Making and Unmaking of Mediterranean Landscape in Italian Literature

Tullio Pagano is professor of Italian studies at Dickinson College.

• ContentsPREFACE Returning to Val LentroINTRODUCTION. Landscape between Place, Memory and Artistic Representation. Why Landscape? Contrasting Views of LandscapeThe Ambivalent Nature of Landscape Rosario Assunto’s Philosophy of Landscape From the Opaque: Massimo Quaini and Italo Calvino’s Liguria Between Local and GlobalCHAPTER ONE. In the Beginning There Was the Road: Giuseppe Ruffini and the Discovery of the Italian Riviera. The “Casual” Discovery of a Vernacular LandscapeCHAPTER 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 LandscapeThe 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 LandscapeCHAPTER THREE. Landscape as Enigma: Eugenio Montale’s Liguria.The Polyvalence of Montale’s OrtoLooking 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 LandscapeDawns, Sunsets and the World’s ScenarioDiscovering the Dark Side of Ligurian Landscape Away from Val Trebbia: Caproni’s DetourThe Reinterpretation of Aeneas’ MythThe End of LandscapeCHAPTER FIVE. Italo Calvino between Two ContinentsThe 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 LandscapeMediterranean Ruins Walking through a Desolate LandscapeWriting between Two WorldsLandscape with(out) ShepherdsLiguria as Mediterranean CrossroadBetween Remorse and CompensationCHAPTER SEVEN. Annie Hawes and the Rediscovery of the Ligurian LandscapeEPILOGUE BIBLIOGRAPHY ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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 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