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105-570: The definition was made by Italian writers collectively known as Wu Ming in March 2008, during the work on 'Up Close & Personal', a seminar on contemporary Italian literature held at McGill University in Montreal , Canada. Over the next few days the writers proposed and discussed the expression in debates at other North American colleges, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, within

210-689: A New Italian Epic , in: Garin Dowd e Natalia Rulyova (ed.), Genre Trajectories: Identifying, Mapping, Projecting, MacMillan 2015. Kevin Potter, Utopian Registers of the New Italian Epic. Wu Ming and the Socially-Symbolic Act , in: Incontri – Rivista europea di studi italiani, 30(1):76, luglio 2015. David Ward, Contemporary Italian Narrative and 1970s Terrorism: Stranger Than Fact, MacMillan 2017. Kate Elizabeth Wilman, Unidentified Narrative Objects and

315-477: A connection between crises in Italian crime writing and attempt to define a new narrative. Valerio Evangelisti , in a long article in L'Unità , described the various ways in which it is possible to achieve a poetic outcome that he has called 'maximalist'. 'Speaking through systems, historico-geographical frameworks, visions of entire societies, cosmic impulses. One can resort to forms of adventure narrative, as long as

420-530: A faint reflection of the very rich legendary literature of France . Some attention should be paid to the Lettere of Fra Guittone d'Arezzo, who wrote many poems and also some letters in prose, the subjects of which are moral and religious. Guittone's love of antiquity and the traditions of Rome and its language was so strong that he tried to write Italian in a Latin style. The letters are obscure, involved and altogether barbarous. Guittone took as his special model Seneca

525-508: A fictionalized autobiography about his time on the run. The book was made into a film in 2003 , directed by Andrea Manni , with Daniele Liotti as Carlotto. His most famous character is the Alligator, alias Marco Buratti, an entirely original private detective. In 1998 he published Le irregolari , the autobiographical novel of inquiry in which is told the Argentine civil war and repression of

630-548: A great allegory of the current historical phase. In the memorandum, the catalogue of NIE characteristics is followed by a reflection on allegory, which flows into an exhortation to imagine the future and the extinction of the human species with an approach that the author defines as 'ecocentric', and describes as a 'systematic recourse' to the rhetorical figure of the pathetic fallacy , i.e. the attribution to inanimate objects and creatures without consciousness of thoughts and emotions equal to those of human beings. The appearance of

735-486: A great development in the history of Italian art, especially because of his close connection with Dante's lyric poetry . In the 13th century, there were several major allegorical poems . One of these is by Brunetto Latini : his Tesoretto is a short poem, in seven-syllable verses, rhyming in couplets, in which the author is lost in a wilderness and meets a lady, who represents Nature and gives him much instruction. Francesco da Barberino wrote two little allegorical poems,

840-513: A greater interest in the dark sides of the country's national history, and has in turn exhorted them to move towards a 'new frontier that is not only physical (new environments, new worlds to create and explore) and it is not only narrative (new plots, new adventures, different montage techniques, themes and extreme emotions), but also stylistic (new words, new constructions) in [...] mutating novels. Massimo Carlotto , in Il Manifesto , established

945-402: A literary manifesto, by virtue of the fact that it contains a classification. According to the author and other participants in the debate, the term 'manifesto' is misleading, because this is a document in the form of a pamphlet that does not herald a movement of authors or prescribe anything, but describes a posteriori a dialogue between already existing books, delineating the characteristics of

1050-455: A literature aimed at national objects. Patriotism and classicism were the two principles that inspired the literature that began with the Italian dramatist and poet Vittorio Alfieri . The Romantic movement had as its organ the Conciliatore , established in 1818 at Milan. The main instigator of the reform was the Italian poet and novelist Alessandro Manzoni . The great Italian poet of the age

1155-492: A novel about [Italian] darkness: Mattei, ENI, Cefis, the strategy of tension . Now we’ve gotten Saviano, with an impressive acceleration over the past few years. Lucarelli, Siti, De Cataldo, Evangelisti, Wu Ming. Many started out with noir, following the idea of Leonardo Sciascia and the American thriller: using crime as a grid for reality. They have come much further, to the most important cultural current that Italy remembers since

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1260-453: A quel niodo Ch'ei detta dentro, vo significando : that is, in a power of expressing the feelings of the soul in the way in which love inspires them, in an appropriate and graceful manner, fitting form to matter, and by art fusing one with the other. This a neo-platonic approach widely endorsed by Dolce Stil Novo , and although in Cavalcanti's case, it can be upsetting and even destructive, it

1365-406: A series of works that go beyond post-modernism, 'NIE is only one of the many, good and different things that are happening today in Italian literature', as the preface to edition 2.0 puts it. The characteristics of NIE listed in the memorandum are seven in number, preceded by some premisses seen as a conceptual framework. These premisses concern historical and geographical specificities: this part of

1470-467: A style of poetry that stood strongly against the medieval mystic and chivalrous style. The sonnets of Rustico di Filippo are half-fun and half-satire, as is the work of Cecco Angiolieri of Siena, the oldest known humorist. Another type of poetry also began in Tuscany. Guittone d'Arezzo made art quit chivalry and Provençal forms for national motives and Latin forms. He attempted political poetry and prepared

