Introduction to Twentieth Century Italian Literature: A Difficult Modernity (New Readings Series) - Softcover

Robert S.C. Gordon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0715634372 ISBN 13: 9780715634370

Publisher: Bristol Classical Press, 2005

Synopsis

Twentieth-century Italy was marked by a profound and often convulsive transformation in both society and culture, accompanied at various stages by war, violence and dictatorship. This was Italy's 'difficult' entry into modernity. The voices of Italian literature responded to this transformation with a bewildering combination of excitement and anxiety, from the loud embrace of the new in Futurism to melancholy laments for tradition. In the process, some of the greatest works of modern literature were created.

Robert Gordon offers a vivid overview of the century's literature, charting a series of motifs of Italy's 'difficult modernity' - from war to the city, from language to geography, from marginal groups to avant-garde movements - through a wide array of writers and texts.

New Readings series - provides short accessible introductions to European literature and culture.

About this title

About the Author

Robert S.C. Gordon is Head of Department of Italian, Professor of Modern Italian Culture, and Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge, UK. His publications include Primo Levi's Ordinary Virtues, The Cambridge Companion to Primo Levi, The Holocaust in Italian Culture, 1944-2010, and on cinema, Pasolini: Forms of Subjectivity. He is co-editor of Culture, Censorship and the State in 20th-Century Italy.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bristol Classical Press
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0715634372
• ISBN 13: 9780715634370
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160