Comedy and Culture: Cecco Angiolieri’s Poetry and Late Medieval Society
Fabian Alfie
Italian Perspectives 8•19 January 2002
Camorristi, Politicians and Businessmen: The Transformation of Organized Crime in Post-War Naples
Felia Allum
Italian Perspectives 11•1 December 2006
Giraffes in the Garden of Italian Literature: Modernist Embodiment in Italo Svevo, Federigo Tozzi and Carlo Emilio Gadda
Deborah Amberson
Italian Perspectives 22•30 January 2012
- ‘In conclusion, this is a very interesting book, which not only brings together three exceptional authors, but also focuses on original and stimulating perspectives. The work makes a very valid critical contribution, by dealing with a fascinating topic in a manner which is original and insightful.’ — Giuseppe Stellardi, Modern Language Review 109.3, July 2014, 828-29 (full text online)
Classical Comedy 1508-1786: A Legacy from Italy and France
Richard Andrews
Italian Perspectives 55•20 October 2022
- ‘An encyclopedic contribution to the history of comedy, with a particular focus on the transformation of comedy in Paris, where the greatest playwrights preserved the genre’s positive vision and harnessed the vitality of the Italian “Arte” to create their more serious comedies of character... The “Analyses” section is particularly valuable. It is divided between technical questions and plot or character issues, and the technical discussions, informed by Andrews extraordinary knowledge and deep understanding of how comedy works, are outstanding.’ — 552-54, Annali d'Italianistica 2023, 41, Laurie Shepard
Imagining Terrorism: The Rhetoric and Representation of Political Violence in Italy 1969-2009
Edited by Pierpaolo Antonello and Alan O'Leary
Italian Perspectives 18•17 July 2009
- ‘This is a thought-provoking collection that requires the reader to engage with representations and form as critical sites of historical understanding.’ — Derek Duncan, Modern Language Review 106.3, 2011, 889-90 (full text online)
- ‘For many, the murder of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978 by the BR and the various neofascist bombings have become myths or legendary occurrences ones fraught with profound meaning for the human condition. Even some of the former militants and terrorists — the perpetrators, in other words — have participated in these productions (Moro’s killers, for example). In fact, one cannot help be left with the impression that the artists and the ex-militants are really talking to each other.’ — Leonard Weinberg, Journal of Modern History 84.3 (September 2012), 752-54
- ‘This broad-ranging collection of fourteen essays is innovative in offering an extremely rich and multi-faceted portrait of this complex topic... makes a real contribution to show how terrorist brutality was expressed, encoded and schematized by the people involved in these dramatic events even before the violent actions became the object of rhetorical analysis.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 48.4 (October 2012), 490
Petrarch Commentary and Exegesis in Renaissance Italy and Beyond: Materiality, Paratexts and Interpretative Strategies
Edited by Guyda Armstrong, Simon A. Gilson and Federica Pich
Italian Perspectives 56•22 January 2023
Spatial Plots: Virtuality and the Embodied Mind in Baricco, Camilleri and Calvino
Marzia Beltrami
Italian Perspectives 45•26 July 2021
Disrupted Narratives: Illness, Silence and Identity in Svevo, Pressburger and Morandini
Emma Bond
Italian Perspectives 24•10 October 2012
Italy and the USA: Cultural Change Through Language and Narrative
Edited by Guido Bonsaver, Alessandro Carlucci and Matthew Reza
Italian Perspectives 44•30 December 2019
- ‘A very holistic assessment of cultural change, even going beyond the disciplinary points of reference of language and narrative to the larger fields of politics and economics.’ — Anna Chichi, Modern Language Review 117.2, 2022, 303-04 (full text online)
Elio Vittorini: The Writer and the Written
Guido Bonsaver
Italian Perspectives 4•1 November 2000
The Somali Within: Language, Race and Belonging in ‘Minor’ Italian Literature
Simone Brioni
Italian Perspectives 33•11 September 2015
- ‘A very welcome and significant contribution to the growing field of Italian postcolonial studies... offering a convincing in-depth textual analysis of a specifically postcolonial literature (though many of his insights could usefully also be stretched out to apply to the wider ‘migration’ field), as well as contributing an important linguistic study, which draws Translation Studies into productive proximity with a potential transcultural turn in Italian Studies in general.’ — Emma Bond, Modern Language Review 116.2, April 2017, 524-25 (full text online)
- ‘inserisce pienamente all'interno degli studi postcoloniali che negli ultimi vent'anni hanno iniziato a interessare la critica letteraria italiana. Attraverso l'analisi di un corpus eterogeneo di testi, Brioni esamina il ruolo che nel grande quadro della letteratura nazionale italiana ha la letteratura italo-somala, cioè scritta in italiano da autori e autrici italiani che provengono dalla Somalia, o le cui origini familiari sono somale.’ — Serena Alessi, Incontri 31.2, 2016, 152-54
