Bellissima (1951) is a comedy, and it marks a transition from neorealism to post-neorealism. The film belongs even more specifically to neorealism rosa (pink neorealism), a subgenre that (surprisingly) has its roots in the prewar, light comedies of the fascist period. Both types of films, despite their obvious political and aesthetic differences, shared a similar social message: one should maintain the status quo and forget about social mobility and the idea of an egalitarian society. That message, combined with the fact that pink-neorealist films developed the use of highly eroticized stars (in this case, Anna Magnani), meant that they were rather more successful than genuine neorealist films in creating a wide audience for Italian cinema. Visconti's changed approach reflects major changes within Italy. During the three years between the release of La terra trema and that of Bellissima, Italy had undergone significant political change that strongly affected the cultural policy behind the production of Bellissima; after the Christian Democrats won the 1948 elections, neorealist films pur sang, like all films with left-wing social agendas, lacked government support and were deemed very risky investments. Viewed in this light, Bellissima can be interpreted as an indirect, political response to this changed political environment, particularly with regard to its choice of subgenre. Hollywood's rapidly increasing domination posed another key problem for the Italian film industry as a whole, and given this wider context, Bellissima can also be read as a critique of cinema as an institution. Much of this social critique takes place at the narrative level. The film tells the story of Maddalena Cecconi, an untiring, working-class woman (Anna Magnani), and of her husband Spartaco (Gastone Renzelli) and [End Page 419] their young daughter Maria (Tina Apicella). The family is poor and struggles to make ends meet, so when Maddalena hears that the film director Alessandro Blasetti (played by himself) is looking for the prettiest young girl in Rome to star in his new film, Maddalena takes Maria to Italy's dream factory Cinecittà to join the crowd of middle-class mothers and daughters energetically trying to get an audition. When Maria is chosen as a finalist, Maddalena sacrifices everything to train Maria for the audition. She pays for acting lessons, ballet classes, an expensive dress, a haircut, and a glamorous photograph, and she even hands a large sum of money to Alberto Annovazzi (Walter Chiari), a go-between who promises to bribe key people at the film studio but buys himself a scooter instead. Maddalena's desperation is a source of income for many, and although she knows very well that she is being taken advantage of, she seems to think that no sacrifice is too big if it might help to ensure a better future for her little girl. No sacrifice, that is, but one: Alberto longs to have an affair with Maddalena, but she keeps turning him down. Click for larger view View full resolution Fig. 1. Still from Bellissima directed by Luchino Visconti (1951). Maddalena is blind, however, to the fact that her daughter has none of the requisite talents, and her blindness reveals the desperation of the poor. The scene in which Maria is obliged to take a ballet class is instructive in this respect. As it turns out, Maria is only five years old, whereas the casting call was aimed at girls between seven and eight. The age difference between Maria and the other girls is made obvious by the corresponding size difference, and her tiny figure becomes the subject of a heated discussion between Maddalena and the ballet teacher as well as a visual trope throughout the film, emphasizing the impossibility of Maddalena's ambitions. That impossibility is further highlighted by the contrast between Maddalena and the fashionably dressed, middle-class mothers (who...

La poética de la imagen en la poesía de Cesare Pavese

Se trata de las reflexiones que Cesare Pavese realiza acerca de la poetica de la imagen a proposito de su libro Lavorare stanca (1936) en Il mestiere di poeta (1934), asi como en A proposito di certe poesie ancora non scritte (1940), poniendose en relacion sus consideraciones con los presupuestos de la tradicion poetica del simbolismo. Igualmente se examina la poetica de la imagen en La terra e la morte (1945), ultima obra publicada en vida de Pavese, en relacion con los conceptos de imagen arquetipica y simbolo.

La terra trema as Palimpsest: Tracing Intertextualities between Literature, Theater, and Film in Pirandello and Visconti

At an advanced stage of the preparation of La terra trema (1948), Luchino Visconti incorporated elements of Giovanni Verga’s I Malavoglia into his film to change the original documentary nature of his masterpiece. But Verga’s novel was not the only stimulus of Visconti’s grandiose imagination. In fact, the social utopia that feeds Visconti’s dream is an element that cannot be inferred from I Malavoglia , a work that intentionally avoids conveying any message of social change. Instead, Visconti’s film can be read as a product of literary mediations that establish a hermeneutical process which examines the incessant bidirectional dialogue between literature and film. This process brings into play Luigi Pirandello’s La nuova colonia , born as an incomplete filmic subject. In my reading of it, Visconti’s La terra trema embodies the ideal completion of this unfinished filmic project.

