Italian Modernism: Italian Culture between Decadentism and Avant-Garde (Toronto Italian Studies) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802086020 ISBN 13: 9780802086020

Publisher: University of Toronto Press, 2004

Synopsis

Italian Modernism was written in response to the need for an historiographic and theoretical reconsideration of the concepts of Decadentismo and the avant-garde within the Italian critical tradition. Focussing on the confrontation between these concepts and the broader notion of international modernism, the essays in this important collection seek to understand this complex phase of literary and artistic practices as a response to the epistemes of philosophical and scientific modernity at the end of the nineteenth century and in the first three decades of the twentieth.

Intellectually provocative, this collection is the first attempt in the field of Italian Studies at a comprehensive account of Italian literary modernism. Each contributor documents how previous critical categories, employed to account for the literary, artistic, and cultural experiences of the period, have provided only partial and inadequate descriptions, preventing a fuller understanding of the complexities and the interrelations among the cultural phenomena of the time.

About this title

About the Authors

Luca Somigli is an associate professor in the Department of Italian Studies at the University of Toronto.

Mario Moroni is the Paul and Marilyn Paganucci assistant professor in the Department of French and Italian at Colby College.

From the Back Cover

'Italian Modernism is a seminal volume which explores neglected fields of inquiry and points to new interpretive directions for canonical works. The collection includes a variety of approaches to a wide range of issues that cross chronological and disciplinary boundaries, and thus offers to the specialist a rich sample of the latest scholarship on Italian modernism. At the same time, thanks greatly to a thorough, reader-friendly introduction, it provides an invaluable tool for new students. An especially important contribution of the volume is that it underscores the need to examine modernism in light of the cultural discourses that preceded and followed it... It is a landmark contribution to an important, and still very much topical field of inquiry.'

From the Inside Flap

'Italian Modernism is a seminal volume which explores neglected fields of inquiry and points to new interpretive directions for canonical works. The collection includes a variety of approaches to a wide range of issues that cross chronological and disciplinary boundaries, and thus offers to the specialist a rich sample of the latest scholarship on Italian modernism. At the same time, thanks greatly to a thorough, reader-friendly introduction, it provides an invaluable tool for new students. An especially important contribution of the volume is that it underscores the need to examine modernism in light of the cultural discourses that preceded and followed it... It is a landmark contribution to an important, and still very much topical field of inquiry.'

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802086020
• ISBN 13: 9780802086020
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 488
• Editor: Somigli Luca, Moroni Mario