- ‘A new and original analysis... From how the Somali writers describe race and colour it is, in fact, possible to start a reflection that, from the colonial adventures and through the racial laws of 1938 and the apparent neglect of the colonies after World War II, reaches contemporary Italy and the current problems with racism.’ — Daniele Comberiati, Crossings: Journal of Migration & Culture 2016, 247-49
- ‘The postcolonial and transnational perspective of this work... calls for fresh and stimulating elaborations, making it a com- pelling reading also for readers who are not well acquainted with the body of literature here analysed.’ — Lorenzo Mari, Interventions 2 September 2016 (full text online)
- ‘Una delle questioni più rilevanti risulta essere sicuramente quello del colore della pelle: particolare importanza viene data da Brioni ai personaggi meticci presenti nei diversi romanzi presi in esame e che diventano sempre più numerosi nel corso delle successive pubblicazioni. Questi testimoniano la presenza di una problematica culturale che era rimasta relegata nella penombra della memoria storica del colonialismo italiano.’ — Michele Pandolfo, Between VI.11, May 2016
- ‘The Somali Within is an innovative volume that discusses the Somali-Italian encounter, from the colonial period to the subsequent historical events intertwining the histories of Somalia and Italy well into their postcolonial present... Brioni’s volume is indeed a much needed and complex contribution to the study of Italian Somali literature which engages masterfully with these texts while redefining multiple theoretical problems.’ — Elena Benelli, Italian Studies Online, 3 October 2018 (full text online)
- ‘Simone Brioni’s The Somali Within signals perhaps a new direction in the field of Italian migration literature in Italy... A valuable resource to scholars of Italian, minor, post-colonial, and migration literatures as well as those interested in how Italy’s colonial past can help explain contemporary views in Italy of language, race, and identity.’ — Francesca Minonne, Quaderni d'Italianistica 38.2, 2018, 277-79
- ‘Rich in its theoretical approaches, Brioni’s study will be of immense interest to scholars of contemporary Italian culture, Italian postcolonialism and, indeed, to anyone interested in the ongoing debates surrounding ‘minor literature.’’ — Renata Redford, Italica 93.4, Winter 2016, 849-51
Speaking Out and Silencing: Culture, Society and Politics in Italy in the 1970s
Edited by Anna Cento Bull and Adalgisa Giorgio
Italian Perspectives 12•17 January 2006
- ‘An excellent analysis of the 1970s... important new insights into the anni di piombo.’ — Liz Wren-Owens, Modern Language Review 104.1, January 2009, 213-14 (full text online)
- ‘Each of these essays confirms that terrorism is an ineluctable topic in any discussion of the long 1970s... Indeed, the two longest entries in the index to the volume are for ‘terrorism’ and for ‘Moro, Aldo’. Aldo Moro is all over the book, just as he is uncannily omnipresent in Italian culture...’ — Alan O'Leary, Modern Italy 13.3, August 2008, 361-63
Fragments of Impegno
Jennifer Burns
Italian Perspectives 9•31 January 2002
Orality and Literacy in Modern Italian Culture
Edited by Michael Caesar and Marina Spunta
Italian Perspectives 14•24 May 2006
- ‘Other strands link the twelve essays: one centres on the idea that 'voice' is something vulnerable and short-lived, while another focuses on the 'hierarchy' implicit in the relationship between orality and literacy. Both are demonstrated, for instance, when 'folk', 'women's' and 'youth' cultures are 'textualised' and thus potentially destroyed, rather than preserved, in writing, leading to the hypothesis that 'orality' is, essentially, irreproducible as 'literacy'.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 46.2, 2010, 247-48
Rome: Modernity, Postmodernity and Beyond
Edited by Lesley Caldwell and Fabio Camilletti
Italian Perspectives 39•30 September 2018
- ‘As the seat of the Roman Empire, the Catholic Church, Mussolini’s Fascism, and Silvio Berlusconi’s neoliberalism, and as a site of immigration and social diversity, Rome is characterized by complexity... A valuable contribution to the scholarship of one of Europe’s most historically significant and cathected cities and will no doubt be of value to scholars of the Eternal City within both urban and Italian studies.’ — Damien Pollard, Modern Language Review 115.1, 2020, 190-91 (full text online)
Leopardi's Nymphs: Grace, Melancholy, and the Uncanny
Fabio A. Camilletti
Italian Perspectives 28•4 December 2013
- ‘La nuova e apparentemente inusuale costellazione concettuale che fa da impalcatura al libro si dimostra capace di portare alla luce, proprio nel suo essere lievemente sfasata rispetto alle categorie normalmente associate a Leopardi, risvolti inattesi tra le pieghe di un pensiero e di una poesia su cui pure si è venuta depositando una bibliografia sterminata. Per gli snodi teorici e problematici che evidenzia, per i confronti che intavola, il libro si rivela una lettura decisamente appassionante, dove anche le divagazioni più ardite non mancano di trovare spazio e giustificazione all’interno della tesi più generale che le inquadra.’ — Alessandra Aloisi, Oblio IV.16, January 2015, 111-13
