Italo Calvino and the Compass of Literature
Author | : Eugenio Bolongaro |
Publisher | : University of Toronto Press |
Total Pages | : 268 |
Release | : 2003-01-01 |
ISBN-10 | : 0802087639 |
ISBN-13 | : 9780802087638 |
Rating | : 4/5 (39 Downloads) |
Download or read book Italo Calvino and the Compass of Literature written by Eugenio Bolongaro and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looking at five of Italo Calvino's often neglected early novels: The Young People of Po, The Cloven Viscount, The Baron in the Trees, The Non-Existent Knight, and The Watcher, Eugenio Bolongaro argues that these works, written between 1948 and 1963, contain a sustained meditation on the role of the intellectual and on the irreducible ethical and political dimension of literature. This meditation provides an insight into a crucial moment in Calvino's development as a writer, and allows Bolongaro to lay the groundwork for a more 'political' reading of Calvino's later work. Italo Calvino and the Compass of Literature firmly situates Calvino within his historical context - the cultural revival of post-World War II Italy - by relating these early novels to Calvino's political and critical writings which played an important role in the cultural debates of the time. This approach provides a key to understanding Calvino's work in a new light, ably demonstrating that Calvino's full literary significance cannot be understood in isolation from the politics and cultural movements of the period. One of the few book-length English-language works on Calvino's early writings, Italo Calvino and the Compass of Literatur will prove to be an indispensable tool to Italianists and literary studies scholars.