Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Italian twentieth century'

This thesis deals with poetic translations of Greek tragedy in twentieth-century Italian literature, aiming to intertwine the discourse on poetics with the practice of translation and, in particular, exploring specimens of translations from the Greek tragedies of two twentieth-century Italian authors: Camillo Sbarbaro (1888-1967) and Giovanna Bemporad (1923-2013). Firstly, I locate Sbarbaro's and Bemporad's poetic translations within the Italian cultural scene of their times and discuss the role of poet-translators within the wider debate on the reception of Greek tragedy. Secondly, I analyse Sbarbaro and Bemporad's translation methodologies. Thirdly, I trace the impact of translations on their poetic works, unveiling the profound influence of Greek tragedy on Sbarbaro's and Bemporad's poetic discourse. Through textual and stylistic analysis, archival research and examination of their collected letters, my research shows the fundamental role of the translations of Greek tragedy in these authors' poetic trajectories. While the thesis deals exclusively with Greek tragedy, I must note that the translations of Greek tragedies are but specific instances of the two poets' wider and systematic relationship with classical literature as a whole. In light of this, I consider the pedagogical commitment of these poets as being at the heart of their relationship with the Classics. Through an analysis of their experiences as teachers of Classics, which intensified while they translated Greek tragedy, I uncover an aspect of their thought on the relationship between the Classics and poetry which so far has remained unknown. My analysis of their translations of Greek tragedies reveals Sbarbaro's and Bemporad's intense negotiations with the Classics - shedding light on their poetics and asserting their key role in education.

Esta dissertação tenciona fazer uma leitura da obra Il Canzoniere, de Umberto Saba, com base na linha tensiva descendente que se inicia na coletânea Trieste e una donna (1910-1912), e cujo ponto de menor temperatura é Cose leggere e vaganti (1920). Procuramos focar nossa leitura nas tensões e ambivalências que perpassam a produção poética do triestino nesse período. Desse modo, o trabalho está estruturado em três capítulos: no primeiro, centramos atenção em Trieste e una donna e tentamos compreender como se estabelece a relação de confluencia entre o eu-lírico e o sensível, como busca de apreensão da elementaridade das coisas e conseqüente aceitação da vida em toda sua variedade; no segundo, tratamos de La serena disperazione(1913-1915) e Poesie scritte durante la guerra (1917), mantendo o foco na dinâmica entre permanência e ruptura, e tendo como base os motivos da tentativa de recuperação de recursos usados em coletâneas anteriores; no terceiro, abordamos Cose leggere e vaganti, com vistas a tentar entender a aparente leveza que perpassa a coletânea, e mostrar como, em última instância, subjaz nela a oposição entre peso e leveza. Com o presente trabalho, procuramos evidenciar, assim, que a linha descendente de tensão estaria, em última instância, associada à tentativa de fuga da dor e do sofrimento.
This dissertation intends to read the work Il Canzoniere, by Umberto Saba, based on the tensed descendent line which begins with the collection Trieste e una donna, and which point of lower temperature is Cose leggere e vaganti. We sought to focus our reading in the tensions and the ambivalence that go across the poetic production of the Triestian in such period. So, this work is structured in three chapters: on the first one, we centered the attention in Trieste e una donna and tried to understand how the confluent relation between the lyric-self and the sensory is established, as we seek to seize the elementary things and its consequent acceptance of life in all its variety; on the second one, we approached La serena disperazione and Poesie scritte durante la guerra, keeping the focus on the dynamics between permanence and rupture, being based on the motives to attempt the recall of the resources used in previous collections; on the third one, we approached Cose leggere e vaganti, in order to attempt to understand the apparent lightness which goes along the collection, and to show how, in a last stage, it is underlain the opposition between weight and lightness. Within this work, we seek to emphasize that the descendent tension line would be, in a last level, associated to the scape of pain and suffering.

This thesis focuses on the representations of the city in the early twentieth-century literary works of two groups of Italian writers: the crepuscolari and the vociani. My analysis shows how the theme of the city is deeply connected with the conception of modernity of these authors. In particular, I focus, case by case, on the ways in which the representation of the the urbs (the physical city) reflects different approaches to the multifaceted modem civitas (understood as society, and sometimes more broadly as human companionship). . The quality of the urban depictions also appears to be linked to the different ways in which the authors conceived of the role and the value of poetry within the new capitalist society. The authors are analysed separately. This allows me to focus not only on the shared aspects of their approach to the city, but also on the autonomous developments of their poetics in this respect. The characteristics ofthe lyrical ios and their relationships with both the Other and temporality emerge as key parameters, in order to understand the significance of the city within the broader system of poetic objects of each writer. The Introduction addresses methodological issues. Chapters 1 and 2, which constitute the first part, provide a socio-economic; and a cultural and literary framework respectively. Chapter 2 also introduces the collective poetics of the vociani and the crepuscolari, and analyses the urban representations ofD'Annunzio, an important model for both groups. In the second part (Chapters 3 to 7), I analyse the urban poetics in the works of Fausto Maria Martini, Sergio Corazzini, Corrado Govoni, Guido Gozzano, Marino Moretti, Aldo Palazzeschi, Camillo Sbarbaro, Clemente Rebora, Giovanni Boine, Umberto Saba and Scipio Slataper.

