Between 1550 and 1650, Europe was swept by a fascination with wondrous accounts of monsters and other marvels - of valiant men slaying dragons, women giving birth to animals, young girls growing ...penises, and all manner of fantastic phenomena. Known as 'fairy tales,' these stories had many guises and inhabited a variety of literary texts. The first two collections of such fairy tales published on the continent, Giovan Francesco Straparola'sLe piacevoli nottiand Giambattista Basile'sLo cunto de li cunti, were greeted with much enthusiasm at home and abroad and essentially established a new literary genre. Contrary to popular thought, Italy, not Germany or France, was the birthplace of the literary fairy tale.
This fascination with the marvellous also extended to the worlds of science, medicine, philosophy, and religion, and many treatises from the period focused on discussions of monsters, demons, magic, and witchcraft. InFairy-Tale ScienceSuzanne Magnanini looks at these 'science fictions' and explores the birth and evolution of the literary fairy tale in the context of early modern discourses on the monstrous. She demonstrates how both the normative literary theories of the Italian intellectual establishment and the emerging New Science limited the genre's success on its native soil. Natural philosophers, physicians, and clergymen positioned the fairy tale in opposition in opposition to science, fixing it as a negative pole in a binary system, one which came to define both a new type of scientific inquiry and the nascent literary genre. Magnanini also suggests that, by identifying their literary production with the monstrous and the feminine, Straparola and Basile contributed to the marginalization of the new genre.
A wide-ranging yet carefully crafted study,Fairy-Tale Scienceinvestigates the complex interplay between scientific discourse and an emerging literary genre, and expands our understanding of the early modern European imagination.
A multitude of women Lucamante, Stefania
A multitude of women,
c2008, 20080915, 2008, 2008-01-01, 2008-09-15
eBook
Lucamante looks at the ways in which both Italian literary tradition and external influences have assisted Italian women writers in rethinking the theoretical and aesthetic ties between author, text, ...and readership in the construction of the novel.
Architecture and the Novel under the Italian Fascist Regime discusses the relationship between the novel and architecture during the Fascist period in Italy (1922-1943). By looking at two profoundly ...diverse aesthetic phenomena within the context of the creation of a Fascist State art, Billiani and Pennacchietti argue that an effort of construction, or reconstruction, was the main driving force behind both projects: the advocated “revolution” of the novel form (realism) and that of architecture (rationalism). The book is divided into seven chapters, which in turn analyze the interconnections between the novel and architecture in theory and in practice. The first six chapters cover debates on State art, on the novel and on architecture, as well as their historical development and their unfolding in key journals of the period. The last chapter offers a detailed analysis of some important novels and buildings, which have in practice realized some of the key principles articulated in the theoretical disputes.
Righteous Anger in Contemporary Italian Literary and Cinematic Narratives analyses the role of passion--particularly indignation--and how it shapes intention and inspires the work of many ...contemporary Italian writers and filmmakers. Noting how art often holds the power to shed light on issues surrounding inequity, inequality, and injustice, the book explores the ethical function of art as a tool in resistance and sociopolitical protest, thereby validating the axiom that ethics and aesthetics can still collaborate in the creation of meaning. Drawing on a range of Italian novels and films and examining the works of artists such as Tiziano Scarpa, Simona Vinci, Paolo Sorrentino, and Monica Stambrini, the author shows that anger can be used constructively as a weapon of resistance against negative and oppressive forces.
This book presents a semiotic study of the re-elaboration of Christian narratives and values in a corpus of Italian novels published after the Second Vatican Council (1960s). It tackles the complex ...set of ideas expressed by Italian writers about the biblical narration of human origins and traditional religious language and ritual, the perceived clash between the immanent and transcendent nature and role of the Church,
Since its founding by Jacques Waardenburg in 1971, Religion and Reason has been a leading forum for contributions on theories, theoretical issues and agendas related to the phenomenon and the study ...of religion. Topics include (among others) category formation, comparison, ethnophilosophy, hermeneutics, methodology, myth, phenomenology, philosophy of science, scientific atheism, structuralism, and theories of religion. From time to time the series publishes volumes that map the state of the art and the history of the discipline.
"This edition of Bishop Padovese's "Piccoli dialoghi fra santi di marmo" provides the Church an important resource for spiritual development. In the midst of time spent in Rome for meetings of Pope ...Francis' Council of Cardinals, I occasionally have the opportunity to walk through St. Peter's Square. At those times I consider the depth and breadth of the contributions to the life of the Church made by the saints whose images stand guard over the square, each day overseeing all who come and go in the midst of the life of the Church. Though Bishop Padovese's image is not above the Colonnade, we can consider him as among the most powerful witnesses in light of his lifelong commitment to the work of the Church and having made the ultimate sacrifice in that service." \- Cardinal Sean O'Malley, Archbishop of Boston
Combining close textual readings with a broad theoretical perspective, this book is a study of the ways in which gender shapes the characters and narratives of seven important Italian novels of the ...nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The novel as investigation Cannon, JoAnn
The novel as investigation,
c2006, 20060725, 2006, 2014, 2006-01-01
eBook
Detective fiction is a universally popular genre; stories about the investigation of a crime by a detective are published all over the world and in hundreds of languages. Detective fiction provides ...more than entertainment, however; it often has a great deal to say about crime and punishment, justice and injustice, testimony and judgment.The Novel as Investigationexamines a group of detective novels by three important Italian writers - Leonardo Sciascia, Dacia Maraini, and Antonio Tabucchi - whose conviction about the ethical responsibility of the writer manifests itself in their investigative fiction.
Jo-Ann Cannon explores each writer's denunciation of societal ills in two complementary texts. These investigative novels shed light on pressing social ills, which are not particular to Italian society of the late twentieth century but are universal in scope: Sciascia focuses on abuses of power and the death penalty, Maraini on violence against women, Tabucchi on torture and police brutality. In addition, each of these texts self-reflexively explore the role of writing in society. Sciascia, Maraini, and Tabucchi all use their fiction to defend the power of the pen to address "il male del mondo."
The Novel as Investigationwill be of interest to a broad audience of readers, including those interested in Italian and comparative literature, Italian social history, and cultural studies.
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