- ‘Camilletti not only convincingly answers the question of why Leopardi’s work still speaks to us so powerfully, but also demonstrates the need to reconfigure our understanding of the literary past and tradition in order to follow Walter Benjamin’s advice and 'brush history against the grain'.’ — Damiano Benvegnù, Annali d'Italianistica 32, 2014, 638-40
- ‘Il saggio di Camilletti è il frutto maturo del profondo rinnovamento che gli studi leopardiani hanno vissuto negli ultimi anni, con l’apertura a diversi e inediti orizzonti interpretativi. Molto ci sarebbe da dire sulla ricchezza di letture e di analisi testuali, sempre puntuali, che spaziano dai testi poetici alla prosa filosofica, dagli scritti privati a quelli eruditi. Il lavoro di Camilletti non è di quelli che si possano circoscrivere a un territorio, piccolo o grande che sia; esso delinea invece un percorso dalle molte ramificazioni che mette in gioco, attraversando l’intera opera leopardiana, profonde tensioni e densi nuclei problematici.’ — Franco d'Intino, La Rassegna della Letteratura Italiana 118.2, December 2014, 668-70
- ‘Leopardi studies have undergone a profound renewal in recent years, opening up the prospect of different, unprecedented, interpretative horizons. Fabio A. Camilletti’s monograph makes a substantial contribution to this renewal.’ — Franco d'Intimo, Modern Language Review 110.3, July 2015, 881-82 (full text online)
Edoardo Sanguineti: Literature, Ideology and the Avant-Garde
Edited by Paolo Chirumbolo and John Picchione
Italian Perspectives 26•28 May 2013
- ‘Chirumbolo and Picchione’s impressive volume represents a significant and timely addition to the field, which scholars of Sanguineti will want to follow and explore in the future.’ — Florian Mussgnug, Modern Language Review 111.1, January 2016, 268-70 (full text online)
- ‘This dense but lucid collection makes a timely and valuable contribution to studies of Sanguineti's works and influence. The combination of critical and personal essays will make this volume particularly compelling to scholars interested in Sanguineti's legacy.’ — Mary Migliozzi, Forum Italicum 250-53
- ‘A tre anni dalla scomparsa di Edoardo Sanguineti, Paolo Chirumbolo e John Picchione propongono questo interessantissimo volume dedicato al poeta genovese. I due curatori sono da annoverare fra i più prolifici ed attenti critici letterari sulla neoavanguardia italiana in Nord America... Un’autentica perla, un volume essenziale per chi volesse non solo occuparsi di uno dei guru dello sperimentalismo italiano, ma anche per chi intendesse affrontare il variegato mondo della neoavanguardia italiana con più ampio respiro.’ — Beppe Cavatorta, Annali d'Italianistica 32, 2014, 670-72
Dante and Epicurus: A Dualistic Vision of Secular and Spiritual Fulfilment
George Corbett
Italian Perspectives 25•28 May 2013
- ‘George Corbett's book elegantly and lucidly addresses the relationship of Epicurean philosophy upon Dante's own ethical reasoning. As such, this work fills a gap left open not only in Dante studies, but within wider medieval studies as well, from which, as Corbett reminds us, Epicureanism has long been ignored. [...] While the book tackles issues of a highly philosophical nature, it does so consistently in a clear and accessible style. [...] Corbett's work will appeal not only to Dantists, but to scholars of philosophy, literature, and the Middle Ages, as well. As such, it is an outstanding book that proposes and skilfully realizes a truly ambitious project.’ — Lorenzo Valterza, Medium Aevum LXXXIII.2, 2014, 349-50
- ‘George Corbett approfondisce il rapporto fra Dante e la filosofia epicurea alla luce di un approccio critico più ampio, volto a dimostrare la permanenza, nella Commedia, della visione dualistica dantesca.’ — Giulia Gaimari, L'Alighieri 43, 2014, 165-68
- ‘Considered from the point of view of what Corbett’s book has to say about Dante and one of the—theologically speaking—more problematic spirits on his horizon, it is to be welcomed, its sense of Dante’s appreciation of an Epicurus notable for something other than mere sensuality but wedded, even so, to a species of mortalism making inevitably for his reprobation within the Christian scheme of things emerging from it both clearly and convincingly.’ — John Took, Speculum 89.2, April 2014, 466-68
- ‘George Corbett writes with great clarity and logic, drawing on a wide range of resources from early commentators (among whom he moves with ease) and the whole of Dante’s œuvre to a host of modern Dante critics. Points of comparison and continuity rather than of palinodic rewriting are sought between the Commedia and the ‘minor works’, and the author is bold and confident in his challenges to various prevalent critical assumptions. The ambiguities surrounding Epicurus before and during Dante’s day are persuasively elucidated, with good, nuanced background on mediators such as Cicero, Augustine, and Albert the Great.’ — Jennifer Rushworth, Modern Language Review 109.3, July 2014, 821-22 (full text online)
- ‘L'importante lavoro di George Corbett si propone di indagare in maniera esaustiva l'influenza esercitata dal pensiero filosofico epicureo nell'opera dantesca [...] l'autore si interroga su due questioni fondamentali: quali sono i testi che possono aver influenzato la ricezione di Dante dell'Epicureismo e in che modo il poeta riesce a rappresentare Epicuro e gli epicurei nelle sue opere.’ — Claudia Tardelli Terry, Italian Studies 69.3, November 2014, 449-50
