Esame di coscienza di un letterato


Book Description

Colpito da una pallottola in fronte a trentuno anni, durante la terza battaglia dell’Isonzo, Renato Serra non era consapevole del prezioso contributo che il suo approccio avrebbe dato alla nostra letteratura. Di indole pigra, inconcludente, scontroso, restio alle scadenze lavorative, d’animo riservato, scettico verso la comune opinione, Serra resta una delle figure più complesse del Ventesimo secolo. In lui c’è l’assidua ricerca di un’identità non soltanto letteraria, ma principalmente umana, che lo pone in uno stato di permanente disadattamento con la vita e con il mondo. Il suo è uno sguardo limpido e assoluto sulle cose, risolto con l’onesta lucidità intellettuale della ragione che si realizza in un’inesorabile incertezza dei principi capaci di governare le azioni umane. Esame di coscienza di un letterato riproposto in quattro lingue in un’unica edizione, è un discorso aperto sul senso di prendere parte alla guerra, sulla coscienza morale e sulla necessità di essere contemporanei. Abattu d'une balle en plein front à l'âge de trente et un ans lors de la troisième bataille de l'Isonzo, Renato Serra n'avait pas conscience de la précieuse contribution que son approche apporterait à notre littérature. D'un tempérament paresseux, peu concluant, grognon, peu enclin à respecter les délais de travail, réservé dans son esprit, sceptique à l'égard de l'opinion commune, Serra reste l'une des figures les plus complexes du XXe siècle. Il y a chez lui une recherche assidue d'une identité non seulement littéraire, mais avant tout humaine, qui le place dans un état d'inadaptation permanente à la vie et au monde. C'est un regard limpide et absolu sur les choses, résolu avec la lucidité intellectuelle honnête de la raison qui se réalise dans une incertitude inexorable des principes capables de gouverner les actions humaines. L'examen de conscience d'un homme de lettres, réédité en quatre langues dans une seule édition, est un discours ouvert sur le sens de la participation à la guerre, sur la conscience morale et la nécessité d'être contemporain.




Encyclopedia of Italian Literary Studies


Book Description

The Encyclopedia of Italian Literary Studies is a two-volume reference book containing some 600 entries on all aspects of Italian literary culture. It includes analytical essays on authors and works, from the most important figures of Italian literature to little known authors and works that are influential to the field. The Encyclopedia is distinguished by substantial articles on critics, themes, genres, schools, historical surveys, and other topics related to the overall subject of Italian literary studies. The Encyclopedia also includes writers and subjects of contemporary interest, such as those relating to journalism, film, media, children's literature, food and vernacular literatures. Entries consist of an essay on the topic and a bibliographic portion listing works for further reading, and, in the case of entries on individuals, a brief biographical paragraph and list of works by the person. It will be useful to people without specialized knowledge of Italian literature as well as to scholars.










Mark of the Beast


Book Description

The First World War is a watershed in the intellectual and spiritual history of the modern world. On the one hand, it brought an end to a sense of optimism and decency bred by the prosperity of nineteenth-century Europe. On the other, it brought forth a sense of futility and alienation that has since pervaded European thought. That cataclysmic experience is richly reflected in the work of writers and artists from both sides of the conflict, and this study provides a detailed analysis of two basic themes—death and degradation—that mark the literature about the war. From their accounts most men entered the war lightheartedly, filled with ideals of patriotism and glory, but these generous feelings were soon quelled as the war settled into a stalemate, its operations reduced to simply grinding away the opposing forces. In these operations, Alfredo Bonadeo shows, men became mere aggregations thrown against one another, wasted with no appreciable effects or gains, save carnage itself. This cheapening and disregard for human life and being Bonadeo finds rooted not only in the conditions of war but, significantly, in a contempt for the common man prevailing in European political and intellectual circles. This attitude is revealed most plainly in his analysis of the Italian literature, which hitherto has received little note. Italian leaders saw the war as an opportunity to expiate a sense of national guilt, and here the inconclusive campaigns made their futility all the greater. Out of the torn fields of the First World War grew the seeds of a second, greater conflict, but, Professor Bonadeo concludes, the flowering of the seeds was aided by the degradation of man's spirit on those fields. The grim focus of this book, the dead voices it evokes, leads to a new appreciation of the meaning of the Great War.




Posterity


Book Description

"Rocco Rubini studies the motives and literary forms in the making of a "tradition," not understood narrowly, as the conservative, stubborn preservation of received conventions, values, and institutions, but rather more generously and etymologically interpreted: as the deliberate effort on the part of writers to transmit a reformulated past across generations. Leveraging Italian thinkers from Petrarch to Gramsci, with stops at the most prominent humanists in between (including Giambattista Vico, Carlo Goldoni, Francesco De Sanctis, and Benedetto Croce), Rubini gives us an innovative lens through which to view an Italian intellectual tradition that is at once premodern and modern, a legacy that does not depend on a date or a single masterpiece, but instead requires the reader to parse an entire career of writings to uncover deeper, transhistorical continuities that span 600 years. Whether reading forward to the 1930s, or backward to the 14th century, Rubini elucidates the interplay of creation and reception underlying the enactment of tradition, the practice of retrieving and conserving, and the revivification of shared themes and intentions linking these thinkers across time"--




Literature and the Great War


Book Description

Among the numerous volumes dedicated to the Great War, this book stands out for its ability to trace, in a thorough but concise manner, an overall picture of the literature born from the conflict. After its introductory pages concerning the forms, times and places of war writing, the book focuses on the story of the months of the eve of the war, on the journey to the front and the discovery of the true face of war, on the stories of the trenches, on the accounts of the imprisonment, and on the return home accompanied by disappointment and disorientation. The book, focused on Italy, but rich in references to European literature, is a journey through history and the human soul, between hopes and fears, illusions and massacres. It is the story of an event that divided the collective history of Europe and individual lives. It is the account, passionate and exciting, of the literary writings born from trauma.




The Periodical


Book Description







The Generation of 1914


Book Description

A study of the generation of French, German, English, Spanish, and Italian young men who fought in World War I.