Writing on Film History, Far from the Canon

Writing on Film History, Far from the Canon Fatih Özgüven (bio) Cleopatra went on general release throughout the world in 1964, but, as usual, those of us who lived in Istanbul did not get a chance to see Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor's star turn until two years later. In those days, films came to us several years after release, because Turkish distributors were not able to meet Hollywood's price for opening-run distribution. . . . Istanbullus would sigh with impatience and say, "Well let's see when it finally gets here." —Orhan Pamuk1 Turkish author Orhan Pamuk's remarks on the belated arrival of films in the late 1960s and most of the 1970s reveal not only a cause of exasperation for the filmgoing public, but also a source of great unhappiness for this aspiring (teenage) film critic of the time. "When I think back to that day when I first saw Cleopatra," Pamuk goes on to say, "what I remember best . . . is not the film itself but the thrill of watching it."2 The mere "thrill of watching the film" was, although satisfying, not enough if you wanted to put films into some kind of context, make sense of and write about them. Even if it was only in your own "film notebook." I remember my childhood days turning into agonizing adolescence, not only because of the usual growing pains but also because of such painful considerations as: "What do I make of this Chabrol which is one of two Chabrols shown during this French film week? Is still another viewing of the Battleship Potemkin (Bronenosets Potyonkin; Sergei M. Eisenstein, 1925) too much of a good thing? At least, Potemkin . . . is a classic. But I am sick and tired of it. And of Şarlo (Charlot = Charlie Chaplin) too. Why can't we have some Keaton? I long to see some 'decadent' films! Is Death in Venice (Morte a Venezia; Luchino Visconti, 1971) it? Or is it about Dirk Bogarde pursuing 'the Platonic [End Page 163] ideal of beauty'? After all, the auteur of Rocco e sui fratelli (1960) and La terra trema (1948) cannot be frivolous. However . . ." In the rather suffocating political and cultural climate of the times, with the city cinematheque a shadow of its French counterpart—only much poorer and much more sectarian—one was restricted to a frugal and capricious diet. One had to make do with what was on the program and be thankful for the cinematheque café. The various "cultural institutes" of the city might or might not be forthcoming. Cinema was important for most of them, though they each approached it differently: Italians specialized in gala-style affairs where you had to sit with the socialite who wanted to see "this shocking art film." The English were dodgy, and the Anglophile filmgoer had to make do with 1940s English cinema or the Ealing comedies, at best. The French obviously had very good taste in films—but why did you have only one screening of The Mother and the Whore (La maman et la putain; Jean Eustache, 1973) and that next to the latest de Broca comedy, when you really wanted to see some Godard? The Americans had sporadic screenings—and then none at all: too many security considerations. To enjoy the odd screening of a Kazan or Ford film felt like winning the lottery. The Germans were serious and good at programming and did not seem to be intimidated by the latest Fassbinder folly or even an unfashionable Kluge. One was thankful, if somewhat lost. How to put Rainer Werner's interesting but crazy output into context? The viewer who was not a "-phile" of any of those cultures—which was difficult since the majority of teen film fans attended one of the high schools in the city teaching in one of their languages—but simply a fan of "cinema" had to be everywhere, all the time, trying not to miss any opportunity that came around. Still, vigilance was not enough. Reading books helped. Literature did put a lot into context. Tennessee Williams was a godsend in making sense of Petra von Kant. Or when you'd read the novella...

Strade, Muri, Terra, Città, Mare. Sud Italia e mediterraneità postmoderna nel cinema inizio secolo