- ‘Corbett's book is well written, accurate, and rigorously argued. The thesis that Dante's Commedia presents a dualistic vision of the fulfilment of mankind is innovative and compelling for a new scholarly criticism of the Commedia. The first part on Dante's reception of Epicureanism is the most persuasive and ground-breaking; it shows how the reconstruction of Dante's sources is essential for understanding his reception of ancient literature and philosophy.’ — Filippo Gianferrari, Annali d'Italianistica 32, 2014, 593-95
- ‘Stunningly readable with potent, clear argumentation, Corbett’s nonetheless highly academic presentation of Dante’s dualism in the context of the poet’s literary integration of the figure and philosophy of Epicurus reads like a page-turner. Furthermore, Corbett’s innovative methodological approach is cradled by a no less than masterful organization throughout the book. [...] The topic and breadth of the book, perhaps, lend themselves better to students and scholars versed well enough with the traditions of the philosophers, biblical exegetes and scholarly commentators that orbit so closely Dante’s works. Readers with a grasp of Latin will take double pleasure in reading volumes of quotes from their original sources as well as in their English translations. Corbett’s book, overall, is a must-have for the bookshelves of the committed dantista.’ — Elsie Emslie Stevens, Italica 41.4, 2014, 833-35
- ‘George Corbett presenta un volume nel quale viene ripercorsa, con ampiezza e profondità di indagine, l’importante questione relativa ai rapporti fra Dante e l’epicureismo […] Il volume di Corbett si configura senza alcun dubbio, quindi, come un serio e notevole tentativo di far luce in modo esaustivo e corretto su un non irrilevante nodo problematico dell’universo filosofico e poetico dantesco, insieme punto d’arrivo di una lunga e ininterrotta tradizione esegetica e punto di partenza per nuovi, auspicabili interventi critici.’ — Armando Bisanti, Studi Medievali series 3 vol 56, 2015, 444-45
Forms of Thinking in Leopardi’s Zibaldone: Religion, Science and Everyday Life in an Age of Disenchantment
Paola Cori
Italian Perspectives 43•23 September 2019
- ‘Paola Cori has come to a powerful and comprehensive synthesis of her research perspective with a monograph which was awarded the AAIS Prize for Italian Studies... The form of Cori’s book is therefore the perfect counterpart to its content, which focuses on the Zibaldone’s formal and conceptual complexity.’ — Martina Piperno, Modern Language Review 116.4, October 2021, 658-60 (full text online)
Boccaccio and the Book: Production and Reading in Italy 1340-1520
Rhiannon Daniels
Italian Perspectives 19•17 July 2009
- ‘This descriptive study provides many details that will benefit any scholar interested in the reception of Boccaccio’s works before the transformations they undergo in the later Cinquecento.’ — Martin Eisner, Renaissance Quarterly 63.2, 2010, 545-46
- ‘Original and highly detailed... Chapter 1 could usefully be recommended to students of the history of the book in Italy for the clarity with which it presents all of the aspects that need to be considered in a discussion of readership, reception, production, and paratext, in both manuscripts and printed books... A significant contribution to the history of the book in Italy.’ — Jane Everson, Modern Language Review 106.2, April 2011, 564-66 (full text online)
- ‘This book is a valuable and stimulating contribution to the reception history of Boccaccio. Particularly interesting is the way that Daniels looks at manuscripts and printed editions that have not been given their due, and the reader will constantly come across intriguing details.’ — K. P. Clarke, Medium Aevum 74, 2010
Fulvio Tomizza: Writing the Trauma of Exile
Marianna Deganutti
Italian Perspectives 38•30 September 2018
- ‘Deganutti’s monograph is a fine and original book whose ultimate merit is to reclaim multilingual, multicultural Tomizza and the exilic predicament of the Istrian borderlands for Italian literature. It is to be hoped that her study will inspire further cross-cultural research on this still contentious and yet incredibly generative literary, historical, and memorial field.’ — Katia Pizzi, Modern Language Review 115.3, July 2020, 736-37 (full text online)
Psychoanalysis, Ideology and Commitment in Italy 1945-1975: Edoardo Sanguineti, Ottiero Ottieri, Andrea Zanzotto
Alessandra Diazzi
Italian Perspectives 51•13 September 2022
- ‘Through her three case studies Diazzi has successfully demonstrated how psychoanalysis penetrated literature and culture in post-war Italy. As she confirms: “The assimilation of psychoanalysis into literature actively contributed to this rewriting of the discipline”.’ — 606-08, Annali d'Italianistica 2023, 41, Katja Liimatta
The Italian Academies 1525-1700: Networks of Culture, Innovation and Dissent
Edited by Jane E. Everson, Denis V. Reidy and Lisa Sampson
Italian Perspectives 31•1 September 2016
