Warwick Studies in the Humanities – serie

Italian writer and political activist Ignazio Silone spent fifteen years from 1929 to 1944 as a political exile in Switzerland. Focusing on this period, this book throws new light on Silone's complex biography and shows how his literary production influenced and was influenced by fellow antifascist German émigrés and the Swiss socialist intelligentsia. Using previously unknown archival materials, letters, and diaries, and following a flexible chronological structure, the book examines the developing role Silone played in the intellectual life of Zurich. Its analysis of Silone's links with 'Bauhaus' circles, disciples of C.J. Jung, and Zurich's socialist city council offers an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective on Silone's exile that both questions and celebrates his status as an 'un-Italian' Italian author. Holmes also considers wider topics such as the functions of the engagé writer in times of crisis, the dynamics of cultural transfer through translation, and the phenomenon of exile literature. Italian antifascist exile writing is an area of Italian literature that has never been explored as an entity. With its painstaking archival research and critical approach to the pioneering methods and results of German 'Exilforschung,' Ignazio Silone in Exile opens the way for further studies on this little known aspect of Italian emigration culture.

Illuminating Eco covers the range of British scholarship on the prolific literary and theoretical work of Umberto Eco. With essays by scholars such as Michael Caesar and David Robey, the volume provides an overview of current research being carried out by a new generation of academics. In addition, it provides an opportunity to view the interaction between Eco's fiction and his theoretical texts and suggests future avenues of research. The interdisciplinary nature of the contributions makes this collection accessible to Italianists and non-Italian speakers alike in order to situate Eco's work in the wider literary and critical sphere. Contributions have been divided into four sections, with the first containing essays that engage with Eco's writing through a strong awareness of the reading strategies suggested and required by his texts. The second section is composed of essays that discuss different approaches to interpretative strategies, including the relationship between Eco's theoretical writing and his own fiction. The third part consists of new responses to Eco's work, each of which questions previous theoretical interpretations and creates new applications for established approaches. Finally, the fourth section contains a written response from Eco himself to some of the questions raised by these essays, and a translation of the final chapter from his most recent publication, Sulla letteratura, which discusses the development of his narrative works from conception to execution.

This is the first extended treatment of the English translations, stagings, and reception of the political plays of Dario Fo and Franca Rame. Focusing on the United Kingdom and the United States, Stefania Taviano offers a critique of the cultural stereotyping and political conservatism that have pursued these playwrights in translation and argues for the possibility of remaining true to Fo and Rame's political commitment while preserving the comic nature of their plays. Taviano shows how the choices made by the translators and stagers of Fo and Rame's political theatre reveal attitudes toward foreign cultures and theatre generally and Italy in particular. Among the questions she poses are 'What characterizes the process of acculturation that takes place when political theatre is transposed from one culture to another?' 'To what extent are images of foreign literary production affected by dominant translation practices and theatre traditions?' Perhaps most important, 'What constitutes political theatre in a given society, and how are such definitions used to categorize and contain theatre texts that are disturbing, challenging, and difficult to stage?' Her book concludes with an investigation of the meaning of Fo and Rame's political theatre today that points the way for future critical studies of the politics behind the translation and stage production of political theatre outside its culture of origin.

This volume of ten essays discusses the pivotal role that letters have played in social, economic and political history from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. The recent scholarly interest in the history of reading has as yet yielded few studies which consider letters as a category of readable material. The contributors to this book seek to redress this oversight, viewing letters as texts which can reveal information, not only about their writers and readers, but about the wider historical context in which they were written. Topics covered include the mercantile letter, diplomatic correspondence, and what these epistolary forms suggest about the rise of a polite, literate culture in the eighteenth century; the experience of immigration from Europe to America during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the relationship through the letter; and the working of gender in the epistolary form. Rebecca Earle provides an overview of how the study of letter-writing can open up new avenues of historical as well as literary investigation. This, together with contributions form leading international scholars, makes Epistolary Selves an essential text for those researching the letter genre.

This book is based on a conference held in Warwick in July 1995. It is a collection of essays which explore various aspects of George Eliot's relation to the literature and culture of Continental Europe. The essays range widely over the novelist's life and work, examining her Journals and Impressions of Theophratus Such as well as her novels, and focusing on different countries and cultures, including not only France, Germany and Italy, but also Holland and Spain. Some essays examine the complex general issues of language and culture raised in her work, while others concentrate on her response to specific European writers and texts. There are investigations of intertextualities and possibilities of influence, as well as contextual discussions and comparative readings of her novels alongside works by European writers. The overall effect is to illuminate her writing by setting it in the wider European context which, with her knowledge of languages, her travels and her extraordinary wide reading, she knew so well.

Beginning with the question of the role of the past in the shaping of a contemporary identity, this volumes spans three generations of German and Austrian writers and explores changes and shifts in the aesthetics of Vergangenheitsbewältigung (coming to terms with the past). The purpose of the book is to assess contemporary German literary representations of National Socialism in a wider context of these current debates. The contributors address questions arising from a shift over the last decade, triggered by a generation change-questions of personal and national identity in Germany and Austria, and the aesthetics of memory. One of the central questions that emerges in relation to the Hitler youth generation is that of biography, as examined through Günter Grass' and Martin Walser's conflicting views on the subject of National Socialism. Other themes explored here are the conflict between the post-war generations and the contributions of that conflict to (West)-German mentality, and the growing historical distance and its influence on the aesthetics of representation.