The spaces of the city and its periphery have always been central themes in cinema. From its origins, throughout the silent era (Lumiere, Ruttman, Vertov, Murnau, Vidor, etc.), and with the advent of sound, and the establishment of cinematic genres, the city remained a central subject, which the spectator followed throughout the course of the 20th century. In a certain sense, audiences watched cities grow and transform before them on the film screen. Italian cinema was no different. It had chosen the city as its semantic and iconic space, explicitly, at least, from Roma citta aperta (1945). The question now, in the 3rd millennium becomes: How are the neometropoli and neoperipheries of Southern Italy, poised between Mediterranean modernity and post modernity, reflected in contemporary Italian cinema? This article focuses on three cities (and their provinces and peripheries) of this new South: Napoli, Bari and Palermo, examining the poetics of directors that straddle two generations of Italian filmmaking (Beppe Cino, Sergio Rubini), alongside members of the new wave (Matteo Garrone, Alessandro Piva, Andrea and Antonio Frazzi, Franco Capuano). The films that are examined at length are: Mio cognato (A. Piva); Certi Bambini (A. and A. Frazzi), La terra (S. Rubini), La guerra di Mario (A. Capuano), Gomorra (M. Garrone). This critical interdisciplinary work (between sociology and cinema) follows the development of a general theme, that of the new mediterraneita or meridianita (F. Cassano). At the connotative level, throughout the new Italian cinema of “the South” there is also an internal aesthetic of a new, neorealism. This article traces certain recurring themes— streets, walls, land and sea— that are often represented as complementary to, or in opposition to the city. And despite whether these films propose, at the level of conspiracy or plot, two opposing endings (happy and sad), between faith (Miracolo a Palermo, La terra) and resignation (Mio cognato, Certi Bambini, Gomorra), it seems that the search for a new mediternaneita underscores every narrative, demonstrating the need to weave a sense of meridianita (indigenous or foreign) that is open to mediation and negotiation.

Luchino Visconti's La Terra Trema

La terra trema was Visconti's second feature film. His first, Ossessione, was made in 1943. La terra trema was made in 1948. It was presented at the Venice Film Festival in the same year and awarde...

The Land of Remorse: A Study of Southern Italian Tarantism, and: Storia biomedica del tarantismo nel XVIII secolo (review)

Reviewed by: The Land of Remorse: A Study of Southern Italian Tarantism, and: Storia biomedica del tarantismo nel XVIII secolo David Gentilcore Ernesto de Martino . The Land of Remorse: A Study of Southern Italian Tarantism. Originally published as La terra del rimorso (Milan: Il Saggiatore), 1961. Translated and annotated by Dorothy Louise Zinn. London: Free Association Books, 2005. xxiii + 332 pp. Ill. $34.50 (paperbound, 1-85343-784-0). [End Page 447] Gino L. Di Mitri . Storia biomedica del tarantismo nel XVIII secolo. Nuova serie della Biblioteca di "Lares." Florence: Olschki, 2006. xxiii + 322 pp. €34.00 (88-222 5508-9). During the early modern period, a whole range of scholars, medical doctors, and travelers entered into the debate concerning the phenomenon of tarantism. They argued whether sufferers of this ailment were the victims of actual tarantula bites and to what extent the only apparently effective treatment, to undergo a series of dances, was determined by the nature of the bite. Why was the phenomenon known only in southern Apulia, they asked, when poisonous spiders could be found throughout Italy and Europe? In the course of this Europe-wide debate a Celestine monk and scholar, Ludovico Valletta, stood up for local knowledge. In his De phalangio apulo (1706), Valletta asserted that no one could pronounce on the subject who had not lived in Apulia and experienced it firsthand in order to learn about the venomous insects of the area, the sufferers of the disease, its symptoms, and the nature of the treatment. Too many outsiders had offered judgments on the basis of secondhand knowledge and hearsay. Valletta, a native of Lucera, practiced what he preached, through direct observation of the phenomenon, investigating local insect life in order to determine which spider, if any, was responsible. The importance of local knowledge is what sent the first serious modern scholar of tarantism, the ethnologist Ernesto De Martino, into the field fifty years ago. He took with him an interdisciplinary team of scholars, whose interpretations formed an appendix to the resulting book, La terra del rimorso (1961). Why this pioneering and interdisciplinary masterpiece was not translated into English soon after it first appeared is something of a mystery. After all, what was called the "southern question," attempting to understand the backwardness (the word then used) of southern Italy, was then widely reported. These were the years of Edward Banfield's controversial notion of "amoral familism," based on his study of poverty in a town in nearby Basilicata, and Nobel prize–winning Danilo Dolci's investigations into Sicilian peasant conditions. Tarantism itself also attracted some interest from historians of medicine like Henry Sigerist and, writing in this journal in 1963, George Mora. De Martino himself died in 1965. Whatever the reason, De Martino's study remained largely unknown to Anglo-phone scholars, although a handful did come to it through a French translation of 1966. An English translation is certainly long overdue. We have the commitment of Dorothy Louise Zinn to thank for its final appearance. Zinn is an American anthropologist living in Matera (Basilicata), and the translation benefits from her local knowledge, complete with introduction and her own annotations to the original text. The careful translation has obviously been a labor of love and is faithfully rendered while also reading well in English. It is only unfortunate that, in this age of digital technology, the music that accompanied the very first edition of La terra del rimorso in the form of a record (remember them?) is not made available to readers of the translation. Local knowledge is the leitmotiv of Gino Di Mitri's detailed survey of what were crucial years in the debate over tarantism during the eighteenth century. This is [End Page 448] when scholars finally put to rest any notion that a real spider might lie behind tarantism, thus refashioning it as a "mere" cultural manifestation. If De Martino reduced this debate into one of Enlightenment physicians belittling and marginalizing popular culture, Di Mitri takes a fresh look at the role of local physicians. One doctor in particular, derided by De Martino, is rehabilitated by Di Mitri. He is Niccolò Caputi, a physician in Lecce. Not only was his own...