- ‘With new archival research, new areas of study, and an innovative approach, Italian Academies challenges preconceived ideas about academies and successfully demonstrates the fundamental role played by these associations in disseminating ideas, culture, innovation, and dissent in the early modern period.’ — Patrizia Bettella, Quaderni d'Italianistica 39.1, 2017, 265-68
Standing at the Crossroads: Stories of Doubt in Renaissance Italy
Marco Faini
Italian Perspectives 58•22 April 2023
Interpreting and Judging Petrarch’s Canzoniere in Early Modern Italy
Edited by Maiko Favaro
Italian Perspectives 49•10 December 2021
- ‘Angesichts des wenig bekannten Textkorpus stellt Favaros Sammelband eine wichtige Bereicherung der Petrarca-Forschung der letzten Jahre dar. Auf der einen Seite wirft das Buch die Frage auf, inwieweit der Begriff des Petrarkismus für die aktuelle Diskussion noch fruchtbar sein kann. Auf der anderen Seite erweist sich Petrarca als eine Funktion, die die Literaturwissenschaft dazu anregt, das Textkorpus zu erweitern, um im Dialog mit anderen Disziplinen auch sonst vernachlässigte Diskurse zu berücksichtigen. Wie Interpreting and judging Petrarch’s Canzoniere in early modern Italy zeigt, ist die Petrarca-Funktion nicht nur in der Lage, wesentliche Teile der italienischen Literaturgeschichte zusammenzufassen, sondern auch neue Perspektiven auf die italienische Kulturgeschichte zu eröffnen.’ — Nicolas Longinotti, Germanische-Romanische Monatsschrift 74.1, 2024, 115-17
- ‘Favaro’s volume is a good place to start to understand the critical phenomena associated with the reception, study, and influence of the Renaissance’s refashioned Canzoniere.’ — H. Wayne Storey, Renaissance and Reformation 46.2, Spring 2024, 216-19 (full text online)
Venetian Inscriptions: Vernacular Writing for Public Display in Medieval and Renaissance Venice
Ronnie Ferguson
Italian Perspectives 50•26 July 2021
- ‘The rigorous standards of the author’s nearly decade-long project will certainly satisfy professional historians, but lay readers too will find themselves thoroughly engaged by the manner in which he uses each inscription vividly to evoke multiple aspects of Venice’s social, religious, cultural and political life, as well as the characters of some remarkable individuals.’ — Roderick Conway Morris, Times Literary Supplement 21 January 2022
- ‘A short review cannot do justice to the rich array of insights and ideas that thread through this fascinating book, nor can it reflect the dedication and time that were needed to compile the catalogue. Ranging from the familiar to the seemingly unnoticed, these inscriptions add myriad fragments to the enormous jigsaw of the townscape of late medieval and Renaissance Venice.’ — Deborah Howard, Burlington Magazine 165, February 2023, 207-08
- ‘The Italian Perspectives series, founded by Zygmunt Barański and Laura Lepschy in 1998, reaches its half-century in impressive fashion with this outstanding work of scholarship... As well as making a major contribution to epigraphy, the volume includes a wealth of information on the urban fabric, society, culture, and language that will make it an invaluable resource for Venetian Studies during the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.’ — Brian Richardson, Modern Language Review 118.2, 2023, 258-60 (full text online)
Il teatro di Eduardo De Filippo: La crisi della famiglia patriarcale
Donatella Fischer
Italian Perspectives 17•14 November 2007
The Tradition of the Actor-Author in Italian Theatre
Edited by Donatella Fischer
Italian Perspectives 27•25 September 2013
- ‘This is a broad-ranging collection of essays from expert contributors... All sixteen articles, while serving to highlight different periods of theatrical history, revolve around what is widely recognized by now as a constant and distinctive feature of Italian theatre: the centrality of the players and their fundamental dramaturgic role.’ — Francesca Savoia, Modern Language Review 110.3, July 2015, 885-87 (full text online)
A 'New' Woman in Verga and Pirandello: From Page to Stage
Enza De Francisci
Italian Perspectives 40•30 September 2018
- ‘Effectively demonstrates that the two Sicilian writers, conventionally thought of as patriarchal figures, have, in their dramatic works, an affinity with the emerging ‘new woman’.’ — Mary Ann Frese Witt, Modern Language Review 115.2, 2020, 470-71 (full text online)
Nelle Carceri di G. B. Piranesi
Silvia Gavuzzo-Stewart
Italian Perspectives 2•31 October 1999
A Gaping Wound: Mourning in Italian Poetry
Edited by Adele Bardazzi, Francesco Giusti, and Emanuela Tandello
Italian Perspectives 54•20 October 2022
- ‘Indagine agile e accattivante, A Gaping Wound fornisce una chiara ed elegante mappatura dell’evoluzione del mourning letterario italiano e si pone come strumento critico innovativo e proficuo a chi voglia conoscere e vagliare il variegato universo della Sehnsucht autoriale postmoderna.’ — 580-82, Annali d'Italianistica 2023, 41, Olimpia Pelosi
Remembering Aldo Moro: The Cultural Legacy of the 1978 Kidnapping and Murder
Edited by Ruth Glynn and Giancarlo Lombardi
Italian Perspectives 23•30 January 2012
Contesting the Monument: The Anti-Illusionist Italian Historical Novel
Ruth Glynn
Italian Perspectives 10•31 July 2005
Laughter from Realism to Modernism: Misfits and Humorists in Pirandello, Svevo, Palazzeschi, and Gadda