The present study looks at the influence that two of the major cultural forces of the twentieth century had on the output of Carlo Emilio Gadda. It grew out of a search for ways of discussing Gadda and in particular his 1957 novel Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana that would be accessible to the widest possible audience. Ten chapters in length, the study treats first the influence that Christianity and in particular Italian Catholicism had on the avowedly atheist writer over five chapters, paying attention to the saints and holy places used in Gadda’s output, then moves on to consider the importance of his scientific training as an engineer and his interest in physics in the second half. Aside from examining the text of Quer pasticciaccio and other works such as Cognizione del dolore and La Madonna dei filosofi, I have used biographical information and in particular data gleaned from research in Gadda’s own personal library. The aims of the study are to introduce the reader unfamiliar with Gadda to his work, to offer a new framework by which the Gadda scholar may consider the Gran Lombardo, and to suggest new solutions to the unending puzzle that is Quer pasticciaccio.

This thesis identifies the existence and significance of a rhetorical gesture that has circulated widely since at least the nineteenth century: the comparison between war and sport. The introduction outlines the background for this rhetoric through a genealogy of the phrase, 'the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton', in nineteenth-century writing. Part one of the thesis examines the metaphors and cultural practices of energetics in European sporting life until the Second World War. The first chapter presents a cultural history of 'sporting aviation' between the Wright brothers' first European flight in 1908 and the declaration of war in 1914, arguing that the new technology of the aeroplane was initially understood through a tension between sporting and bellicose associations. The second chapter performs a close analysis of F.T. Marinetti's writings and Umberto Boccioni's paintings to reveal the role of sport in Italian Futurism and its significance for our understanding of its infamous glorification of warfare. Chapter three examines the militarist displays at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin and their enduring cultural legacy. Focusing on the role of crowds, rhythm is shown to be at the centre of how martial symbolism was embedded in the Games' sporting displays. Framing the transition into part two, the fourth chapter reads Georges Perec's use of the Olympics as an allegory for both the Second World War and the Holocaust in W, or the Memory of Childhood (1975) beside a number of post-war conceptualisations of 'play' and 'game'. The chapter identifies a re-organisation of the play concept according to an emerging concern with information, one which, in Perec, also articulates an alternative register for war's cultural memory. From here, the thesis' second part identifies the emergence of a metaphorical nexus of computation, war, and sport in post-war American culture. Chapter five argues that Don DeLillo's End Zone (1972) and David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest (1996) satirise the logic of nuclear strategy by employing the formal properties of information theory in their language, collapsing the distinctions between war and sport when each is subjected to computational representation. The final chapter analyses the 'military shooter' videogame, and the new form of sport it has produced - 'e-sports' - considering these games as a material instantiation of the convergence between the discourses of military and sporting culture. Across the case studies presented in these six chapters, a transition is identified from metaphors concerned with war and sport's energetic qualities to those concerned with the processing and abstraction of war and sport as information. Rather than conceive of this transition as an epistemic break, however, the thesis identifies continuities across the principles to be found in cultural energetics and informatics.

A partir de uma seleção de contos das obras neo-realistas Racconti romani e Nuovi racconti romani, o presente trabalho propõe um estudo do projeto ideológico do escritor Alberto Moravia através da análise de personagens femininas submetidas ao estado de alienação. A fim de sublinhar uma das principais temáticas do escritor, voltada para questões referentes ao capitalismo e a burguesia, analisam-se alguns contos em que as personagens femininas vivem situações problemáticas. Além disto, procura-se ressaltar a importância que estas figuras exercem na narrativa moraviana ao intermediarem problemas existenciais que desencadeiam as sensações de falimento existencial, desamparo e angústia.
Based on a selection of short stories from the neo-realistic literary works Racconti romani and Nuovi racconti romani, this paper proposes a study of the Alberto Moravias ideological Project through the analysis of his female characters who are submitted to an alienation state. In order to sublimate one of the authors main thematic towards issues about capitalism and bourgeoisie, short stories in which female characters. Moreover, it has been aimed to highlight the importance these figures exert within Moravians narrative by intermediating existential problems which initiate feelings of existential failure, abandonment and distress.

