Italian Literature: A Very Short Introduction 1st Edition

Excellent introduction to the subject, very intelligently connecting Italian history, literary texts, and cultural features essential to understand Italy.

This ambitious overview of Italian literature jumps around in time in quest of thematic generalization, which can sometimes be confusing. But it begins to make sense when one realizes the pervading influence that Dante and Petrarch in particular have had on subsequent literature, and the overwhelming effects of 20th century Fascism on Italians both as readers and as writers. I feel richer for this beginner's orientation by a reader-friendly expert.

A good short introduction to a wide range of literature

I like it but not for everybody... Not in date order, so the writers referred to appear a couple of time under different themes the authors have picked. Valuable for those who like to engage with a book, and a period of time, not so good for an easy introduction

I was given this book as a gift. I thoroughly enjoyed it. There are moments that are sweet and heartwarming. What I liked most about this work is that it demonstrates a wisdom on the part of the author who has lived life and has contemplated its ebb and flow.I strongly recommend this book. I liked it a lot.

Similar to Hainsworth and Robey's entry on Dante in this series, these Oxford professors combine to deliver a brief, rapidly paced primer. They choose here a thematic rather than chronological approach. This allows them to explore interrelated subjects better.They acknowledge the utility of Francesco de Sanctis' influential 1870 model of a canon based on Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch, then Giacomo Leopardi and Alessandro Manzoni as they attempted to craft a version of Italian accessible to more readers. Giovanni Verga tried to imitate Sicilian patterns while keeping to a more standard form of the language. Montale represents the leading poet. The unity of the peninsula as to an evolution of many dialects, but a self-contained literature within this space rather than abroad into colonies or the diaspora, separates this European language from its major literary competitors.But the two authors expand this. They use chapters on tradition and theory to show the tension. These separate, or "withdraw" from some pressing social and political tensions. Then, secularization and politics are addressed in chapters emphasizing "engagement"; the last one, on women writers, looks at how these two patterns preferred by writers overlap in the past and present.This is a quick survey. You get glimpses of a lot, and a list of authors mentioned appended shows its range. But it is short indeed. I wish more insight could have fit into this admittedly small space, a few sentences more often might have told newcomers what the works are about as well as when they appeared. The authors note how Italian as a "national" if limited literary language has remained relatively stable from Dante on, and they also admit that literature past 1990 may be drifting away into non-Italian concerns. This seems disheartening, and from the depictions of recent Italian culture glimpsed here, it seems to lessen its impact.Still, I came away from this interested in Orlando Furioso as well as Pirandello. The way that the worldly pulls many Italian authors away from clerical and ecclesiastical matters is noteworthy, from the narratives of the 14th centuries "tre coronne" onward. The bibliography is in my opinion too sketchy for 20c writers, but at least the works included are in English, and more accessible.