Alberto Godioli
Italian Perspectives 34•9 October 2015
Playing with Gender: The Comedies of Goldoni
Maggie Günsberg
Italian Perspectives 7•31 January 2002
Dante Beyond Borders: Contexts and Reception
Edited by Nick Havely and Jonathan Katz with Richard Cooper
Italian Perspectives 52•17 November 2021
From Florence to the Heavenly City: The Poetry of Citizenship in Dante
Claire E. Honess
Italian Perspectives 13•24 May 2006
Rome, 16 October 1943: History, Memory, Literature
Mara Josi 
Italian Perspectives 60•8 August 2023
Chivalry, Academy, and Cultural Dialogues: The Italian Contribution to European Culture
Edited by Stefano Jossa and Giuliana Pieri
Italian Perspectives 37•19 December 2016
- ‘An interesting aspect is the rhythmical alternation of the contributions, organized in an almost Dantesque numerological order. Each section counts six chapters and is opened by an extraordinarily distinguished scholar [...] discussing challenging topics that escape traditional frames of literary studies: vocal transmissions of Petrarch’s verse, Camillo’s theater of memory, and Berni’s Rifacimento of Boiardo’s Innamorato between oral and written language... These eminent scholars and their fifteen fellow authors form a remarkable group shot of different generations of Italianists between two continents.’ — Alessandro Giammei, Renaissance Quarterly 71.9, October 2018, 1196-98
- ‘This broad and enterprising survey is provided by some of the foremost names in early modern Italian Studies... Though the volume is ambitious and highly diverse, editors Stefano Jossa and Giuliana Pieri have ensured a smooth transition of thought between the essays, and the structure of the book itself is instinctive and accessible... A substantial contribution to early modern Italian Studies, and scholars from a range of disciplines will find it a valuable and thought-provoking read.’ — Lucy Rayfield, Modern Language Review 114.1, January 2019, 150-51 (full text online)
Rome Eternal: The City As Fatherland
Guy Lanoue
Italian Perspectives 32•8 June 2015
Dante’s Blood
Anne C. Leone
Italian Perspectives 59•31 August 2023
Renaissance Vegetarianism: The Philosophical Afterlives of Porphyry’s On Abstinence
Cecilia Muratori
Italian Perspectives 46•28 September 2020
- ‘The meticulously researched study of the generation and Renaissance receptions of Porphyry's On Abstinence in Cecilia Muratori's Renaissance Vegetarianism is well worth attention from Romanticists, alongside the Early Modern scholars, Classicists, and Animal Studies scholars that will comprise its main audience... Literal and figurative translations of ethical, philosophical, and dietary ideas upon vegetarianism and veganism connect ancient and Early Modern thought in Muratori's admirable study, with glimpses of Thomas Taylor and Shelley suggesting the future of Porphyry's reception in the Romantic period.’ — Amanda Blake Davis, The Coleridge Bulletin 57, Summer 2021, 141-46
- ‘Muratori’s work provides us not only with an overview of philosophical thinking on vegetarianism from ancient authors to their reception by Renaissance but also with interesting keys to understand the issues that worried intellectuals of those times. Her analysis gives the main clues of the reception of Porphyry’s work and shows how crucial it was for the evolution of vegetarian thinking that is still strongly present in our days. The rigor of the research and the excellent way the contents are presented with a simple but accurate drafting make this work accessible and fascinating for scholars as well for curious readers.’ — Monica Durán Mañas, Mediterranea 7, 2022 (full text online)
- ‘The most celebrated work on animals to emerge from ancient philosophy, Porphyry’s On Abstinence from Killing Animals, argues at length against the Stoics that animals have reason or “inner logos,” in part on the basis of their behavior but also on the basis of the claim that some animals can understand and produce language, or “outer logos.” And this was one of those texts that really was recovered and read avidly in the Renaissance. Just how avidly, and with what consequences, is shown by Cecilia Muratori’s Renaissance Vegetarianism, a wide-ranging, fascinating, and frequently entertaining survey of ideas about animals in this period.’ — Peter Adamson, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie Published online, 2023 (full text online)
- ‘To add to the many merits of Muratori’s accomplishment, the book includes a bibliography that is comprehensive as well as carefully selected. The index of names and subjects is thorough and extremely helpful. The many philosophical discussions never read stiltedly and are always recounted in a thought-provoking and engaging style. Above all, this tour de force on the history of vegetarianism makes the reader reflect on a central question that remains unanswered to this day: can a being that is sentient and rational be legitimately consumed and turned into food?’ — E. Giada Capasso, Modern Language Review 118.3, July 2023, 403-05 (full text online)
Italo Calvino and the Landscape of Childhood
Claudia Nocentini
Italian Perspectives 6•30 November 2000
Ugo Foscolo and English Culture
Sandra Parmegiani
Italian Perspectives 20•12 May 2011