1575-557: A type of poetry that perished or was smothered by the ancient Sicilian literature. The poems of the Sicilian school were written in the first known standard Italian. This was elaborated by these poets under the direction of Frederick II and combines many traits typical of the Sicilian, and to a lesser extent, Apulian dialects and other southern dialects, with many words of Latin and French origin. Dante's styles illustre, cardinale, aulico, curiale were developed from his linguistic study of

1680-621: A type of verse marked by assonance , a poetic device more widespread in Northern Europe. Jacopone da Todi was a poet who represented the religious feeling that had made special progress in Umbria . Jacopone was possessed by St. Francis's mysticism, but was also a satirist who mocked the corruption and hypocrisy of the Church. The religious movement in Umbria was followed by another literary phenomenon,

1785-484: Is Composizione del mondo , a scientific book by Ristoro d'Arezzo , who lived about the middle of the 13th century. Another short treatise exists: De regimine rectoris , by Fra Paolino , a Minorite friar of Venice, who was bishop of Pozzuoli , and who also wrote a Latin chronicle. His treatise stands in close relation to that of Egidio Colonna , De regimine principum . It is written in Venetian . The 13th century

1890-533: Is Io m'aggio posto in core , by Giacomo da Lentini, the head of the movement, but there is also poetry written by Frederick himself. Giacomo da Lentini is also credited with inventing the sonnet , a form later perfected by Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio . The censorship imposed by Frederick meant that no political matter entered literary debate. In this respect, the poetry of the north, still divided into communes or city-states with relatively democratic governments, provided new ideas. These new ideas are shown in

1995-499: Is a mixture of prose and poetry, and is the first Italian pastoral romance. Boccaccio became famous principally for the Italian work, Decamerone , a collection of a hundred novels, related by a party of men and women who retired to a villa near Florence to escape the plague in 1348. Novel writing, so abundant in the preceding centuries, especially in France, now for the first time assumed an artistic shape. The style of Boccaccio tends to

2100-417: Is adapted to Italian phonotactics , creating new Italian vocabulary. These were adopted by Dante and his contemporaries, and handed on to future generations of Italian writers. To the Sicilian school belonged Enzio , king of Sardinia , Pietro della Vigna , Inghilfredi , Guido and Odo delle Colonne , Jacopo d'Aquino , Ruggieri Apugliese , Giacomo da Lentini , Arrigo Testa , and others. Most famous

2205-440: Is clearly established. And it is established that in recent years Italy has seen an impetuous blossoming of young novelists. What are their directions? What are their common features (provided that they exist)? It is well known that, until a few decades ago, critical reflection and creative research used to grow together and help one another, but nowadays the former (ie literary criticism) has almost vanished [...] When we look around,

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2310-583: Is clearly felt, although the language is influenced by French forms. These writings, which Graziadio Isaia Ascoli has called miste (mixed), immediately preceded the appearance of purely Italian works. There is evidence that a type of literature already existed before the 13th century: the Ritmo cassinese , Ritmo di Sant'Alessio , Laudes creaturarum , Ritmo lucchese , Ritmo laurenziano , Ritmo bellunese are classified by Cesare Segre , et al. as "Archaic Works" ("Componimenti Arcaici"): "such are labelled

2415-533: Is nonetheless a metaphysical experience able to lift man onto a higher, spiritual dimension. Gianni's new style was still influenced by the Siculo-Provençal school. Cavalcanti's poems fall into two classes: those that portray the philosopher ( il sottilissimo dialettico , as Lorenzo the Magnificent called him) and those more directly the product of his poetic nature imbued with mysticism and metaphysics . To

2520-542: Is quite different, not only from that of the Provençal troubadours and the Italian poets before him, but also from the lyrics of Dante. Petrarch is a psychological poet, who examines all his feelings and renders them with an art of exquisite sweetness. The lyrics of Petrarch are no longer transcendental like Dante's, but keep entirely within human limits. The Canzoniere includes a few political poems, one supposed to be addressed to Cola di Rienzi and several sonnets against

2625-521: Is regarded as the standard bearer of the influence of Florence on the Renaissance in the Italian states . The development of the drama in the 15th century was very great. In the 16th century, the fundamental characteristic of the era following the end of the Renaissance was that it perfected the Italian character of its language. Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini were the chief originators of

2730-496: The Scapigliatura and Verismo . Important early 20th century Italian writers include Giovanni Pascoli , Italo Svevo , Gabriele D'Annunzio , Umberto Saba , Giuseppe Ungaretti , Eugenio Montale , and Luigi Pirandello . Neorealism was developed by Alberto Moravia . Pier Paolo Pasolini became notable for being one of the most controversial authors in the history of Italy. Umberto Eco became internationally successful with

2835-617: The chansons de geste , Macaire , the Entrée d'Espagne written by Anonymous of Padua , the Prise de Pampelune , written by Niccolò of Verona , and others. All this preceded the appearance of purely Italian literature. The French and Occitan languages gradually gave way to the native Italian. Hybridism recurred, but it no longer predominated. In the Bovo d'Antona and the Rainaldo e Lesengrino , Venetian