This thesis investigates the literary fantastic in Italy from the late nineteenth century to the second half of the twentieth century. The purpose is to analyse the way in which the fantastic functions in a story—its ʻmechanicsʼ—and to see how the fantastic evolved structurally over the first century of its existence in Italy. This investigation is carried out by the development of a new theoretical methodology together with the close reading of a selection of texts from four key Italian authors of fantastic literature. The thesis is divided into six chapters. The first chapter is a historical overview of the emergence of the fantastic in Italy in the late nineteenth century up to the second half of the twentieth century; it examines the obstacles the fantastic has faced and some of the thematic and structural characteristics of texts which emerge. The second chapter is a literature review of the theoretical models used to analyse and understand the fantastic, followed by an outline of a new model, entitled Different Mimetics, which looks at the internal logic of the fantastic. In the following four chapters Different Mimetics is applied to the study of a selection of fantastic texts by four authors. Chapter three focuses on Ugo Tarchetti, and shows that his stories are defined by coexistence and coincidence in both historical and thematic terms. Chapter four demonstrates how Giovanni Papini reverses the mechanics one might expect, and how his stories are structured as internal narratives. Chapter five looks at how Dino Buzzatiʼs stories are characterised by instability and stretched narrative paradigms; and finally, chapter six looks at how Italo Calvinoʼs narratives focus on world creation and paradox and how they question the stability of narrative paradigms.

Thesis (D.M.A.) -- University of Maryland, College Park, 2007.
Thesis research directed by: Music. Title from t.p. of PDF. Includes bibliographical references. Published by UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, Mich. Marylandia and Rare Books Dept., University of Maryland, College Park, Md. Also available in paper. Audio available on compact disc;

This document contains a meta-commentary on the article that I co-authored with Dr. Corry Cropper entitled Breaking the Duel's Rules: Brantôme, Mérimée, and Melville, that will be published in the next issue of Essays in French Literature and Culture, and an annotated bibliography of primary and secondary sources featuring summaries and important quotes dealing with duels, honor, honor codes, cheating, historical causality, chance, and sexuality. Also, several examples of film noir are cited with brief summaries and key events noted. The article we wrote studies two instances of cheating in duels: one found in Brantôme's Discours sur les duels and the other in Prosper Mérimée's Chronique du règne de Charles IX, and the traditional, as well as anti-causal, repercussions they had. Melville's Le Deuxième souffle is also analyzed with regards to the Gaullist Gu Minda and the end of the aristocratic codes of honor that those of his generation dearly respected but that were overcome by the commercial world of republican law and order.

Estudar a obra novelística de Luigi Pirandello é um modo de entender não apenas as razões que o levaram a ser um dos mais importantes escritores italianos do século XX, mas também o papel de cada um de nós no mundo e na vida. As novelas, baseadas em pequenos acontecimentos cotidianos, formam um grande mosaico da existência humana: uma nota no jornal, um amor acabado ou ainda nem começado, um simples gesto ou o apito de um trem, são situações que despertam a imaginação do autor e nas quais muitas vezes nos reconhecemos. Dramaturgo e romancista de sucesso, Pirandello nunca deixou de escrever novelas: foram 251 ao longo de sua carreira. Para ele, a novela era o espaço íntimo, insubstituível, reservado para a discussão existencial empreendida pelos seus personagens em uma época tão inquieta como o início do século XX. As novelas, reunidas no projeto Novelle per un anno, são de vital importância para se compreender a evolução das preocupações do autor e representam a base de seu pensamento. As últimas novelas, principalmente, trazem novas chaves de interpretação ao conjunto da obra e mostram um escritor novo e muito mais inquietante, que muitas vezes a crítica não soube reconhecer. Traçar a trajetória do Pirandello novelista, ou novellaro, como ele se definia, relacionando-a com os outros aspectos de sua carreira literária, de seu pensamento e da época que ele tão bem retratou, é o objetivo deste trabalho.
To study Pirandellos short story is a means not only of understanding the reason why he became one of the most important Italian writers of the twentieth century but also the role we play in the world and life. His short stories, based on ordinary events, make the great mosaic of our lives a piece of news, a love that has broken up or not even started, a gesture, a train whistle; situations that drive his thoughts, where many times we recognize ourselves. Successful play writer and novelist, Pirandello never stopped writing short stories: 251 along all his work life. According to Pirandello, a short story was the intimate, unique place, intended for the existential debates of his characters in the hard times of the beginning of the twentieth century. The short stories, brought together in the project Novelle per un anno, are of great importance to understand the evolution of the authors worries and represent the basis of his thought. The last short stories mainly bring new tools for interpretation to Pirandellos work and show a new, much more disturbing writer, many times not acknowledged by critics. To follow the course of the short-story writer Pirandello or novellaro, as he used to call himself connected with other aspects of his literary life, thought, and the time he described so well, is the focus of this work.

