The Making and Unmaking of Mediterranean Landscape in Italian Literature

The Case of Liguria

Tullio Pagano

The book focuses on literary representations of the northern Italian region of Liguria, whose landscape has been portrayed by internationally-known Italian poets and novelists, from Eugenio Montale to Italo Calvino. The author argues that the most perceptive authors situate themselves on a metaphorical ridge dividing the “dark side” of Mediterranean landscape, with its harsh and mountainous territory, from the sun-drenched Riviera, celebrated by the tourist industry and for the most part destroyed during the so-called economic boom. The complex and often antithetical concepts of landscape examined in the introduction inform the author’s readings of those modern and contemporary writers who have tried to make sense of the ambivalences present in Ligurian landscape, from the period of Italian Risorgimento to the present.

University Press Copublishing Division / Fairleigh Dickinson University Press

Pages: 219 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9¼

978-1-61147-639-2 • Hardback • April 2015 • $101.00 • (£78.00)

978-1-61147-640-8 • eBook • April 2015 • $96.00 • (£74.00)

Series: The Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Series in Italian Studies

Subjects: Literary Criticism / European / Italian, Nature / Regional, Literary Collections / European / Italian

The Making and Unmaking of Mediterranean Landscape in Italian Literature

The Case of Liguria

Hardback

eBook

Summary

The book focuses on literary representations of the northern Italian region of Liguria, whose landscape has been portrayed by internationally-known Italian poets and novelists, from Eugenio Montale to Italo Calvino. The author argues that the most perceptive authors situate themselves on a metaphorical ridge dividing the “dark side” of Mediterranean landscape, with its harsh and mountainous territory, from the sun-drenched Riviera, celebrated by the tourist industry and for the most part destroyed during the so-called economic boom. The complex and often antithetical concepts of landscape examined in the introduction inform the author’s readings of those modern and contemporary writers who have tried to make sense of the ambivalences present in Ligurian landscape, from the period of Italian Risorgimento to the present.

Details

University Press Copublishing Division / Fairleigh Dickinson University Press

Pages: 219 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9¼

978-1-61147-639-2 • Hardback • April 2015 • $101.00 • (£78.00)

978-1-61147-640-8 • eBook • April 2015 • $96.00 • (£74.00)

Series: The Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Series in Italian Studies

Subjects: Literary Criticism / European / Italian, Nature / Regional, Literary Collections / European / Italian

Author

Tullio Pagano is professor of Italian studies at Dickinson College.

Table of Contents

Contents
PREFACE
Returning to Val Lentro
INTRODUCTION. Landscape between Place, Memory and Artistic Representation.
Why Landscape?
Contrasting Views of Landscape
The Ambivalent Nature of Landscape
Rosario Assunto’s Philosophy of Landscape
From the Opaque: Massimo Quaini and Italo Calvino’s Liguria
Between Local and Global
CHAPTER ONE. In the Beginning There Was the Road: Giuseppe Ruffini and the Discovery of the Italian Riviera.
The “Casual” Discovery of a Vernacular Landscape
CHAPTER TWO. Lost in the City; Camillo Sbarbaro’s Search for Landscape.
Camillo Sbarbaro between the Country and the City
A Glimpse of Paradise?
Pianissimo: Reification and the Need for Landscape
The Recurring Spell of the City
Back to Hell: The Landscape in Trucioli
The Great War and Sbarbaro’s return to Nature
Last “Shavings” of Ligurian Landscape
CHAPTER THREE. Landscape as Enigma: Eugenio Montale’s Liguria.
The Polyvalence of Montale’s Orto
Looking at the Sea: Montale’s Mediterranean
Suspended between Land and Sea
Dreams of an “Ancient Boy”
Looking at landscape (Through a Window)
The Impossible Return to the PastCHAPTER FOUR. Giorgio Caproni and the End of Landscape
Dawns, Sunsets and the World’s Scenario
Discovering the Dark Side of Ligurian Landscape
Away from Val Trebbia: Caproni’s Detour
The Reinterpretation of Aeneas’ Myth
The End of Landscape
CHAPTER FIVE. Italo Calvino between Two Continents
The Ligurian Diaspora and its Consequences
A Son’s Master Looks at Landscape
Growing up between Two Continents
Two Different Ways of Looking at Landscape
The Real Estate Plunge and the Destruction of Landscape
CHAPTER SIX. Francesco Biamonti and the Ruins of Landscape
Mediterranean Ruins
Walking through a Desolate Landscape
Writing between Two Worlds
Landscape with(out) Shepherds
Liguria as Mediterranean Crossroad
Between Remorse and Compensation
CHAPTER SEVEN. Annie Hawes and the Rediscovery of the Ligurian Landscape
EPILOGUE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Reviews

Even readers who do not know and love the landscape of the northern Italian region of Liguria as deeply as Pagano obviously does will find this book unfailingly interesting and informative. The author's starting point is his own youthful experience of the province, especially the area around Genova, which is touchingly evoked in his preface. He proceeds, in the book's introduction, to provide a concise and persuasive exposition of his theoretical approach to the multifaceted cultural phenomenon that is landscape. He then presents seven insightful, well-informed chapters of literary criticism. Each chapter focuses on a 19th-, 20th-, or 21st-century writer—respectively, Giovanni Ruffini, Camillo Sbarbaro, Eugenio Montale, Giorgio Caproni, Italo Calvino, Francesco Biamonti, and Annie Hawes—closely connected with Pagano's native region and notable for his or her representation and analysis of its topography and the lives of its inhabitants. Especially admirable is the author's steadfast commitment, throughout this engaging book, to a vision based on the recognition that his topic involves not only theories about texts but also a profound respect for the physical world and its people. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.
— Choice Reviews

Pagano shows how a democratic ideal of landscape can be actualized in literary criticism. He proves how through a nuanced synthesis of the intersection of local and global forces, we may gain a better understanding of landscape. . . .Pagano offers provocative, stimulating thoughts towards an understanding of landscape ‘at the ridge’ of local and global, past and future.
— Journal of Historical Geography

Pagano excels at his infallible commitment to three essentials: the close reading of primary texts written in/on Liguria; the passionate conveyance of a meticulous, firsthand local knowledge of Liguria’s vernacular landscape above and beyond the coast (including dialect and sociolect); and an earnest dedication to environmental questions, as well as those of democracy, social justice and human rights. . . .It is enlightening for anyone interested in Ligurian culture, and imperative for the politically minded reader invested in the socio-cultural dynamics of Liguria’s territory.
— Journal Of Modern Italian Studies

On August 14, 2018 the Ponte Morandi suddenly collapsed, bringing down with itself, in few seconds, the lives of more than forty people who were driving on the highway at the entrance of Genoa. Not only did this book help me better understand this tragedy, but also convinced me that the concerns shared by its author are more urgent than ever.
— MLN, Modern Language Notes