The land of remorse: a study of southern Italian tarantism

The Land of Remorse: A Study of Southern Italian Tarantism. By Ernesto De Martino. Translated and annotated by Dorothy Louise Zinn. Foreword by Vincent Crapanzano. (London: Free Association Books, 2005. Pp. xxiii + 322, foreword, translator's note, preface, introduction, photographs, illustrations, tables, musical notation, appendices, notes, bibliography, indices. $34.50 paper). Several years ago I learned of the late Italian ethnographer Ernesto De Martino (1908-1965) through citations in Paolo Apolito's Apparitions of the Madonna at Oliveto Citra (1998) and in Michael P. Carroll's Madonnas That Maim (1992) and Veiled Threats (1996). The De Martino titles-Il mondo magico (1997 [1948]), Sud e magia (1959), and La terra del rimorso (1961)-were immensely attractive to me. The last of these, a thorough account of the phenomenon of Southern Italian tarantism-an ecstaticpossession cult of the spider, snake, or tarantula, sometimes identified with St. Paul, with a family resemblance (African parallels [177]) to Haitian Vodou, Cuban Santeria and Brazilian Candomble-is now beautifully translated and meticulously annotated by Dorothy Louise Zinn as The Land of Remorse. One cannot hope to cover the breadth of this work in a short review, for Ernesto De Martino takes a complex interdisciplinary approach to the study of religion that engages the ideas of (among others) Hegel, Heidegger, Croce, and Gramsci. As for the ideas inspired in De Martino by these philosophers, the central one, with which ethnographic researchers must grapple today, is his notion of the of which, as Vincent Crapanzano explains in the book's foreword, refers to a sense of not being there (esserci, Dasein, in Heidegger's sense), yes, of death, but also of loss, loss of subjectivity, vulnerability, alienation, dissociation, being out of control-overwhelmed, if you will, to the point of extinction (ix). De Martino sees tarantism as the crux of the crisis of presence, a problem that prevented his informants from reintegrating the crisis-struck presence into history as full participants in the modern world (129 note c). (The translator provides valuable contextualization for the concept of crisis of presence [3, note d].) But considered in light of recent developments in anthropology, particularly the anthropology of consciousness, might the crisis of presence be viewed as a positive value rather than a negative one? The negative value, as DeMartino constructs it (Appendix 5, Problems of Intervention) might be made positive as an alternative to the hegemony of the post-Enlightenment worldview, in which reason, science and objectivity prevail over non-ordinary states of embodied awareness. Positive approaches to tarantism can in fact be found in several recent treatments of the phenomenon-an excellent anthology edited by Luisa Del Giudice and Nancy van Deusen, Performing Ecstasies (2005); Giovanni Pizza's essay Tarantism and the Politics of Tradition in Contemporary Salento (2004); and Morton Klass's Mind Over Mind (2003). Klass addresses what is negatively referred to by many social scientists as dissociative states, suggesting that the real crisis of presence is to be found not in a sense of not being there, but rather of being there too much, trapped in a scientific worldview similar to Max Weber's iron cage of rationality and offering a culturally relative context for understanding the ecstatic states associated with Southern Italian tarantism (Klass 57-92, 117). A similar discussion is provided in The Land of Remorse (Appendix 2, Problems in Psychology in the Study of Tarantism, by Letizia Jervis-Comba). Ernesto De Martino played an important role in the development of anthropological practice in Italy. …

Features of the authorial voice-over in &lt;I&gt;La terra trema&lt;/I&gt;

Features of the authorial voice-over in &lt;I&gt;La terra trema&lt;/I&gt;

Features of the authorial voice-over in La terra trema

Visconti's film The Earth Trembles is a homage to the ideology of the Italian post-war left. The paper proposes a linguistic analysis of the denarratising techniques that the neorealist director used for the voice-over comment of that film to create the impression of a narrative occurring not once but several times. The notion of the pseudo-narrative explored by Henderson (1983) and Kinder (1989) is applied.