- ‘Partecipe di un consistente e costruttivo dialogo critico con altri studiosi, Parmegiani non trascura di sondare, nel corso della propria disamina, il circostante terreno di ricerca presentando al lettore un resoconto attento ed attuale. Il libro costituisce in questa prospettiva un compendio indispensabile agli studi, tuttora in fieri, sui variegati rapporti intrattenuti da Foscolo con la cultura inglese. A questo elaborato mosaico Parmegiani ha avuto il merito di aggiungere con la propria indagine un autorevole tassello mancante.’ — Maria Giulia Carone, Annali d'Italianistica 2012
- ‘A well written and highly informative account of Foscolo's career... Most readers of The Shandean will think of Foscolo predominantly as the translator of Sterne: it is fascinating to read of his attempts to make a literary career in London in the last decade of his life where, encouraged by John Cam Hobhouse, he crosses paths (and often swords) with such luminaries as Wordsworth, Byron, Samuel Rogers, Thomas Moore, John Murray, and Sir Walter Scott.’ — W. G. Day, The Shandean 167-72
- ‘This book proves itself to be extremely important for a more global and at the same detailed analysis of Italian proto-Romanticism and Romanticism from a comparatively European viewpoint... The result is a convincing portrayal of Foscolo’s relationship with English culture, which will surely be helpful for both the Italian and Anglo-Saxon scholarships in Italian studies, as well as for the broader community of scholars in eighteenth-century and Romantic studies.’ — Fabio Camilletti, Journal of Modern Italian Studies 18.3, 2013, 364-65
Pasolini after Dante: The 'Divine Mimesis' and the Politics of Representation
Emanuela Patti
Italian Perspectives 35•1 September 2016
Saracens and their World in Boiardo and Ariosto
Maria Pavlova
Italian Perspectives 47•28 September 2020
- ‘This carefully-researched monograph achieves its aim of offering “a comprehensive insight” into the vast system of pagan characters within the romance epics of Boiardo and Ariosto... Scholars and graduate students invested in the Este and the Italian chivalric poem will be the most likely to follow the fine-grained analyses of the incredible genealogy and fictional heroes. The broader strokes will interest specialists in adjacent languages and fields. Pavlova’s results should be made available also to undergraduates, albeit in more accessible forms, when we teach these spacious poems from Renaissance Ferrara.’ — Jennifer Kathleen Mackenzie, Annali d'Italianistica 39, 2021, 514-516
- ‘Scholars have usually highlighted an opposition between Boiardo’s admired representation of the Saracen world and its negative portrayal in Ariosto’s poem, and have interpreted these different approaches in the light of the historical, political, and religious transformations that took place in Italy between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Pavlova aims to challenge this reading by reconsidering the close relationship between Italy and the Islamic world through an original postcolonial perspective, and by reading the two poems in the context of the literary tradition to which they belong.’ — Francesco Lucioli, Modern Language Review 118.2, 2023, 260-61 (full text online)
Narrative Strategies for Participation in Dante's Divine Comedy
Katherine Powlesland
Italian Perspectives 53•13 September 2022
- ‘Drawing inspiration from second-wave cognitivist theories and particularly from embodied cognition, Powlesland proposes a new and fresh way to analyse the Comedy as a participatory text. The scholar achieves this by innovatively borrowing concepts and views from video games studies and adapting them to literary criticism... a strong contribution to Dante Studies, achieved through an innovative and unexpected perspective that bridges the gap between literary studies and videoludic criticism. As such, it is a cutting-edge text both in method and in content.’ — Mattia Bellini, Italian Studies 79.1, 2024, 100-01 (full text online)
- ‘Powlesland’s study offers an original approach to some of the most well-worn threads of investigation in Dante criticism. Revisiting the last century of Anglophone criticism’s most essential narratological puzzles, Powlesland presents a fresh perspective, one that reinvests the body with its critical role in reading, and that draws on current research in cognitive science and video game theory to complement rigorous analysis of the poem’s narrative structure.’ — Elizabeth Coggeshall, Italica 100.3, 2023, 458-60 (full text online)
Staging the Soul: Allegorical Drama as Spiritual Practice in Baroque Italy
Eugenio Refini
Italian Perspectives 48•22 January 2023
The Printed Media in Fin-de-siècle Italy: Publishers, Writers, and Readers
Edited by Ann Hallamore Caesar, Gabriella Romani, and Jennifer Burns
Italian Perspectives 21•6 July 2011
- ‘The portrayal of the fin-de-siècle offered by this volume is more articulate and dynamic than the one traditionally depicted... The compelling issues tackled in this volume, together with its thought-provoking approaches, cast a new light on some significant traits of fin-de-siècle Italy.’ — Morena Corradi, Journal of Modern Italian Studies 17.5, 2012, 650-652
