The scholarly consensus is that the early essays “Il mare dell’oggettività” and “La sfida al labirinto” are two of the most important Italo Calvino wrote on his literary poetics, influencing the metaphors and problematics of his entire corpus: the sea of objectivity, the labyrinth, chaotic flux, a rational cogito subjectivity, binary oppositions etc. The essays were made available to a general public in the collection Una pietra sopra in 1980, part of a selection of texts handpicked by Calvino himself. Curiously, the 1986 English translation titled The Uses of Literature does not contain these important and influential essays, making them unavailable to an Anglophone audience. These essays are here now translated, accompanied by a critical commentary by the translator about their relevance and importance to Calvino’s corpus. The problematics discussed in these essays would re-emerge, with remarkable consistency, in the metaphorical imagery Calvino deployed throughout his career. Nevertheless, Calvino evolves the problematics significantly throughout his career, almost inverting his original stance. Rather than this being an inversion, however, the translator argues that Calvino’s evolution represents a dialectical movement propelled by contradiction, and that therein lies the actual poetics or the stylized mode of thought that these essays inaugurated. Viewing the essays in this light renders them, and Calvino’s entire corpus, ripe for dialogic encounter and collision with otherwise parallel philosophical traditions and schools of thought.

Journaliste, essayiste, prosateur, poète, romancier mais aussi à ses heures réalisateur, photographe ou architecte, Curzio Malaparte (1898-1957) reste, malgré un succès public durable qui dépasse largement les frontières italiennes, un oublié de l’histoire littéraire du XXe siècle. S’il suscite actuellement un regain d’intérêt c’est surtout dans la mesure où sa participation aux deux guerres mondiales ainsi que sa trajectoire du fascisme au communisme et au catholicisme en font le miroir des contradictions de son temps. Or, est-ce bien là son principal mérite ? La présente étude propose un parcours à la fois chronologique et thématique dans l’œuvre malapartienne en s’appuyant sur l’analyse du rapport entre l’univers et la page écrite. La curiosité insatiable que l’écrivain projette sur le monde qui l’entoure dégénère, au contact de l’événement-guerre, en plongée macabre dans les atrocités de l’histoire. Les pages cruelles et hallucinées de Kaputt (1944) ou de La pelle (1949) marquent l’apogée d’une écriture qui voudrait rendre compte de la réalité tout en refusant de s’en satisfaire. Face au visage décevant de l’histoire, Malaparte échafaude un rêve de « recommencement » à la fois individuel (grâce au « mythe de l’auto-engendrement ») et collectif (dans une perspective eschatologique), mais ne renonce jamais définitivement à poursuivre dans le monde cette quête désespérée de sens qui nous le rend si proche. / Curzio Malaparte (1898-1957) was not only a journalist, essayist, prose writer, poet and a novelist but also a director, photographer and architect when time permitted. Yet despite his success both in Italy and beyond, he remains largely unknown in 20th century literary history. If he is enjoying a resurgence in popularity today it is due to his involvement in two world wars as well as his trajectory from fascism to communism and onward to Catholicism, a mirrored contradiction to his era. Or does his significance lie therein ? This thesis follows both a chronological and thematic path through his work focusing on the relationship between the universe and the written page. The insatiable curiosity the writer projects on the world around him disintegrates into history’s most gruesome atrocities following the onset of war. The cruel and uncanny pages of Kaputt (1944) and La Pelle (1949) mark the culmination of a style of writing that tries to both account for and interrogate reality. In the disappointing face of history, Malaparte constructs a dream for a new beginning that is at once individual (thanks to the « myth of self-generation ») and collective (from an eschatological perspective), yet he never renounces definitively the pursuit of this desperate quest for meaning that brings him so close to us.

