Dissertations and Theses @ UNI
Availability
Open Access Thesis
Keywords
Calvino, Italo--Criticism and interpretation; Calvino, Italo; Criticism, interpretation, etc;
Abstract
Italo Calvino is a twentieth-century writer whose work reflects a transition from realism or neorealism to postmodernism. This thesis will explore how that shift occurred. I will show how Calvino's early fascination with form, especially the techniques of oral storytelling, led to a later focus on form in his boldly experimental works. In the first chapter I will point out the early signs of fantasy in Calvino's neorealistic novel, The Path to the Nest of Spiders. This novel's affinity to folktales and use of fantasy foretell Calvino's subsequent contributions to these literary genres. I will discuss how Calvino's work with fantasy forms and folktales during the next fifteen years prepared for and prompted his experimental novels of the mid-1960's. I will show how Calvino became fascinated with the embedding of stories within stories within stories, with the number of variants of typical stories, and with the way in which magical objects and events could enter and suddenly alter earthly existence. I will also examine how Calvino experimented during this period with different types of narrators and their relationships to the writer and reader. Chapter II of this thesis delineates Calvino's bold experimental works on the theme of evolution. I will demonstrate how Calvino's interest in the evolution of the universe is paralleled by his own evolution of new literary forms. In Chapter III, I will discuss how Calvino's fascination with forms eventually led'him to join Oulipo, a group which advocates the adoption of rigorous formal constraints for the achievement of imaginative fiction. I will describe Calvino's association with Oulipo and his work published after the beginning of that association. The particular focus of this chapter is on Calvino's use of combinatorics, numbering systems, and geometrical structural patterns. I also will show how Calvino's view of the changing nature of the relationship of author and reader is reflected in his later works. I read the works by Calvino in English translations. All of Calvino's novels, short stories, essays and reviews available in English were read. In addition, I researched the scholarly and critical literature about Calvino, fantasy, and postmodern literature.
Year of Submission
1987
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Department of English Language and Literature
First Advisor
Daniel Cahill
Second Advisor
Phyllis Scott Carlin
Date Original
1987
Object Description
1 PDF file (98 leaves)
Copyright
©1987 Ann Ellsworth
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Ellsworth, Ann, "Italo Calvino: A Writer Fascinated With Form" (1987). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 2591.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/2591
Comments
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