- ‘This collection cogently illustrates how the emerging study of material culture can illuminate fundamental discussions on the development of a national identity... Rather than focusing narrowly on authors and their literary production, these essays paint a vivid picture of the broader world in which these writers lived. In doing so, they show the development of national and cultural identification becoming inextricably linked to the rise of print media and the cultural industry as a whole.’ — Laura A. Salsini, Italica 2013, 304-05
- ‘This excellent collection of essays (thirteen in all, five written in Italian, eight in English) focuses on the context in which printed media (books, magazines, news- papers, journals) were shaped and appeared at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. The text as material object is privileged, while the approach is interdisciplinary. The end result is a different, and more complete, appreciation of the various texts considered here than would be afforded by an analysis confined to content or style.’ — Ursula A. Fanning, Modern Language Review 109.3, July 2014, 824-26 (full text online)
Caravaggio in Film and Literature: Popular Culture's Appropriation of a Baroque Genius
Laura Rorato
Italian Perspectives 30•1 November 2014
Pastoral Drama in Early Modern Italy: The Making of a New Genre
Lisa Sampson
Italian Perspectives 15•5 September 2006
- ‘Handsomely produced (a tribute to its publishers and copy-editor), meticulously researched, agreeably written,with copious notes, a generous bibliography, and English translationsof all the original quotations, it is packed full with fascinating and thought-provoking information.’ — Eric Haywood, Modern Language Review 103.4, October 2008, 1138 (full text online)
- ‘Vanno complimentati, infine, anche gli editori di Legenda (la fruttuosa collaborazione tra Maney Publishing e la Modern Humanities Research Association) che hanno curato questa pubblicazione impeccabile, e che hanno dato ampio spazio — scelta felice — ai citati originali in italiano (provveduti sempre di una traduzione inglese della stessa studiosa). In aggiunta alle note concise poste alla fine di ogni capitolo, la bibliografia e l’indice generale che concludono il libro costituiranno un utile strumento di consultazione ai molti studenti e ricercatori che troveranno una ricchissima fonte d’informazioni preziose (dalla descrizione meticolosa delle innumerevoli opere individuali, al contesto sociale, culturale e politico sempre ottimamente documentato) in questa monografia, la quale combina una chiarezza di argomentazione con un’analisi sfaccettata di un fenomeno significativo — se non proprio determinante — nel campo culturale della prima epoca moderna.’ — Rolien Scheffer, Italian Studies 64.2, Autumn 2009
Origin and Identity: Essays on Svevo and Trieste
Elizabeth Schächter
Italian Perspectives 5•1 November 2000
The Letters of Giacomo Leopardi 1817-1837
Edited by Prue Shaw
Italian Perspectives 1•30 September 1998
Futurism: A Microhistory
Edited by Sascha Bru, Luca Somigli, and Bart Van den Bossche
Italian Perspectives 36•29 September 2017
- ‘The chapter structure is cleverly designed to replicate a ‘day in the life’ of a Futurist ‘new man’, with chapters focusing on places both large and small from ‘The Skyscraper’ to ‘The Bed’... This book was a pleasure to read and will reward both the serious scholar of Futurism and the more casual reader of twentieth-century Italian culture who may wish to dip in and out of the Futurist day.’ — Selena Daly, Modern Language Review 114.3, July 2019, 577-579 (full text online)
Dante and Petrarch in the Garden of Language
Francesca Southerden
Italian Perspectives 57•13 September 2022
Sweet Thunder: Music and Libretti in 1960s Italy
Vivienne Suvini-Hand
Italian Perspectives 16•7 December 2006
- ‘Chapter 7 displays the dominating element of the five compositions: the reassertion of spiritual values over the material values of 1960s Italy. This distinctive tone makes these compositions uniquely commendable for further investigations into their influence on Italy’s artistic canon.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 47.1, January 2011
- ‘A welcome addition to the literature on recent opera, valuable to both the musicologist and the literary scholar... The literary readings are so detailed and sophisticated that it is impossible to do justice to them here... Definitely recommended reading for those with an interest in post-war Italian culture.’ — Emiliano Ricciardi, Cambridge Opera Journal 20.3, 299-302
Gadda and Beckett: Storytelling, Subjectivity and Fracture
Katrin Wehling-Giorgi
Italian Perspectives 29•1 November 2014
- ‘Katrin Wehling-Giorgi’s comparative reading of the works of two giants of European literature is both enlightening and fascinating... The book is written in an elegant style and has the great merit of spelling out with admirable clarity the philosophical implications of Gadda’s and Beckett’s narrative projects.’ — Olivia Santovetti, Modern Language Review 112.1, January 2017, 225-27 (full text online)
Unidentified Narrative Objects and the New Italian Epic
Kate Elizabeth Willman
Italian Perspectives 42•25 February 2019
Speculative Identities: Contemporary Italian Women’s Narrative
Rita Wilson
Italian Perspectives 3•1 November 2000