Este trabalho apresenta a tradução comentada da língua italiana para o português de uma seleção das crônicas publicadas pelo escritor e cineasta italiano Pier Paolo Pasolini em sua coluna semanal na revista Vie Nuove, órgão oficial do Partido Comunista Italiano, entre os anos de 1960 e 1965. As crônicas foram divididas em três blocos temáticos: Literatura, Cultura e Política e Sociedade. Uma introdução ensaística acompanha a tradução comentada.
This thesis presents a commented translation from Italian to Portuguese language of a selection of chronicles published by the Italian writer and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini on the weekly magazine Vie Nuove, official media of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), between 1960 and 1965. The chronicles are divided into three thematic groups: Literature, Culture and Politic and Society. An essayist introduction opens the commented translation.

Le présent travail de recherche, consacré à l’oeuvre critique de Edoardo Sanguineti, porte principalement sur la définition de “canon littéraire italien du XXe siècle” formulée par Sanguineti, et sur les relations entre ce poète et critique littéraire italien et les avant-gardes poétiques du siècle dernier, en rapport avec la question du “sublime” en poésie, ou plutôt de son renversement en fonction d'un thème particulièrement cher à cet écrivain et essayiste politiquement engagé, à savoir celui de la critique de la société bourgeoise. Plus précisément, nous examinons le rôle central que revêt, dans l’oeuvre critique de Sanguineti, la première avant-garde du XXème siècle, sur laquelle il concentre ses études et réflexions en vue de faire ressortir les mouvements et les auteurs qui, à son avis, ont le plus contribué à renouveler le langage poétique au tournant des XIXème et XXème siècles. Dans un paysage exégétique si varié, éclectique, labyrinthique, à bien des égards brisé, construit par accumulation, sans direction unique, mais multiple et allusif, comme celui de Sanguineti, l'expérimentation formelle et le contenu des mouvements d'avant-garde entre les deux siècles représentent un intérêt continu et constant, en particulier dans les essais publiés à la fin des années soixante et dans les années soixante-dix
The present research work, devoted to the critical work of Edoardo Sanguineti, focuses mainly on the definition of “Italian literary canon of the twentieth century” formulated by Sanguineti, and on the relations between this Italian poet and literary critic and the avant-garde poetics of the last century, in relation to the question of the “sublime” in poetry, or rather of its overthrow according to a theme particularly dear to this politically engaged writer and essayist, namely that of criticism of bourgeois society. More specifically, we examine the central role of the first avant-garde of the twentieth century in Sanguineti's critical work, on which he concentrated his studies and reflections with a view to bringing out the movements and the authors who, at his opinion, have contributed the most to renew the poetic language at the turn of the XIXth and XXth centuries. In an exegetical landscape so varied, eclectic, labyrinthine, in many ways broken, constructed by accumulation, without single direction, but multiple and allusive, like that of Sanguineti, the formal experimentation and the content of avant-garde movements between the two centuries represent a continuous and constant interest, especially in essays published in the late Sixties and in the Seventies

Cette thèse est consacrée à la réception de la figure et de l’œuvre de Béla Bartók (1881-1945) en Italie, dans la première moitié du XXe siècle. Opérée depuis un point de vue musicologique, l’analyse de l’influence bartókienne dans les œuvres de nombreux compositeurs italiens (d’Alfredo Casella à Bruno Maderna) invite à reconsidérer l’évolution du modernisme artistique en Italie, ainsi que les fondements de la poétique du musicien hongrois – informée par le nationalisme magyar, la « pureté » du folklore paysan et l’utopie de la « musique nocturne ». Par ailleurs, l’étude des formes de transmission et de critique de l’un des compositeurs canoniques du siècle dernier soulève des enjeux plus généraux, qui relèvent de l’histoire culturelle : la continuité entre modernisme artistique et totalitarisme, les formes et les significations de la résistance culturelle, les rapports entre musique et diplomatie, la construction du mythe antifasciste de Bartók. À bien des égards, la « vague bartókienne » qui s’affirma en Italie pendant la période de la guerre froide fut l’aboutissement de la fusion entre le mythe de Bartók – ce « musicien de la liberté » dont parlait le critique Massimo Mila – et le mythe de la renaissance nationale. Une fusion qui avait ses origines dans le paysage sonore de la dictature fasciste et de la Resistenza
This thesis focuses on the reception of Béla Bartók’s music and figure in Italy during the first half of the twentieth century. From a musicological standpoint, the analysis of Bartók’s influence on the works of several Italian composers (from Alfredo Casella to Bruno Maderna) invites us to reconsider the evolution of artistic modernism in Italy, as well as the foundations of Bartók’s poetics – which is informed by Hungarian nationalism, the “purity” of peasant folklore, and the utopia of “night music”. Furthermore, the study of the forms of transmission and criticism of one of the canonical composers of the last century raises broader issues concerning cultural history, such as: the continuity between artistic modernism and totalitarianism, the forms and meanings of cultural resistance, the relation between music and diplomacy, and the construction of the antifascist myth of Bartók.This thesis argues that the Bartókian Wave, which emerged in Italy during the early Cold War period, was the result of the fusion between the Bartók myth – i.e. the “musician of freedom” celebrated by the critic Massimo Mila – and the myth of national regeneration: a fusion that had its origins in the soundscape of Fascist dictatorship and the Resistenza