2940-541: The Age of Enlightenment . The leading figure of the 18th century Italian literary revival was Giuseppe Parini . The philosophical, political, and socially progressive ideas behind the French Revolution of 1789 gave a special direction to Italian literature in the second half of the 18th century, inaugurated with the publication of Dei delitti e delle pene by Cesare Beccaria . Love of liberty and desire for equality created

3045-483: The Ballate of Ser Giovanni Fiorentino , of Franco Sacchetti, of Niccolò Soldanieri , and of Guido and Bindo Donati . Ballate were poems sung to dancing, and we have very many songs for the music of the 14th century. We have already stated that Antonio Pucci versified Villani's Chronicle . It is enough to notice a chronicle of Arezzo in terza rima by Bartolomeo Sinigardi , and the history, also in terza rima , of

3150-450: The Documenti d'amore and Del reggimento e dei costumi delle donne . The poems today are generally studied not as literature, but for historical context. In the 15th century, humanist and publisher Aldus Manutius published Tuscan poets Petrarch and Dante Alighieri ( Divine Comedy ), creating the model for what became a standard for modern Italian. Italian prose of the 13th century

3255-546: The Novellino , and Antonio Cornazzano whose Proverbii became extremely popular. Chronicles formerly believed to have been of the 13th century are now mainly regarded as forgeries. At the end of the 13th century there is a chronicle by Dino Compagni , probably authentic. Giovanni Villani , born in 1300, was more of a chronicler than a historian. He relates the events up to 1347. The journeys that he made in Italy and France, and

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3360-502: The Sirventese genre, and later, Dante's Commedia , full of invectives against contemporary political leaders and popes. Though the conventional love song prevailed at Frederick's (and later Manfred 's) court, more spontaneous poetry existed in the Contrasto attributed to Cielo d'Alcamo . The Contrasto is probably a scholarly re-elaboration of a lost popular rhyme and is the closest to

3465-478: The ballata composed by Cavalcanti when he was banished from Florence with the party of the Bianchi in 1300, and took refuge at Sarzana . Dante Alighieri , one of the greatest of Italian poets, also shows these lyrical tendencies. In 1293 he wrote La Vita Nuova , in which he idealizes love. It is a collection of poems to which Dante added narration and explication. Everything is sensual, aerial, and heavenly, and

3570-451: The humanities : grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry and moral philosophy. Early humanists, such as Petrarch , Coluccio Salutati and Leonardo Bruni , were great collectors of antique manuscripts. Massimo Carlotto Massimo Carlotto (born 22 July 1956) is an Italian writer and playwright. Massimo Carlotto began his literary career, particularly writing novels in the noir genre, with Il fuggiasco ("The Fugitive", 1995),

3675-499: The liturgy , were the first example of drama in the vernacular tongue of Italy. They were written in the Umbrian dialect , in verses of eight syllables. As early as the end of the 13th century the Devozioni del Giovedi e Venerdi Santo appeared, mixing liturgy and drama. Later, di un Monaco che andò al servizio di Dio ('of a monk who entered the service of God') approached the definite form

3780-480: The octave stanza , but was the first to use it in a work of length and artistic merit, his Teseide , the oldest Italian romantic poem. The Filostrato relates the loves of Troiolo and Griseida ( Troilus and Cressida ). The Ninfale fiesolano tells the love story of the nymph Mesola and the shepherd Africo. The Amorosa Visione , a poem in triplets, doubtless owed its origin to the Divine Comedy . The Ameto

3885-464: The 12th century, when in different regions of the peninsula the Italian vernacular started to be used in a literary manner. The Ritmo laurenziano is the first extant document of Italian literature. In 1230, the Sicilian School became notable for being the first style in standard Italian. Renaissance humanism developed during the 14th and the beginning of the 15th centuries. Lorenzo de' Medici

3990-626: The Biennial Conference of the Society for Italian Studies, at which it organised two sessions. In May 2010, IGRS published the minutes of the London conferences in the form of a monographic issue of the Journal of Romance Studies " Journal of Romance Studies " entitled "Overcoming Postmodernism" , which was the first scholarly overview of the New Italian Epic. A round table entitled 'Le roman épique italien'

4095-602: The Genoese troubadours were Lanfranc Cigala , Calega Panzan , Jacme Grils , and Bonifaci Calvo . Genoa was also the place of the genesis of the podestà -troubadour phenomenon: men who served in several cities as podestàs on behalf of either the Guelph or Ghibelline party and who wrote political poetry in Occitan. Rambertino Buvalelli was the first podestà -troubadour and in Genoa there were

4200-559: The Gothic kings surrounded themselves with masters of rhetoric and of grammar . Some lay schools remained in Italy, and noted scholars included Magnus Felix Ennodius , Arator , Venantius Fortunatus , Felix the Grammarian , Peter of Pisa , Paulinus of Aquileia , and many others. The later establishment of the medieval universities of Bologna , Padua , Vicenza , Naples , Salerno , Modena and Parma helped to spread culture and prepared

4305-537: The Guelphs Luca Grimaldi and Luchetto Gattilusio and the Ghibellines Perceval and Simon Doria . Perhaps the most important aspect of the Italian troubadour phenomenon was the production of chansonniers and the composition of vidas and razos . Uc de Saint Circ undertook to author the entire razo corpus and a great many of the vidas . The most famous and influential Italian troubadour

