The Cambridge Companion to the Italian Novel

The Cambridge Companion to the Italian Novel provides a broad ranging introduction to the major trends in the development of the Italian novel from its early modern origin to the contemporary era. Contributions cover a wide range of topics including the theory of the novel in Italy, the historical novel, realism, modernism, postmodernism, neorealism, and film and the novel. The contributors are distinguished scholars from the United Kingdom, the United States, Italy, and Australia. Novelists examined include some of the most influential and important of the twentieth century inside and outside Italy: Luigi Pirandello, Primo Levi, Umberto Eco and Italo Calvino. This is a unique examination of the Italian Novel, and will prove invaluable to students and specialists alike. Readers will gain a keen sense of the vitality of the Italian novel throughout its history and a clear picture of the debates and criticism that have surrounded its development.

• Covers a wide range of topics in a clear and comprehensive way • The volume is well supported by a detailed chronology and bibliography • Contributions are provided by acknowledged specialists on Italian literature

Chronology; Introduction; 1. The belated development of a theory of the novel in Italian literary culture Remo Cesarini and Pierluigi Pellini; 2. The forms of long prose fiction in late medieval and early modern Italian literature Albert N. Mancini; 3. Alessandro Manzoni and developments in the historical novel Olga Ragusa; 4. Literary realism in Italy: Verga, Capuana, and verismo Giovanni Carsaniga; 5. Popular fiction between Italian unification and world war I Nicolas J. Perella; 6. The foundations of Italian modernism: Pirandello Svevo, Gadda Robert Dombroski; 7. Neorealist narrative: experience and experiment Lucia Re; 8. Memory and testimony in Primo Levi and Giorgio Bassani JoAnn Cannon; 9. The Italian novel in search of identity: history versus reality - Lampedusa and Pasolini Manuela Bertone; 10. Feminist writing in the twentieth century Sharon Wood; 11. Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco: postmodern masters Peter Bondanella; 12. Literary cineastes: the Italian novel and the cinema Rolando Caputo; 13. Frontier, exile, and migration in the contemporary Italian novel Andrea Ciccarelli; 14. The new Italian novel Rocco Capozzi.

\'The editors of this welcome volume address themselves to an English-speaking public, specialist and non-specialist alike … likely to be of interest to specialist, student, and general audiences … attractively produced addition to the large series of Cambridge Companions … useful reference work, especially for undergraduate courses and for the general reader.\' Italian Studies