Ce travail de thèse est basé sur l’exploration des archives privées du poète Andrea Zanzotto à Pieve di Soligo. Nous nous sommes surtout concentrés sur l’emposant correspondance qui y est conservé, qui permet de reconstruire les relations forgées par Zanzotto avec les principaux intellectuels de son époque. On s'est particulièrement dedié à l'intense correspondance de Zanzotto avec le poète Vittorio Sereni, que nous avons pu reconstruire quasiment dans son intégralité. Nous obtenons ainsi une photographie fascinante et détaillée de l'interaction entre les deux poètes, montrant comme Sereni a été fondamental pour l'affirmation publique du jeune Zanzotto, qu'il a bien soutenu et motivé au début de sa carrière littéraire. Les relations entre les deux hommes ont ensuite évolué en forme et en intensité, devenant une amitié professionnellement très active, enrichie par la confiance et le respect mutuels, montrant aussi les aspects les plus humains de leur profession et de leur vie
The thesis’work is based on the surveys of the private archives of the poet Andrea Zanzotto in his residence in Pieve di Soligo in Northern Italy. We especially concentrated on the large correspondence preserved there, which allows us to reconstruct the relationships forged by Zanzotto with the leading intellectuals of his day. We further focused on Zanzotto's intense thirty-five years correspondence with the poet Vittorio Sereni, which we could reconstruct almost in its full entirety. We obtained a riveting and detailed photograph of the interaction between the two poets, showing how Sereni was fundamental for the public affirmation of the young poet Zanzotto, whom Sereni much supported and motivated in his early literary career. The relations between the two later evolved in form and intensity, becoming a professionally very active friendship enriched by mutual confidence and respect, and showing the two poets in the most human aspects of their profession and life