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4410-515: The Italy of today. They have referred to the contemporary situation of our country through the historical novel.' The author of noirs and historian of philosophy Girolamo De Michele has intervented several times, online and in the pages of Liberazione , with articles arguing parallels between noir poetics, the New Italian Epic, Neo-realism and the thoughts of Gilles Deleuze . Intervening in Il Manifesto , Tommaso Pincio voiced his perplexity about

4515-634: The Latin the Vite de' Santi Padri . Rivalta left behind him many sermons, and Franco Sacchetti (the famous novelist) many discourses. On the whole, there is no doubt that one of the most important productions of the Italian spirit of the 14th century was religious literature. Humorous poetry, largely developed in the 13th century, was carried on in the 14th by Bindo Bonichi , Arrigo di Castruccio , Cecco Nuccoli , Andrea Orcagna , Lippo Pasci de' Bardi , Adriano de Rossi , Antonio Pucci and other lesser writers. Orcagna

4620-665: The Medieval detective story Il nome della rosa (1980). The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to Italian language authors six times (as of 2019) with winners including Giosuè Carducci , Grazia Deledda , Luigi Pirandello , Salvatore Quasimodo , Eugenio Montale , and Dario Fo . As the Western Roman Empire declined, the Latin tradition was kept alive by writers such as Cassiodorus , Boethius , and Symmachus . The liberal arts flourished at Ravenna under Theodoric , and

4725-1438: The NIE in his Contemporary Italian Narrative and 1970s Terrorism: Stranger Than Fact. In 2019 Kate Wilman, professor of Italian Studies at the University of Warwick, published the book Unidentified Narrative Objects and the New Italian Epic. Claudia Boscolo (ed.), Overcoming Postmodernism: The Debate on New Italian Epic , numero monografico della rivista Journal of Romance Studies , Londra, 2010. Elisabetta Mondello (ed.), Roma Noir 2010. Scritture nere: narrativa di genere, New Italian Epic o post-noir? , Robin Edizioni 2010. Valentina Fulginiti e Maurizio Vito, New Italian Epic: un’ipotesi di critica letteraria, e d’altro in: California Italian Studies , 2(1), 2011. Hanna Serkowska (ed,), Finzione cronaca realtà. Scambi, intrecci e prospettive nella narrativa italiana contemporanea , Transeuropa, 2011. Giuliana Benvenuti, Il romanzo neostorico italiano. Storia, memoria, narrazione , Carocci 2012. Emanuela Patti, Che cosa resta del New Italian Epic , da illavoroculturale.org, 28 gennaio 2013. Paola Bono e Bia Sarasini (ed.), Epiche. Altre imprese, altre narrazioni , Iacobelli 2014. Alberto Asor Rosa, Scrittori e popolo / Scrittori e massa , Einaudi 2015. Timothy S. Murphy, How (Not) to Translate an Unidentified Narrative Object or

4830-449: The New Italian Epic , Legenda 2019. Italian literature Italian literature is written in the Italian language , particularly within Italy . It may also refer to literature written by Italians or in other languages spoken in Italy , often languages that are closely related to modern Italian , including regional varieties and vernacular dialects . Italian literature began in

4935-745: The PhD programme Planetary Collegium M-Node, along with the School of Media Design and Multimedia Arts of the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti in Milan organised the symposium 'New Italian (Media) Epic', with the presence of Wu Ming 1, Derrick De Kerckhove , Pier Luigi Capucci , Francesco Monico , and many others including film-makers, artists and media theorists. This symposium gave rise to a permanent laboratory. In November 2009, scholars from many countries met in Warsaw, Poland, at

5040-531: The Sicilian School, whose technical features had been imported by Guittone d'Arezzo in Tuscany . The standard changed slightly in Tuscany because Tuscan scriveners perceived the five-vowel system used by southern Italians as a seven-vowel one. As a consequence, the texts that Italian students read in their anthology contain lines that appear not to rhyme, a feature known as ″Sicilian rhyme" ( rima siciliana ) which

5145-505: The University of California, Berkeley. In the years that followed, especially in Anglo-American academia, numerous scholars and critics took up the topic. In 2015, the American critic and lecturer Timothy S. Murphy published the critical essay How (Not) to Translate an Unidentified Narrative Object or a New Italian Epic , included in: Genre Trajectories: Identifying, Mapping, Projecting . In 2017 British Italianist David Ward discussed

5250-480: The Younger , Aristotle , Cicero , Boethius and Augustine of Hippo . Guittone viewed his style as very artistic, but later scholars view it as extravagant and grotesque. With the school of Lapo Gianni , Guido Cavalcanti , Cino da Pistoia and Dante Alighieri , lyric poetry became exclusively Tuscan. The whole novelty and poetic power of this school, consisted in, according to Dante, Quando Amore spira, noto, ed

5355-684: The area to flee to Italy, where an Italian tradition of papal criticism was begun. The Historia de excidio Trojae , attributed to Dares Phrygius , claimed to be an eyewitness account of the Trojan War. Guido delle Colonne of Messina , one of the vernacular poets of the Sicilian school, composed the Historia destructionis Troiae . In his poetry, Guido was an imitator of the Provençals , but in this book he converted Benoît de Sainte-Maure 's French romance into what sounded like serious Latin history. Much

