The invention of modern Italian literature : strategies of creative imagination / Gino Tellini ; translation by Dawn Winterhalter and Gemma Dawkes.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

As an investigation of new expressive processes and stylistic experiences, The Invention of Modern Italian Literature situates prominent Italian writers within the context of modern literature.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Though some phases of Italian literary history--the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the post-WW II era--are well known to North American readers, the period between the 18th and the early 20th centuries all too often remains terra incognita even to the otherwise knowledgeable. This collection of translated essays by one of Italy's leading historians and literary critics will shed brighter light on an area of Italian cultural history that deserves to be much better known. The individual essays deal with major figures--Vittorio Alfieri, Ugo Foscolo, Alessandro Manzoni, Giacomo Leopardi, Giovanni Verga, Giovanni Pascoli--but usually with their less-known works: Manzoni's plays rather than I promessi sposi, Leopardi's correspondence rather than his poetry, and so on. In each case Tellini (Univ. of Florence) reads with subtle acumen and historical awareness, moving skillfully between text and context but never subordinating the one to the other in the interest of a preconceived intellectual agenda. The result is a useful, readable, highly intelligent collection of essays that will introduce many readers to works worth reading and to new ways of thinking about some less familiar areas of the Italian literary canon. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. S. Botterill University of California, Berkeley