Cette Thèse porte sur les échanges culturels entre la France et l’Italie, au début du XXIe siècle, dans le domaine de la traduction littéraire et de l’édition. Son but principal est l’étude des phases qui précèdent, accompagnent et suivent la publication d’une œuvre littéraire française en Italie. Après avoir situé notre sujet dans le cadre des relations historiquement très importantes entre les deux pays dans le domaine littéraire, notre analyse se focalise sur trois moments cruciaux : le choix de l’œuvre ; sa traduction ; sa parution et réception.C’est que le goût, le canon, la tradition littéraire et la culture propres à chacun des deux pays ont une influence certaine sur la réception, sur l’horizon d’attente des lecteurs et des critiques, ainsi que sur les stratégies éditoriales, tout au long des étapes qui vont de l’achat des droits aux décisions « paratextuelles » censées susciter l’intérêt du lecteur ou fournir des informations. Nous ne négligerons pas le rôle du traducteur, véritable « passeur » du texte, ses choix linguistiques et stylistiques étant souvent la clé de la bonne compréhension d’une œuvre. Si la publication et la fortune d’une œuvre littéraire dans un pays étranger sont donc le résultat d’un processus complexe, d’une accumulation stratifiée d’échanges, de stéréotypes, et de multiples interventions d’acteurs différents, notre recherche fait appel à des outils méthodologiques relevant de plusieurs champs disciplinaires, appliqués, enfin, à une sélection des romans publiés en Italie dans les dix dernières années. / This thesis focuses on the cultural exchanges between France and Italy in the fields of literary translation and publishing at the beginning of the 21st century. Its main goal is to study the various stages that precede, accompany and follow the publication of a work of French literature in Italy. Having placed our subject in the context of the main historical relations between the two countries in the field of literature, our analysis concentrates on three key moments: the choice of book, its translation and finally, its publication and reception.At the centre of our analysis is the knowledge that the tastes, canons, literary traditions and cultures of the two countries undoubtedly affect the reception of a work and the expectations of readers and critics. We will therefore take into consideration the role of editorial strategies throughout this process from the purchase of the copyright to paratextual decisions, i.e. the methods used to arouse readers’ interest or supply information. We will also examine the figure of the translator, the “driving force” in the text’s transition, as it is often their choice of language and style that provides the key to our understanding of it.Given that the publication and fortune of a literary work in a foreign country are the result of a complex process and a stratified accumulation of exchanges, stereotypes and multiple operations, our research has adopted analytical methods from a wide range of fields and applied them to a selection of novels published in Italy over the last ten years.

This report examines the ways in which Cesare Pavese and Italo Calvino use images of the foreign woman as other. Specifically, both authors inscribe foreign territories onto the bodies of their female characters in order to confront complex cultural differences. Italy is the site of this gendered inscription in Pavese’s Il carcere, while various real and imagined foreign lands are made female in Calvino’s Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore and Le città invisibili. In Pavese’s novella, the satyr-like Concia and the overly maternal Elena are embodiments of Southern and Northern Italy, respectively, and the failure of the protagonist to form a relationship with either woman represents his failure to assimilate into the mezzogiorno and his simultaneous rejection of northern society. In Calvino’s two works, female characters and attributes are consciously used to embody various foreign countries so that the protagonists may grasp the unknown, both physically and psychologically. By linking woman and terrain, Pavese and Calvino attempt to dominate distant lands, which are otherwise enigmatic and incomprehensible, in the typical Orientalist fashion. / text

In Italy, the period directly following World War II was marked by confusion and turbulence as the people struggled to reconstruct both the ideological and physical infrastructure of the nation. While much study has been dedicated to the evolution of femininity and the figure of the woman in this particular period, comparatively little has been written on the refashioning of masculinity in the texts produced in the period between 1940 and 1955. After the fall of the Fascist Regime, Italian masculinity undergoes a drastic transformation as the generation of young men born and raised under the tutelage of Mussolini’s reign attempt to separate themselves from the now-tainted codes of conduct governing male behavior. This report analyzes the renegotiation of Italian masculinity in G. Silvano Spinetti’s non-fictional account Difesa di una generazione (scritti e appunti), Italo Calvino’s Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno, Beppe Fenoglio’s short story “Gli inizi del partigiano Raoul” and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Ragazzi di vita. These works, written and published in the postwar period, manipulate the vi marginality and privation experienced by the Italian population during the war and postwar period into a liminal state brimming with revolutionary potentiality. The protagonists of these texts (both fictional and non-fictional), isolated from the larger social context and deprived of individual identity, property and privilege, circumvent their polluted patriarchal lines in favor of an alternative ideological patriarchy. While Spinetti, Calvino and Fenoglio’s works advance their liminal narratives as a means of creating an emblematic Italian man capable of rejoining the generative discourse, Pasolini’s text renounces such a progressive view. In Ragazzi di vita, the only possibility for a masculine identity free of Fascism resides in a maintaining a perennial liminality. / text