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5460-502: The body of works to which it refers were first discussed in March 2008 during 'Up Close & Personal', a seminar on contemporary Italian literature organised by McGill University in Montreal, Canada, in which Italianists from all over North America took part. In October 2008, at the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies of the University of London a round table was held on NIE, in which

5565-596: The conference "Fiction, Faction and Reality in Italian Literature after 1990", organized by the Department of Italian Studies of the University of Warsaw. Several panels were devoted to the debate on the New Italian Epic. In March 2010, a panel entitled "The New Italian Epic between Pulp and political intervention" was held at the 8th annual meeting of the Cultural Studies Association, which took place at

5670-478: The context of the programme of Comparative Media Studies directed by Henry Jenkins . From these interventions the author drew the essay New Italian Epic. Memorandum 1993-2008: narrative, oblique gaze, return to the future , published online in the spring of the same year. During the whole of 2008 the expression found a vast echo online, in conferences and conventions, in newspapers, in the specialist press and in radio broadcasts. In Italy, too, Wu Ming 1 put forward

5775-526: The court of Avignon. These are remarkable for their vigour of feeling, and also for showing that, compared to Dante, Petrarch had a sense of a broader Italian consciousness. Giovanni Boccaccio had the same enthusiastic love of antiquity and the same worship for the new Italian literature as Petrarch. He was the first to put together a Latin translation of the Iliad and, in 1375, the Odyssey . His classical learning

5880-504: The daily newspaper Libero ("[Il New Italian Epic] is nonsense. It is nothing but self-propaganda") as an endorsement for the publication of New Italian Epic . After New Italian Epic appeared in bookshops (January 2009), various polemical articles signed by critics appeared in the daily press. In February–March 2009 Wu Ming 1 published online a two-point analysis of the 'rhetorical strategies' employed by detractors, entitled: "New Italian Epic: gut reactions". The term 'New Italian Epic' and

5985-405: The days of Neo-realism .» Reviewing the book in the daily paper Il Riformista , Luca Mastrantonio writes: «'a book which... traces an important vector of contemporary Italian literature. New Italian Epic is a curious cultural hybrid. More like a GMO than a product with denomination of origin ... it is an interesting cyberbook of literary theory [...] in this essay you can hear, palpitating,

6090-461: The diktats and prescriptions of the critics, a tendency begun in the nineties by certain authors (including those brought together in Group 13). According to Fois, the first phase consisted in 'freeing oneself from the shame of making genre literature, without paying any attention to the critics; the second – more recent – phase concerns subject-matter. People have rid themselves of the shame of talking about

6195-422: The double object of temporal and eternal happiness. The forest where the poet loses himself lost symbolizes sin. The mountain illuminated by the sun is the universal monarchy. Envy is Florence, Pride is the house of France, and Avarice is the papal court. Virgil represents reason and the empire. Beatrice is the symbol of the supernatural aid mankind must have to attain the supreme end, which is God. The merit of

6300-467: The early 12th century and spread south and east, eventually reaching Italy by the end of the 12th century. The first troubadours ( trovatori in Italian), as these Occitan lyric poets were called, to practise in Italy were from elsewhere, but the high aristocracy of the northern Italy was ready to patronise them. It was not long before native Italians adopted Occitan as a vehicle for poetic expression. Among

6405-559: The early patrons of foreign troubadours were especially the House of Este , the Da Romano , House of Savoy , and the Malaspina . Azzo VI of Este entertained the troubadours Aimeric de Belenoi , Aimeric de Peguilhan , Albertet de Sestaro , and Peire Raimon de Tolosa from Occitania and Rambertino Buvalelli from Bologna , one of the earliest Italian troubadours. Azzo VI's daughter, Beatrice ,

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6510-590: The end of each story. From this point of view, Sacchetti's work comes near to the Monalisaliones of the Middle Ages. A third novelist was Giovanni Sercambi of Lucca, who after 1374 wrote a book, in imitation of Boccaccio, about a party of people who were supposed to fly from a plague and to go travelling about in different Italian cities, stopping here and there telling stories. Later, but important, names are those of Masuccio Salernitano (Tommaso Guardato), who wrote

6615-400: The example of Petrarch many writers devoted themselves to patriotic poetry. From this period also dates that literary phenomenon known under the name of Petrarchism. The Petrarchists, or those who sang of love, imitating Petrarch's manner, were found already in the 14th century. But others treated the same subject with more originality, in a manner that might be called semi-popular. Such were

6720-614: The expression 'New Italian Epic' [NIE] in English. In late 2008 Wu Ming put online a version of the Memorandum marked '2.0', or annotated and extended, with replies to some criticisms and closer examination of the more controversial points. In January 2009 the series Stile Libero of the Einaudi publishing house published a further enriched and updated version of the Memorandum ('3.0'), entitled New Italian Epic. Literatures, oblique gazes, returns to

6825-614: The expression 'unidentified narrative objects', at the same time interpreting the NIE memorandum as the signal of a conquered centrality of the novel form in Italian cultural production, after a long period during which critics had viewed it with suspicion. Later, interventions have been made in various forms and in various media by other writers, including Giuseppe Genna , Michela Murgia , Giulio Angioni , Antonio Scurati , Vanni Santoni, Gregorio Magini and many more. Historian and literary critic Alberto Asor Rosa writes on La Repubblica : "We may question and doubt everything except what