Cette thèse de doctorat est consacrée à l'œuvre de Carlo Michelstaedter et, en particulier, à l'étude de son influence dans le Vingtième siècle italien : les chapitres monographiques qui composent cette investigation visent à évaluer la possibilité de son héritage dans l'œuvre de Montale - le plus important interprète littéraire de Michelstaedter - et dans celles de Gozzano, Pavese et Menon. Au cours des études, nous avons considéré ces auteurs comme des interprètes de la pensée du Vingtième siècle en tant que liée à la leçon de Michelstaedter, voire comme des continuateurs d'une expérience intellectuelle très importante mais précocement interrompue : à un niveau général, la recherche entend faire réagir la fonction de Michelstaedter - un complexe de motifs littéraires et spéculatifs, se référant à son œuvre et à sa figure d'auteur - avec le Vingtième siècle italien. Montale, Gozzano, Pavese et Menon ont été choisis pour identifier de multiples liaisons entre leur activité esthétique et la fonction de Michelstaedter, dont l'œuvre n'a pas obtenu une place stable dans le canon du Vingtième siècle. Fondamentalement, Michelstaedter est étudié en tant qu'il pouvait faire partie des canons des quatre auteurs étudiés, mais non pas d'un canon unique : il appartient donc à quatre anti-canons identifiés par opposition à une idée de canon générale. L'œuvre d'Eugenio Montale (1896-1981) est l'exemple le plus grand de l'influence de Michelstaedter sur un auteur italien : car elle représente toutes les déclinaisons possibles de la fonction michelstaedterienne au Vingtième siècle, la position initiale du chapitre est justifiée. La longue durée de la poésie montalienne, par rapport à Michelstaedter, est décrite des premières aux dernières Poesie disperse, des Ossi di seppia (1925) aux Altri versi (1981). Parmi les problèmes et les images abordés dans le chapitre, nous soulignons le flatus vocis, la chrysalide, le Christ, la persuasion et le temps. Le deuxième chapitre porte sur l'idée de la chrysalide de Guido Gozzano (1883-1916), liée au problème de la coextension des concepts opposés de vie et de mort et à celui de l'authenticité existentielle dans les Epistole entomologiche, notamment, dans Le farfalle (1914). L'étude du thème littéraire de la nymphe, ainsi que des implications philologiques et intertextuelles du poème de Gozzano, met en évidence l'influence potentielle de Il canto delle crisalidi de Michelstaedter (publié en 1912). L'œuvre de Cesare Pavese (1908-1950), étudié au cours du troisième chapitre, porte sur une générale tension au transcendant, équivalente à celle que Montale a pu trouver chez Michelstaedter et liée à la figure du Christ ainsi qu'à des problématiques comme l'attachement et le sacrifice/charité/don. Le thème du silence, en tant qu'empreinte de l'influence de Michelstaedter, est interprété comme une réaction de l'intellectuel en proie au vice qui aspire à l'authenticité. Au niveau littéraire, ces tourments existentiels peuvent être associés au problème de la décadence morale des expressions linguistiques (Pavese parle de « rhétorique ») et à l'impossibilité de réaliser une authenticité relationnelle. L'horizon de la mort, lié à celui du vice, ainsi que la thématisation du suicide en tant que défense par rapport à la souffrance existentielle, pourraient également être affectés par l'influence de Michelstaedter. L'œuvre de Gian Giacomo Menon (1910-2000) se fragmente au regard de la dichotomie entre authenticité et inauthenticité et opère un scepticisme métalinguistique : cette structure spéculative est liée à la fonction de Michelstaedter. L'inspiration métalinguistique de Menon implique une réduction expressive à un grand silence : ancré à des images géologiques, ce silence ressemble à un abandon de la recherche de l'authentique et est lié la problématisation du temps chronologique. Ce chapitre identifie Menon comme l'un des interprètes les plus originaux de l'héritage de Michelstaedter au Vingtième siècle
The present PhD thesis is devoted to the work of Carlo Michelstaedter, that is, to the study of his influence in the context of the Italian twentieth century: the four monographic chapters that make up this investigation aim to evaluate the possibility of his legacy in the work of Montale - Michelstaedter's most significant literary interpreter - and in the work of Gozzano, Pavese, and Menon. These authors are considered interpreters of twentieth-century thought, in conjunction with Michelstaedter's example, or even continuators of a crucial but early-interrupted intellectual experience: on a general level, the research intends to make Michelstaedter's function - a complex of literary and speculative motifs, referring to his work and his authorial figure - interact with the Italian twentieth century. Montale, Gozzano, Pavese, and Menon have been chosen in order to identify multiple connections between their aesthetic activity and the function of Michelstaedter, whose work has not gained a stable position in the twentieth-century canon. Basically, Michelstaedter is studied insofar as he could be part of the canons of the four authors in question but not of a single canon: he therefore belongs to four anti-canons opposed to a general idea of canon.The work of Eugenio Montale (1896-1981) is the most remarkable example of Michelstaedter's influence on an Italian author: the initial position of this chapter is justified by the fact that it represents all the possible variations of the Michelstaedterian function in the twentieth century. With regard to Michelstaedter, the longue durée of Montalian poetry is described from the first to the last of Poesie disperse, from Ossi di seppia (1925) to Altri versi (1981). Among the issues and the images addressed in the chapter, the flatus vocis, the chrysalis, Christ, persuasion, and time can be highlighted.The second chapter focuses on the notion of chrysalis developed by Guido Gozzano (1883-1916), which is related to the problem of the logical coextension of the opposing concepts of life and death and that of existential authenticity in Epistole entomologiche and, specifically, in Le farfalle (1914). The study of the literary theme of the nymph and of the philological and intertextual implications of Gozzano's poem underlines the potential influence of Michelstaedter's Il canto delle crisalidi (published in 1912).The work of Cesare Pavese (1908-1950), studied in the third chapter, deals with a general tension to transcendence, connected to the figure of Christ and to issues such as attachment and sacrifice/charity/donation. An imprint of Michelstaedter's influence, the theme of silence is interpreted as a reaction of the vice-ridden intellectual who longs for authenticity. On a literary level, these existential torments can be associated with the problem of the moral decay of linguistic expressions (Pavese speaks of «rhetoric») and the impossibility of achieving relational authenticity. The horizon of death, connected to that of vice, and the thematisation of suicide as a defence against existential suffering could also be affected by Michelstaedter's influence.The work of Gian Giacomo Menon (1910-2000) is fragmented with regard to the existential dichotomy between authenticity and inauthenticity and works out a form of metalinguistic scepticism: this speculative structure is related to the function of Michelstaedter. Menon's metalinguistic inspiration entails an expressive reduction to a great silence: being related to geological images, such a silence resembles an abandonment of the quest for authenticity and is connected to the problematisation of chronological time. This chapter identifies Menon as one of the most original interpreters of Michelstaedter's legacy in the twentieth century

