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Ruralism in Central Italian Writers, 1927-1997: From Strapaese Landscapes to the Gendering of Nature: F. Tombari, P. Volponi, C. Cassola, R. Petri

par Best, David Albert
Référence Ancona University Press, Ancona, Italie, Ed. 1
Publication Publié, 2010-05-01

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Résumé :

The central Italian writers Tombari, Volponi, Cassola, and Petri, influenced by landscape, traditional ruralism, and the lively social, cultural and political debate on the passing of an era of peasantry to one of industry, simultaneously ‘produce’ a natural and social landscape in the works analysed here, playing a significant role in defining a collective consciousness: a local identity and a sense of region. Offering a region-based study of literature and cultural history, Ruralism in Central Italian Writers identifies decisive issues pertaining to sociology and cultural geography through the analysis of written representations of central Italy. The book debates the notion that three types of Italian rural fiction prevail, the first reacting to ‘urban’ modernity, the second urging revolution in order to overturn rural conditions, the third addressing ecology and post-developmental transactions between ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ phenomena. Theoretically informed by cultural geography and ecofeminism, the study employs a methodology based on close textual analysis supported by narratology, literary criticism and social studies to investigate the intersections between ideology and writing on the rural.David Albert Best graduated in European Studies, Languages and Literatures in 1999 from University College Cork, with a dissertation on Central Italian agrarian geography and culture. Between 1999 and 2000, based in Macerata and Fermo, he taught English at various secondary schools and worked as a translator. He then undertook a PhD in Italian Cultural Studies (Cork) as a three-year IRCHSS* Postgraduate Scholar with a thesis on Representations of rurality in 20th-century central Italian literature. He has published on Volponi (‘Conflicting Rural Utopias: Post-War Marche in Paolo Volponi’s La macchina mondiale’, U. of Edinburgh, 2004), Petri (‘A Matriarchal Reading of Alle Case Venie: Petri’s Challenge to Conventional Representations of the Female Peasant’, Cambridge SP, 2006), Tombari (‘Frusaglia and Gli animali: Nature and Strapaese in Fabio Tombari’, Troubador, 2007), and Cassola (‘“Destinate a patire”: The Contemplation of Female Bodies From Perfection to Pain in Carlo Cassola’s Paura e tristezza’, Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2007). Having lectured on Italian Culture and Literature at the Universities of Cork, St Andrews (Scotland), and Trinity College Dublin, D.A.B. now teaches English Language and Literary Translation at the University of Naples “L’Orientale”.