Nel presente lavoro vengono suggerite nuove strategie di lettura per un’opera che costituisce un unicum, non solo nella produzione narrativa di Italo Calvino, ma certamente anche nella storia letteraria del Novecento. Il castello dei destini incrociati (1973) viene interpretato in senso cartografico, come il tentativo di mappare un mondo labirintico, dai significati inesauribili e comunque destinato a farsi inghiottire dal gorgo della modernità. Pur conservando i tratti del romanzo enciclopedico, viene messo in luce come il Castello si sottragga al desiderio di rappresentare la totalità, scegliendo piuttosto la strada del potenziale e della metamorfosi, nel tentativo di individuare i fattori primi di ogni storia narrabile. Un po’ torre di Babele e un po’ arca dell’alleanza, emerge nel lavoro come il libro nasca dal bisogno di verificare le ragioni della letteratura e di rivisitare il ruolo dell’intellettuale: sul finire degli anni sessanta, Calvino allestisce in chiave allegorica e figurale un’allarmata riflessione sulla convivenza, profetizzando l’apocalisse di un mondo che è chiamato a recuperare l’antica fiducia nella progettazione e nell’utopia. / This work suggests new reading strategies for a novel that represents a singular event, not only in Italo Calvino’s narrative production, but also in the history of Nineteenth-Century literature. The Castle of Crossed Destinies (1973) is approached in a cartographical way, as an attempt to give the map of a labyrinthine world, complicated by inexhaustible meanings and, in any case, destined to be swallowed by Modernity’s wheel. Though conserving the features of the encyclopaedic novel, the Castle is shown as a book that tries to dodge the desire to represent the world as a whole, as a totality: on the contrary, it chooses to go through the paths of potentiality and metamorphosis, seeking the prime factors of every possible story. The Castle is a sort of Tower of Babel, an Ark of the Covenant: Savio’s thesis underlines that this novel grows out of the need to check the reasons of literature and to rethink the role of intellectuals: in the end of the Sixties, allegorically and figurally, Calvino sets up an alarmed reflection about the coexistence of mankind, foretelling the apocalypse of a world that is called to rescue its old faith in planning and utopia.

L’objectif de cette thèse est d’analyser comment la littérature et le cinéma ont représenté la ville de Milan au cours de la décennie 1955-1965, qui précède et suit de peu ce que la grande majorité des historiens appelle maintenant « le miracle économique » des années 1958-1963. Avec cette étude, nous avons essayé de retracer le portrait réel et imaginaire d’une ville qui, au moment du « miracle économique », semble connaître et contenir toutes les dynamiques de changement, qu’à une plus grande échelle connaît le pays tout entier. Pour ce faire, nous avons adopté une démarche interdisciplinaire qui nous a conduit à étudier les formes réelles de la ville à travers des ouvrages d’histoire, d’architecture, d’urbanisme et de sociologie pour ensuite les confronter avec leurs représentations imaginaires dans la littérature et le cinéma. Ce choix était dicté par la conviction que la complexité de la ville, en tant qu’objet d’étude, intègre divers niveaux de structuration : physique, économique, social mais également temporel et imaginaire. Cette thèse est composée de cinq parties qui vont de l’analyse de la forme urbanistique de la ville à l’examen de sa composition sociale. Au terme de notre travail nous pouvons ainsi dégager trois « images », en apparence contradictoires, qui semblent définir la ville lombarde : « la ville dynamique », « la ville du capital » et « la ville cristallisée ». Ces trois images s’expriment au travers d’une grande variété de modalités de représentation, de styles et de tons, qui semblent former une vaste mosaïque d’expressions artistiques reflétant la complexité, les relations, les contrastes et les conflits qui caractérisent la ville de Milan au moment du « miracle économique ». / The aim of this dissertation is to analyse how literature and cinema have represented the city of Milan during the decade 1955-1965, which slightly precedes and follows what the majority of historians now call the “economic miracle” (1958-1963). This research attempts to retrace the real and the imaginary portrait of a city, whose experience and dynamics at the time of the “economic miracle”, appeared as a representative sample of Italy as a whole. This topic has been considered from an interdisciplinary perspective through works of history, architecture, urbanism and sociology, focusing first on the real forms of the city. These forms are then subsequently confronted with their imaginary representations through literature and cinema. This choice was dictated by the conviction that the complexity of the city, as an object of study, integrates various levels of structuration: physical, economic, social, but also temporal and imaginary. This dissertation is composed of five parts beginning with the analysis of the urban form of the city and ending with the examination of its social composition. After this investigation, three distinct, yet seemingly contradictory, images appear, which could define the Lombard city as “the dynamic city”, “the city of the capital” and “the crystalized city”. These three contradictory images are expressed through a large variety of modes of representation, styles and tones, which form a broad mosaic of artistic expressions reflecting the complexity, relations, contrasts and conflicts that characterize the city of Milan at the time of the “economic miracle”.