Andrea Zanzotto (Pieve di Soligo 1921- Conegliano 2011), poète italien parmi les plus marquants du XXe siècle, a privilégié, depuis sa jeunesse, la culture et la langue française. Notre travail met en évidence, à partir de sa poésie, des écrits critiques, de ses traductions et de ses nombreuses interviews, le lien, qu’il a tissé pendant plus de soixante-dix ans, avec la poésie transalpine moderne. Toutefois, c’est seulement à partir des dernières années que la critique littéraire a développé des études comparatives sur l’influence de la poésie étrangère, en particulière française, sur son œuvre. Sa prédilection littéraire commence par Rimbaud, passe à travers le Surréalisme (Éluard), et s’arrête sur certains auteurs appelés « hérétiques » par rapport au mouvement de Breton (Michel Leiris, Antonin Artaud), ou alors sur des auteurs très polémiques (comme Henri Michaux ou Blaise Cendrars avec son poème Pâques à New York) aux quels on a dédié un approfondissement. En ce parcours Zanzotto croise, bien qu’avec moins d’entrain, les contemporains André Frénaud, Alain Borne, Edmond Jabès, Jean Tardieu, Michel Deguy, Yves Bonnefoy, et René Char. Notre thèse, en s’appuyant sur l’examen des textes et sur l’analyse des traductions et des documents inédits, d’une part rends compte du caractère précurseur de Zanzotto pour ce qui concerne la connaissance de certains auteurs et les raisons de son intérêt pour le courant « hérétique » du Surréalisme. D’autre part, ce travail explique l’intersection de sa recherche littéraire, d’un point de vue thématique et linguistique, avec la poésie française et met en évidence le rendu poétique des expressions littéraires et existentielles de l’outrance et de l’absolu d’origine française
Andrea Zanzotto (Pieve di Soligo, 1921 – Conegliano, 2011), one of the most outstanding poets of the 20th century, showed from an early age a huge interest towards the French linguistic and cultural heritage, above the others. Our thesis highlights how well present his strong relationship with modern French poetry is, testified by his own critical essays, translations and public statements; a connection bound to last for almost seventy years. Only recently the critics have started a comparative approach to the study of the influence of foreign poetry, and French poetry in particular, upon his œuvre. The literary lineage that Zanzotto follows starts with Rimbaud, crosses Surrealism (Eluard ) and then lingers upon a number of authors defined either as heterodox (Michel Leiris, Antonin Artaud,) or extremely critical (Henri Michaux, and Blaise Cendrars, the latter with his short poem titled Pâques à New York, herewith analysed) towards Breton’s movement. Zanzotto also deals with his contemporaries, although with minor depth (André Frénaud, Alain Borne, Edmond Jabès, Jean Tardieu, Michel Deguy, Yves Bonnefoy, René Char). The present research, backed up by textual comparison and the analysis of unpublished translations and documents, focuses on the pioneering features of Zanzotto’s knowledge of all these French authors compared to the subsequent Italian literature, and the reasons behind his ties with the “heretic” current of Surrealism. At the same time, our work explains the intersection, from the linguistic and thematic point of view, with French poetry and shows the poetic outcome of the literary and existential expressions of the Absolute and all-out of French origin

The aim of this project is to account for the widespread reception of the epics of Homer and Virgil by American poets of the twentieth century. Since 1914, an unprecedented number of new poems interpreting the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid have appeared in the United States. The vast majority of these modern versions are short, combining epic and lyric impulses in a dialectical form of genre that is shaped, I propose, by two cultural movements of the twentieth century: Modernism, and American humanism. Modernist poetics created a focus on the fragmentary and imagistic aspects of Homer and Virgil; and humanist philosophy sparked a unique trend of undergraduate literature survey courses in American colleges and universities, in which for the first time, in the mid-twentieth century, hundreds of thousands of students were exposed to the epics in translation, and with minimal historical contextualisation, prompting a clear opportunity for personal appropriation on a broad scale. These main matrices for the reception of epic in the United States in the twentieth century are set out in the introduction and first chapter of this thesis. In the five remaining chapters, I have identified secondary threads of historical influence, scrutinised alongside poems that developed in that context, including the rise of Freudian and related psychologies; the experience of modern warfare; American national politics; first- and second-wave feminism; and anxiety surrounding poetic belatedness. Although modern American versions of epic have been recognised in recent scholarship on the reception of Classics in twentieth-century poetry in English, no comprehensive account of the extent of the phenomenon has yet been attempted. The foundation of my arguments is a catalogue of almost 400 poems referring to Homer and Virgil, written by over 175 different American poets from 1914 to the present. Using a comparative methodology (after T. Ziolkowski, Virgil and the Moderns, 1993), and models of reception from German and English reception theory (including C. Martindale, Redeeming the Text, 1993), the thesis contributes to the areas of classical reception studies and American literary history, and provides a starting point for considering future steps in the evolution of the epic genre.

