Ranging from science fiction, stories for children and poetry to drama, narrative, criticism, and 'non-fiction' works on such subjects as spiritualism and Sicilian customs,Capuana's volumes betray different levels and kinds of commitment, some being produced to meet urgent financial needs, others, like the parodies on the bard of Catania, Mario Rapisardi, starting life as exercises in literary humour, still others being written for polemical or at any rate extra-literary reasons, and yet shedding light on the letterato. Without ignoring these secondary areas, this study sets out to examine the central issue of Capuana's realism as critic and narrator, and to account for its moments of apparent inconsistency, its limitations and strengths in the course of a long career which until recently has tended to be treted in piecemeal fashion.In so doing it proceeds chronologically, relating Capuana's aims and achievements to the changing cultural context which conditioned them, and relying extensively on articles which have remained buried in the newspapers and journals of both Sicily and the Italian mainland to explore uninvestigated aspects of his critical meditation or to illuminate the areas of obscurity in his development as both critic and narrator.A close analysis of narrative texts has been a main instrument of enquiry in this work: though it aims primarily at an evaluation of Capuana, it also hopes to contribute to the understanding of the period in which he lived.

Disease—real or imagined, physical or mental—is a common theme in Western literature and is often a symbol of modern alienation. In Literary Diseases, a comprehensive analysis of the metaphorical and symbolic force of disease in modern Italian literature, Gian-Paolo Biasin expands the geography of the discussion of this important theme. Using as a backdrop the perspective of European experiences of the previous hundred years, Biasin analyzes the theme of disease as a reflection of certain sociological and historical phenomena in modern European novels, as a metaphor for the world visions of selected Italian novelists, and especially as a vehicle for understanding the nature and function of fiction itself. The core of Biasin’s study is found in his discussion of the works of four major Italian writers. In his criticism of the novels of Giovanni Verga, who stood at the center of many complex developments in the nineteenth century, he examines the antecedents of modern Italian prose. He then scrutinizes the works of Italo Svevo and Luigi Pirandello, who together inaugurated the modern novel in Italy. Of particular interest is his exploration of their critical use of psychoanalysis and madness climaxed by apocalyptic visions. He then discusses the prose of Carlo Emilio Gadda, which epitomizes the problems of the avant-garde in its experimentalism and expressionism. Biasin utilizes a broad spectrum of critical approaches—from sociology, psychoanalysis, and different trends in modern French, American, and Italian literary criticism—in shaping his own methodology, which is a thematic and structural symbolism. He concludes that disease in literature should be considered as a metaphor for writing (écriture) and as a cognitive instrument that calls into question the anthropocentric values of Western culture. The book, with its textual comparisons and unusual supporting examples, constitutes a significant methodological contribution as well as a major survey of modern Italian prose, and will allow the reader to see traditional landmarks in European fiction in a new light.

Essays discuss the texts of Luigi Pirandello, one of the literary giants of this century and present an up-to-date re-evaluations of Pirandello's works, including his poetry, novels, short stories, plays, essays, letters, and memoirs.

Introduces to the English-reading public the seven novels and the most typical tales of that writer, whose literary fame still rests upon his achievements as a dramatist.