Il presente lavoro si pone l'obiettivo di analizzare la produzione critica di ambito pascoliano del Pietrobono, con una particolare attenzione per l’influsso da lui esercitato nella costruzione della tradizione interpretativa e letteraria pascoliana. Il progetto di ricerca si è focalizzato sull’analisi di Pietrobono letterato, interprete e amico di Giovanni Pascoli, studiandone l’attività alla luce dei commenti alle Poesie di Pascoli approntate dal Padre scolopio, e alle relazioni comuni evidenziate dallo studio critico delle rispettive opere. Particolare rilievo si è posto alla ricostruzione della formazione del florilegio, alla curatela e al commento dell’antologia pascoliana pubblicata da Pietrobono nel 1918 e più volte rieditata: se ne sono analizzate le numerose edizioni e la variazioni apportate nella scelta di componimenti e nei commenti. Una sezione del lavoro riporta e analizza la corrispondenza epistolare intrattenuta tra Luigi Pietrobono e Maria Pascoli a partire dal 1912 sino al 1950. Ne emerge un rapporto intenso e proficuo dal punto di vista letterario-editoriale, nel quale i protagonisti si supportano per i rispettivi lavori che vanno pubblicando sulle opere di Pascoli. Di queste missive, presenti nell’archivio della Casa Museo di Castelvecchio, si è proceduto alla trascrizione e commento. / The aim of the present work is to provide a thorough analysis of the critical production of Pietrobono concerning Giovanni Pascoli with a particular emphasis on the influence that he exercised in building the literary and interpretative tradition on Pascoli’s poetic heritage. The research project is focused on the critical analysis of Pietrobono as a literary man, as an interpreter and close friend of Giovanni Pascoli. The analysis builds on the study of his activity in light of the comments to the opera Poesie of Pascoli made by the “Scolopio” father and of the common relations that clearly emerge from a critical assessment of their respective production. Particular attention has been devoted to the building of the florilegium and to the editorial choices and to the comment to the Pascoli’s anthology first published in 1918 and then re-edited several times. This works presents a detailed and careful analysis of the different editions and in particular of the different choices concerning the works included and of the changes in the comments. A section of the present research work is focused on the epistolary correspondence between Luigi Pietrobono and Maria Pascoli that started in 1912 and continued up to 1950. From the letters it clearly emerges a close relationship and very productive literary-editorial interaction between the two writers that advise and support each other concerning their works on Pascoli’s production. These letters, preserved in the archive of the Casa Museo di Castelvecchio, have been transcribed and commented in the present research work.

This master thesis presents a study of the authorship of the Italian writer Elena Ferrante, focusing on hermain concepts “la frantumaglia” and “la smarginatura” in relation to the question of literary truth. Thepurpose is to examine the fascinating interaction between meta reflection and narration through anintratextual reading of her poetics elaborated in La frantumaglia (2013, 2016) and all novels publishedso far. With references to the theories of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan, la frantumaglia and lasmarginatura are interpreted as the unconscious and different mental disorders that characterize the crisisof the female protagonists. The analysis examines literary truth on three literary levels: the verbal,considering the Neapolitan dialect related to the city of Naples as a representation of both maternalorigin and patriarchal oppression, the stylistic, viewing la smarginatura as literary style, and finally, thesymbolic, connected to what Ferrante calls the “symbolic sphere of the authentic”. Furthermore, anintellectual approach to truth is discussed as a contraposition to the others. In applying the methodologyof Michael Riffaterre, the analysis of the stylistic and symbolic truth dimensions shows how theiridiosyncratic traits are extended and transformed throughout the Ferrantian work. The thesis alsosuggests a different interpretation of the intimate relationship between mother and daughter, one of theauthorship’s central themes. Unlike previous studies with a psychoanalytical approach that affirms theexistence of a pre-oedipal phase free from patriarchal intrusion, this analysis demonstrates how Ferranterepeatedly reveals this idea as an infantile fantasy. Instead, the thesis argues that the only real synthesisis found at the level of writing itself, in the merging of the perspectives of the two protagonists in thecycle of L’amica geniale (The Neapolitan novels). This synthesis is further conceived as the authenticidentity of the anonymous author herself.

Shakespeare's ideas about free will and moral choice, as illustrated in his play Macbeth, may have been influenced by Dante's Inferno. Dante was known to Shakespeare's contemporaries, and therefore most likely to the Bard himself. Current literature has not conclusively addressed this topic, and a focused examination is important, because it offers both an additional perspective on free will in Inferno, and adds to the understanding of free will in Macbeth. Read at face value, Macbeth seems to bear no responsibility for his actions because they were preordained by the fates. Dante believed in free will, and Macbeth bears more than one similarity to his Commedia. Read through a Dantean lens, Macbeth has free will - even if choosing not to exercise it. Through the mere contemplation of the four reasons for not killing Duncan, Macbeth recognizes that he has the choice whether to become a traitor, with the consequences of suffering contrapasso damnation. But Macbeth elects to disregard the wisdom passed down in Dante's Commedia, and knowingly commits a heinously immoral act. Shakespeare uses his predecessor Dante as a tool to advocate for human agency and moral choices in a text that would otherwise be fatalistic. Both then and now, Shakespeare sought to influence his audiences' understanding of their own free will. One first has to believe in possessing free will, in order to use it to make the best possible choices. Dante and Shakespeare reaffirm our possession of free will to help us avoid individual and societal tragedies.