Italian writer and political activist Ignazio Silone spent fifteen years from 1929 to 1944 as a political exile in Switzerland. Focusing on this period, this book throws new light on Silone's complex biography and shows how his literary production influenced and was influenced by fellow antifascist German émigrés and the Swiss socialist intelligentsia. Using previously unknown archival materials, letters, and diaries, and following a flexible chronological structure, the book examines the developing role Silone played in the intellectual life of Zurich. Its analysis of Silone's links with 'Bauhaus' circles, disciples of C.J. Jung, and Zurich's socialist city council offers an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective on Silone's exile that both questions and celebrates his status as an 'un-Italian' Italian author. Holmes also considers wider topics such as the functions of the engagé writer in times of crisis, the dynamics of cultural transfer through translation, and the phenomenon of exile literature. Italian antifascist exile writing is an area of Italian literature that has never been explored as an entity. With its painstaking archival research and critical approach to the pioneering methods and results of German 'Exilforschung,' Ignazio Silone in Exile opens the way for further studies on this little known aspect of Italian emigration culture.

Illuminating Eco covers the range of British scholarship on the prolific literary and theoretical work of Umberto Eco. With essays by scholars such as Michael Caesar and David Robey, the volume provides an overview of current research being carried out by a new generation of academics. In addition, it provides an opportunity to view the interaction between Eco's fiction and his theoretical texts and suggests future avenues of research. The interdisciplinary nature of the contributions makes this collection accessible to Italianists and non-Italian speakers alike in order to situate Eco's work in the wider literary and critical sphere. Contributions have been divided into four sections, with the first containing essays that engage with Eco's writing through a strong awareness of the reading strategies suggested and required by his texts. The second section is composed of essays that discuss different approaches to interpretative strategies, including the relationship between Eco's theoretical writing and his own fiction. The third part consists of new responses to Eco's work, each of which questions previous theoretical interpretations and creates new applications for established approaches. Finally, the fourth section contains a written response from Eco himself to some of the questions raised by these essays, and a translation of the final chapter from his most recent publication, Sulla letteratura, which discusses the development of his narrative works from conception to execution.

This is the first extended treatment of the English translations, stagings, and reception of the political plays of Dario Fo and Franca Rame. Focusing on the United Kingdom and the United States, Stefania Taviano offers a critique of the cultural stereotyping and political conservatism that have pursued these playwrights in translation and argues for the possibility of remaining true to Fo and Rame's political commitment while preserving the comic nature of their plays. Taviano shows how the choices made by the translators and stagers of Fo and Rame's political theatre reveal attitudes toward foreign cultures and theatre generally and Italy in particular. Among the questions she poses are 'What characterizes the process of acculturation that takes place when political theatre is transposed from one culture to another?' 'To what extent are images of foreign literary production affected by dominant translation practices and theatre traditions?' Perhaps most important, 'What constitutes political theatre in a given society, and how are such definitions used to categorize and contain theatre texts that are disturbing, challenging, and difficult to stage?' Her book concludes with an investigation of the meaning of Fo and Rame's political theatre today that points the way for future critical studies of the politics behind the translation and stage production of political theatre outside its culture of origin.

In reconstructing the history of Modern Spiritualism, scholars have largely focused on its Anglo-American, French, and German developments, often overlooking the Italian context. Modern Spiritualism in Italian Literature and Culture (1765–1969) challenges this perspective by examining the Italian case as a space of intersection between transnational currents of thought and deeply rooted cultural traditions. From the Enlightenment to the occult revival of the 1960s, Modern Spiritualism in Italy engaged with scientific discourse, philosophical speculation, literary imagination, and Catholic doctrine, producing a hybrid intellectual landscape that remains largely understudied. This volume traces the circulation and transformation of spiritualist ideas across different media and disciplines, analysing their impact on literature, psychology, and science. By situating Italy within the broader European and transatlantic networks of occult knowledge, Modern Spiritualism in Italian Literature and Culture provides a new vantage point from which to rethink the historical evolution of modernity, belief, and the supernatural.

Beginning with the question of the role of the past in the shaping of a contemporary identity, this volumes spans three generations of German and Austrian writers and explores changes and shifts in the aesthetics of Vergangenheitsbewältigung (coming to terms with the past). The purpose of the book is to assess contemporary German literary representations of National Socialism in a wider context of these current debates. The contributors address questions arising from a shift over the last decade, triggered by a generation change-questions of personal and national identity in Germany and Austria, and the aesthetics of memory. One of the central questions that emerges in relation to the Hitler youth generation is that of biography, as examined through Günter Grass' and Martin Walser's conflicting views on the subject of National Socialism. Other themes explored here are the conflict between the post-war generations and the contributions of that conflict to (West)-German mentality, and the growing historical distance and its influence on the aesthetics of representation.