6930-429: The finest works of world literature . Petrarch was the first humanist , and he was at the same time the first modern lyric poet. His career was long and tempestuous. He lived for many years at Avignon , cursing the corruption of the papal court; he travelled through nearly the whole of Europe; he corresponded with emperors and popes, and he was considered the most important writer of his time. Petrarch's lyric verse

7035-401: The first literary works in the Italian vernacular, their dates ranging from the last decades of the 12th century to the early decades of the 13th". However, as he points out, such early literature does not yet present any uniform stylistic or linguistic traits. This early development, however, was simultaneous in the whole peninsula, varying only in the subject matter of the art. In the north,

7140-401: The first set belongs the famous poem Sulla natura d'amore , which in fact is a treatise on amorous metaphysics , and was annotated later in a learned way by renowned Platonic philosophers of the 15th century, such as Marsilius Ficinus and others. On the other hand, in his Ballate , he pours himself out ingenuously, but with a consciousness of his art. The greatest of these is considered to be

7245-572: The first standard Italian) than its subject, a love song partly modelled on the Provençal poetry imported to the south by the Normans and the Svevs under Frederick II . This poetry differs from the French equivalent in its treatment of the woman, less erotic and more platonic , a vein further developed by Dolce Stil Novo in later 13th century Bologna and Florence . The customary repertoire of chivalry terms

7350-450: The founder': many books in the 'nebula' describe the consequences of the passing of a clan leader or founding father, a figure who represented a world that is now in crisis, or has actually constructed a world but has not prepared his descendants to manage the crisis it falls into. By coincidence, in various books this character was identified with the simple antonomasia 'the old man'. According to Wu Ming 1, upon this mythologeme NIE constructs

7455-410: The future . The Memorandum was intended as an "open suggestion of comparative reading, an album of notes to be borne in mind, remembered, used" and suggests that attention should be paid to a group of works written in Italy over the past fifteen years (1993–2008), seeking unexpected similarities or, conversely, dissolving connections too often taken for granted The Memorandum has also been described as

7560-543: The ground in which the new vernacular literature developed. Classical traditions did not disappear, and affection for the memory of Rome, a preoccupation with politics, and a preference for practice over theory combined to influence the development of Italian literature. The earliest vernacular literary tradition in Italy was in Occitan , spoken in parts of northwest Italy. A tradition of vernacular lyric poetry arose in Poitou in

7665-534: The imitation of Latin, but in him, prose first took the form of elaborated art. Over and above this, in the Decamerone , Boccaccio is a delineator of character and an observer of passions. Much has been written about the sources of the novels of the Decamerone . Probably Boccaccio made use both of written and of oral sources. Fazio degli Uberti and Federico Frezzi were imitators of the Divine Comedy , but only in its external form. Giovanni Fiorentino wrote, under

7770-561: The information thus acquired, mean that his chronicle, the Historie Fiorentine , covers events all over Europe. Matteo was the brother of Giovanni Villani, and continued the chronicle up to 1363. It was again continued by Filippo Villani. St Catherine of Siena 's mysticism was political. She aspired to bring back the Church of Rome to evangelical virtue, and left a collection of letters written to all types of people, including popes. Another Sienese, Giovanni Colombini , founder of

7875-657: The journey of Pope Alexander III to Venice, by Pier de Natali . Besides this, every type of subject, whether history, tragedy or husbandry, was treated in verse. Neri di Landocio wrote a life of St Catherine; Jacopo Gradenigo called il Belletto put the Gospels into triplets. Renaissance humanism developed during the 14th and the beginning of the 15th centuries, and was a response to the challenge of Mediæval scholastic education, emphasizing practical, pre-professional and -scientific studies. Scholasticism focused on preparing men to be doctors, lawyers or professional theologians, and

7980-411: The memorandum describes in broad brushstrokes the social and cultural context in which the works are born, and to which explicit or allegorical references are made. The seven characteristics identified by Wu Ming 1 are: To this list, with version 2.0 of the memorandum and interventions by other writers and academics, were added thematic constants that may be found in NIE texts, for example the 'death of

8085-429: The memorandum has unleashed, from April 2008, a vast discussion amongst writers, as well as among writers and readers. Online or in the pages of some newspapers (such as L'Unità , La Repubblica , Liberazione and Il Manifesto ) almost all the authors mentioned by Wu Ming 1 have taken a position on the subject. In La Repubblica , Carlo Lucarelli has interpreted the memorandum as an invitation to Italian authors to take

8190-456: The need to draw mental maps between the books, pair up authors with greater or lesser amounts of judgement, create remarkable points to survey positions and routes in Italian publishing. [26]» Amongst the detractors is the literary critic Carla Benedetti, columnist in the weekly L’Espresso and lecturer at Pisa University. In January 2009 the Wu Ming collective used a phrase by Benedetti reported in

8295-561: The only recent attempt at a theoretical-literary systematization of the recent output was New Italian Epic: Literature, Oblique Gaze and the Return to the Future by Wu Ming (Einaudi, 2009), which deserves praise, if only for the fact that it goes deeply into the matter." In a review of titles published in the computer edition of La Repubblica , the journalist Dario Olivero writes: «First came Petrolio by Pasolini . The first organic attempt to write