Il presente lavoro costituisce la prima ricostruzione del lavoro di Gianna Manzini alla radio e alla televisione, che comincia nel 1947 e si conclude nel 1968. Gli interventi radiofonici sono divisi in trasmissioni di moda e costume e di critica letteraria (capitolo 1) e racconti scritti per la radio (capitolo 3); le trasmissioni televisive sono ripartite in sceneggiature realizzate e non realizzate (capitolo 3). I testi dei programmi sono stati identificati nei fondi archivistici della Fondazione Arnoldo e Alberto Mondadori di Milano, dell’Archivio del Novecento dell’Università La Sapienza di Roma e della Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma. Il lavoro si basa dunque sulla descrizione e l’analisi di materiale inedito, come L’Almanacco dei sogni e Il paesaggio come fatto personale, e le sceneggiature Il grande indiscreto, Il nome di battesimo e Alfredino. La ricognizione ha dimostrato come Gianna Manzini possedesse una consapevolezza mediatica tale da essere in grado di adattare il proprio stile alle specifiche esigenze del mezzo di comunicazione. Tuttavia, l’attività radio-televisiva non può essere considerata del tutto autonoma e disgiunta dalla carriera letteraria, con la quale intrattiene un rapporto strettissimo e osmotico.
This research aims at providing a first and thorough description of Gianna Manzini’s work for the Italian Broadcasting (RAI), a collaboration which started in 1947 and ended in 1968. Her works for the radio are divided into fashion and literary criticism broadcasting (chapter 1) and original radio screenplays (chapter 2); her works for the television are divided into broadcasted and non broadcasted scripts (chapter 3). The texts of these programmes have been found in the following archives: Fondazione Arnoldo e Alberto Mondadori (Milan), Archivio del Novecento, Università La Sapienza (Rome) and Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale (Rome). The thesis both describes and analyzes original and unpublished works and screenplays, such as L’Almanacco dei sogni, Il paesaggio come fatto personale, Il grande indiscreto, Il nome di battesimo and Alfredino. In the end, the research showed evidence that Gianna Manzini was well aware that different media require different writing characteristics and was able to act accordingly. Nonetheless, her literary and broadcasting activity cannot be considered as two separate carriers, being actually strictly bound to each other.

This dissertation examines food tropes in Italian films of the Economic Miracle, investigating moments of continuity with prewar gastronomic traditions, as well as denoting drastic breaks with the familiar. The kitchen is a place of traditional culinary practices and ingredients, and from which sensations of hominess and conviviality are continually generated; yet, the kitchen is where the changes to the postwar foodscape are most visible. In my analysis of films released from 1954 to 1973, the kitchen is treated as a site of both recognizability and unrecognizability: the feeling that someone does not belong among the people, objects, and rituals part of that changing arena; alternatively, they might not be recognized themselves. In the readings that follow, these directors, actors, and writers grapple with such unrecognizability by way of the stomach: the organ with which to digest food and, moreover, to process the changes that that gastronomy represents. This dissertation is divided into four chapters, or, rather, two halves: first, continuity and desire, and later, rupture and violent rejection. These halves represent continuities and breaks, respectively, as this project follows the transformation of Italy’s “rosy” cinema into dark, nihilist auteurism. At the center of the first half are two stars: Totò (Chapter Two) and Sophia Loren (Chapter Three). In the work of Totò, the visceral hunger that he experiences matches that of the very recent past, and in particular, that of the South. When food became readily available, however, a new hunger emerged: a hunger for what was, as Totò upheld the dietary routines to which he was long accustomed. Meanwhile, Sophia Loren embodies the multivalence of hunger. As Cesira in La ciociara (1960), Loren portrayed a mother struggling against la carestia of occupied Italy; hunger is once again a physical sensation. But through later roles, as well as the authorship of her own cookbook, not only is the stomach satisfied, but there is now a sexual dimension to hunger. Loren softened both the hunger pangs and the blows of the changing sociopolitical arena, leaving her viewers to desire simultaneously her body and the food she prepares, ultimately inviting us to eat with her. Chapter Four, meanwhile, uses the cinema and narrative theories of Pier Paolo Pasolini to explore the connections between continuity, rupture, and “revolution.” Revolution is, in the Marxist sense, the proletariat contending with exploitative forces, as seen through Stracci in La ricotta (1963). It is also the turning of a wheel, emblematic of a progression in a cycle back to naturality and austerity. Despite violent eating and existential crises, the characters of Luna (Uccellacci e uccellini, 1966) and Emilia (Teorema, 1968) reveal a continued relationship with the earth, within which seeds – signs of new life – are planted. This project also suggests a turn towards the tenets of 1940s neorealism, particularly the notions of survival and rebirth. In Marco Ferreri’s La grande abbuffata (1973), the subject of Chapter Five, four wealthy protagonists gather for the ultimate “gastronomic seminar”: a weekend during which they are suicided by overconsumption, choosing to abandon a world so deeply unrecognizable from the traditions and virtues of decades past. Yet, in bequeathing the world to Andréa, there is a reawakening. Andréa is left to perpetuate not only the rich traditions and rituals of previous generations, but also a world of anxieties, unsure of what the future holds.