Fra Satire e Rime ariostesche (Gargnano del Garda 14-16 ottobre 1999) by Claudia Berra (review)

MLRy 99.1, 2004 215 even ifit could almost certainly have been just as effectivelyargued without frequent reference to the 'Bakhtinian reading', to which it is presented as an alternative, and to other seemingly tangential theories of the grotesque referredto in the final chapter. Papio's book is, as its cover claims, 'the firstthorough analysis of [Masuccio's] tales in English'. But it is also an important addition to the whole critical literature on Masuccio. It is a handsomely produced volume with minimal typographical errors and containing the most complete and up-to-date bibliography of the short-story writer who?and I would fully concur with the author on this?'has found new life in a modern age accustomed to finding aesthetic pleasure in the juxtaposition of comic and horrificevents'. University of Wales Swansea Howard Moss Fra Satire e Rime ariostesche (Gargnano del Garda 14-16 ottobre 1999). Ed. by Claudia Berra. (Quaderni di Acme, 43) Milan: Cisalpino (Istituto Editoriale Universitario?MonduzzoEditore). 2000. 591pp. ?31. ISBN 88-323-4593-3. This volume contains a series of essays on Ariosto's 'minor' poetic works, the Satire and the Rime. The firstsection, dealing with the Satire, opens with a series of general essays. Eduardo Saccone discusses the creation of the narrating voice through a series of comparisons between the poet's values and those attributed to others. Michel Paoli's essay argues against traditional readings of the satires as autobiographically 'true', providing convincing evidence for an alternative chronology, with the fifth satire being the first in order of composition. Simone Albonico adduces further arguments for the literary nature of the Satire with a detailed reading of the first satira, noting a series of thematic and textual links with the seventh poem in order to demonstrate the collection's complex structure. Angelo Romano discusses Ariosto's ambiguous view of Rome, to which he was a frequent visitor,and the contrast between the vices of the Papal city and the literary ideal of humanistic Rome. Alessandra Villa examines the various fables recounted in the Satire with reference to both their function within the texts and Ariosto's sources. These essays are complemented by some in-depth considerations of individual poems. Anna Maria Cabrini discusses the firstsatira, with particular reference to Ariosto's debts to Horace's satirical poetry, and the presentation of Ippolito d'Este as a 'failed' Maecenas. Antonio Corsaro's essay maps the background to the sixth satire, and Ariosto's relationship to the humanist tradition and the accusations of misbelief frequently directed at literature and its creators. Claudia Berra examines the function ofthe seventh satira as a conclusion to the collection, and its recapitulation and reformulation of two recurring themes, the death of hope, and the author's 'madness', here interpreted as an implicit criticism of the worldly preoccupations of others. On a differentnote, Piero Floriani discusses the Cinquecento satire in general, and then goes on to examine Ariosto's influence on Pietro Nelli. The section on the Rime opens with Claudio Vela's discussion of Cesare Bozzetti's seminal work on Ariosto's lyric verse, including his unfinished edition of and com? mentary on the poems contained in MS Vaticano Rossiano 639 (Vr), published here for the firsttime. Bozzetti's 1985 essay on the Rime represents the starting point for almost all the studies which follow. Andrea Comboni notes some furtherinstances of intratextual links within Vr, and examines the textual presence of Gasparo Visconti, Niccolo da Correggio, and Antonio Tebaldeo in the Rime. Rinaldo Rinaldi surveys the importance ofthe themes of magic and silence, and of Celio Calcagnini's influence on Ariosto, with particular reference to the capitoli. Paola Vecchi Galli discusses the attribution of the capitolo 'Or che la terra di bei fiori e piena', concluding that its 216 Reviews attribution to Ariosto is at best unproven, and suggesting a more likely authorship by Tebaldeo. Stefano Carrai surveys Ariosto's use of classical Latin sources in the lyrics, alongside a series of Petrarchan citations. Massimo Malinverni takes the capitolo 'O piu che '1 giorno luminosa notte' as the starting point for a detailed investigation of the theme of the 'luminous night' from Propertius to Ariosto, with special reference...