8400-455: The order of Jesuati , preached poverty by precept and example, going back to the religious idea of St Francis of Assisi. His letters are among the most remarkable in the category of ascetic works in the 14th century. Bianco da Siena wrote several religiously-inspired poems (lauda) that were popular in the Middle Ages. Jacopo Passavanti , in his Specchio della vera penitenza , attached instruction to narrative. Domenico Cavalca translated from

8505-568: The original compositions in the langue d'oïl came translations or adaptations from the same. There are some moral narratives taken from religious legends, a romance of Julius Caesar , some short histories of ancient knights, the Tavola rotonda , translations of the Viaggi of Marco Polo , and of Latini's Tesoro . At the same time, translations from Latin of moral and ascetic works, histories, and treatises on rhetoric and oratory appeared. Also noteworthy

8610-426: The outcome is achieved: making people think, in a realistic or metaphorical way, about the collective perception of an alienated everyday. This is what the authors of the New Italian Epic are trying to do [...]’. Marcello Fois (prominent novelist of a Sardinian Literary Spring ), presenting his own works in France, defined the New Italian Epic as the last development in a trend to recover popular literature, ignoring

8715-451: The poem lies is the individual art of the poet, the classic art transfused for the first time into a Romance form. Whether he describes nature, analyses passions, curses the vices or sings hymns to the virtues, Dante is notable for the grandeur and delicacy of his art. He took the materials for his poem from theology , philosophy, history, and mythology, but especially from his own passions, from hatred and love. The Divine Comedy ranks among

8820-421: The poems of Giacomino da Verona and Bonvesin da la Riva were written in a dialect of Lombard and Venetian . This sort of composition may have been encouraged by the old custom in the north of Italy of listening to the songs of the jongleurs . The year 1230 marked the beginning of the Sicilian School and of literature showing more uniform traits. Its importance lies more in the language (the creation of

8925-419: The precepts of the school of Salerno , and the travels of Marco Polo , linking the classics and the Renaissance. At the same time, epic poetry was written in a mixed language, a dialect of Italian based on French: hybrid words exhibited a treatment of sounds according to the rules of both languages, had French roots with Italian endings, and were pronounced according to Italian or Latin rules. Examples include

9030-452: The real Beatrice is supplanted by an idealized vision of her, losing her human nature and becoming a representation of the divine. The Divine Comedy tells of the poet's travels through the three realms of the dead— Hell , Purgatory , and Paradise —accompanied by the Latin poet Virgil . An allegorical meaning hides under the literal one of this great epic. Dante, travelling through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, symbolizes mankind aiming at

9135-598: The religious drama would assume in the following centuries. 13th century Tuscans spoke a dialect that closely resembled Latin and afterwards became, almost exclusively, the language of literature, and which was already regarded at the end of the 13th century as surpassing other dialects. In Tuscany, too, popular love poetry existed. A school of imitators of the Sicilians was led by Dante da Majano , but its literary originality took another line—that of humorous and satirical poetry. The entirely democratic form of government created

9240-472: The religious drama. In 1258 a hermit, Raniero Fasani , represented himself as sent by God to disclose mysterious visions, and to announce to the world terrible visitations. Fasani's pronouncements stimulated the formation of the Compagnie di Disciplinanti , who, for a penance, scourged themselves until they drew blood, and sang Laudi in dialogue in their confraternities . These laudi , closely connected with

9345-522: The same thing occurred with other great legends. Quilichino of Spoleto wrote couplets about the legend of Alexander the Great . Europe was full of the legend of King Arthur , but the Italians contented themselves with translating and abridging French romances. Jacobus de Voragine , while collecting his Golden Legend (1260), remained a historian. Farfa, Marsicano , and other scholars translated Aristotle ,

9450-534: The science of history. Pietro Bembo was an influential figure in the development of the Italian language . In 1690, the Academy of Arcadia was instituted with the goal of "restoring" literature by imitating the simplicity of the ancient shepherds with sonnets , madrigals , canzonette , and blank verses . In the 18th century, the political condition of the Italian states began to improve, and philosophers disseminated their writings and ideas throughout Europe during

9555-540: The seventies, during the so-called dirty war . He knows and has interviewed the founder of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo , Estela Carlotto , whom he transpired to be related to, and who sought news of her daughter and newborn grandson, who numbered among the desaparecidos . In 2001 he released Arrivederci, amore ciao (which was adapted into the movie The Goodbye Kiss by Michele Soavi , 2005). In 2004 he published L'oscura immensità della morte ("Death's Dark Abyss"),

9660-525: The title of Pecorone , a collection of tales, which are supposed to have been related by a monk and a nun in the parlour of the monastery Novelists of Forli. He closely imitated Boccaccio, and drew on Villani's chronicle for his historical stories. Franco Sacchetti wrote tales too, for the most part on subjects taken from Florentine history. The subjects are almost always improper, but it is evident that Sacchetti collected these anecdotes so he could draw his own conclusions and moral reflections, which he puts at

9765-592: The way for the Bolognese school. Bologna was the city of science, and philosophical poetry appeared there. Guido Guinizelli was the poet after the new fashion of the art. In his work, the ideas of chivalry are changed and enlarged. Guinizelli's Canzoni make up the bible of Dolce Stil Novo, and one in particular, "Al cor gentil" ('To a Kind Heart'), is considered the manifesto of the new movement that bloomed in Florence under Cavalcanti, Dante, and their followers. He marks

