Tradition of the Italian Theatrical Fable from Carlo Gozzi to Pirandello

Through a multitude of sources this course will trace how fables and fantastic literature represent a rich tradition in Italian literature starting with the Renaissance epic. In 1600, with Pentamerone (Lo cunto de li cunti), Giovan Battista Basile created the model from which all fables, from the Grimm brothers to Borges and Calvino, have been drawn. This genre also exists in Italian theater dating from Machiavelli’s La mandragola (1513), which stages a double reality, translating the dream into a critical representation rich with symbols, through metaphor and paradox. This apparently distorted vision of the world transforms the stage into a fantasy space, and therefore into a mental space which has influenced not only literature but the magical neo-realism of Cesare Zavattini in cinematography.

Required texts:/La Mandragola/ by Machiavelli Niccolò, Scaccia Mario
edited by Sala E., Editore: Persiani, 2009 - ISBN: 8896013011
La grande magia by De Filippo Eduardo
Einaudi, 1973 - ISBN: 8806364340
Quando si è qualcuno - La favola del figlio cambiato - I giganti dellamontaga by Pirandello Luigi, Mondadori, 2000 - ISBN: 8804487631