9870-416: The writers Wu Ming 1, Vanni Santoni and Gregorio Magini of the group Scrittura Industriale Collettiva took part, along with researchers and academics from various countries (including Monica Jansen, lecturer at Antwerp University and author of the book The Debate on Postmodernism in Italy ), who went on to form a research group into NIE. This group, called 'PolifoNIE', examined the subject in greater detail for

9975-505: Was Giacomo Leopardi . The literary movement that preceded and was contemporary with the political revolutions of 1848 may be said to be represented by four writers: Giuseppe Giusti , Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi , Vincenzo Gioberti , and Cesare Balbo . After the Risorgimento , political literature became less important. The first part of this period is characterized by two divergent trends of literature that both opposed Romanticism:

10080-531: Was Sordello . The troubadours had a connection with the rise of a school of poetry in the Kingdom of Sicily . In 1220 Obs de Biguli was present as a "singer" at the coronation of the Emperor Frederick II . Guillem Augier Novella before 1230 and Guilhem Figueira thereafter were important Occitan poets at Frederick's court. The Albigensian Crusade had devastated Languedoc and forced many troubadours of

10185-461: Was also organised by the Université de Provence at Aix-en-Provence and by the journal Cahiers d'Études Romanes . The Memorandum on the New Italian Epic has also been included within academic studies in audio-visual and new media, with particular reference to the non-typology of 'unidentified narrative objects', applicable to the 'hybrid' products emerging from the world of garage media. In March 2009

10290-457: Was an object of the early poets " courtly love ". Azzo's son, Azzo VII , hosted Elias Cairel and Arnaut Catalan . Rambertino was named podestà of Genoa in 1218 and it was probably during his three-year tenure there that he introduced Occitan lyric poetry to the city, which later developed a flourishing Occitan literary culture. The margraves of Montferrat — Boniface I , William VI , and Boniface II —were patrons of Occitan poetry. Among

10395-866: Was as abundant and varied as its poetry. Halfway through the century, a certain Aldobrando or Aldobrandino wrote a book for Beatrice of Savoy , called Le Régime du corps . In 1267 Martino da Canale wrote a history of Venice in the same Old French ( langue d'oïl ). Rustichello da Pisa composed many chivalrous romances, derived from the Arthurian cycle , and subsequently wrote the Travels of Marco Polo , which may have been dictated by Polo himself. And finally Brunetto Latini wrote his Tesoro in French. Latini also wrote some works in Italian prose such as La rettorica , an adaptation from Cicero 's De inventione , and translated three orations from Cicero. Another important writer

10500-517: Was especially comic; Bonichi was comic with a satirical and moral purpose. Pucci was superior to all of them for the variety of his production. Many poets of the 14th century produced political works. Fazio degli Uberti , the author of Dittamondo , who wrote a Serventese to the lords and people of Italy, a poem on Rome, and a fierce invective against Charles IV, deserves notice, as do Francesco di Vannozzo , Frate Stoppa de' Bostichi and Matteo Frescobaldi . It may be said in general that following

10605-609: Was shown in the work De genealogia deorum ; as A. H. Heeren said, it is an encyclopaedia of mythological knowledge; and it was the precursor of the humanist movement of the 15th century. Boccaccio was also the first historian of women in his De mulieribus claris , and the first to tell the story of the great unfortunates in his De casibus virorum illustrium . He continued and perfected former geographical investigations in his De montibus, silvis, fontibus, lacubus, fluminibus, stagnis, et paludibus, et de nominibus maris , for which he made use of Vibius Sequester . He did not invent

10710-431: Was taught from approved textbooks in logic, natural philosophy, medicine, law and theology. The main centers of humanism were Florence and Naples . Rather than train professionals in jargon and strict practice, humanists sought to create a citizenry (including, sometimes, women) able to speak and write with eloquence and clarity. This was to be accomplished through the study of the studia humanitatis , today known as

10815-617: Was the Florentine judge Bono Giamboni , who translated Orosius 's Historiae adversus paganos , Vegetius 's Epitoma rei militaris , made a translation/adaptation of Cicero's De inventione mixed with the Rethorica ad Erennium , and a translation/adaptation of Innocent III 's De miseria humane conditionis . He also wrote an allegorical novel called Libro de' Vizi e delle Virtudi . Andrea of Grosseto , in 1268, translated three Treaties of Albertanus of Brescia , from Latin to Tuscan . After

10920-514: Was very rich in tales. A collection called the Cento Novelle antiche contains stories drawn from many sources, including Asian, Greek and Trojan traditions, ancient and medieval history, the legends of Brittany , Provence and Italy, the Bible , local Italian traditions, and histories of animals and old mythology . On the whole the Italian novels of the 13th century have little originality, and are

11025-460: Was widely used later by poets such as Dante or Petrarch. The earliest preserved sermons in the Italian language are from Jordan of Pisa , a Dominican. Francis of Assisi , the founder of the Franciscans, also wrote poetry. According to legend, Francis dictated the hymn Cantico del Sole in the eighteenth year of his penance. It was the first great poetical work of northern Italy, written in

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