Casus Belli: Giuseppe Gioachino waging war between tradition and experimentation

<p>This thesis explores the notion of opposition in the <em>Sonetti romaneschi</em> by the Roman poet Giuseppe Gioachino Belli (1791-1863). It sees the poet as a warring rebel on the literary scene and examines his poetics and rhetoric of war through his choice of form (the hallowe...

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Manylion Llyfryddiaeth
Prif Awdur: Howard, P
Awduron Eraill: Zancani, D
Fformat: Traethawd Ymchwil
Iaith:English
Cyhoeddwyd: 2012
Pynciau:
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author Howard, P
author2 Zancani, D
author_facet Zancani, D
Howard, P
author_sort Howard, P
collection OXFORD
description <p>This thesis explores the notion of opposition in the <em>Sonetti romaneschi</em> by the Roman poet Giuseppe Gioachino Belli (1791-1863). It sees the poet as a warring rebel on the literary scene and examines his poetics and rhetoric of war through his choice of form (the hallowed sonnet structure), language (the ‘rotten’ vernacular) and subject (the downtrodden, previously voiceless underclass); it shows that these cornerstones of Belli’s opus are in polemical response to literary stimuli and intimately connected to the political, religious and sociological upheavals in and beyond Rome in the troubled run-up to Unification. Chapter one, entitled ‘Breaking the mould’, draws on Belli’s explicit declaration of war on his literary predecessors, and considers the influence of the Milanese writer Carlo Porta, arguing that Belli is more inimical than amicable, and not the simple imitator as thought to date. Chapter two, ‘A passage of arms: possessing the dialogue sonnet’, maintains that the fulcrum of Belli’s antagonistic poetics and his realist enterprise lies in his unprecedented use of the dialogue sonnet form and the staging of direct debate. Chapter three, entitled ‘The Battle of the Sexes’, treats opposition at a thematic level, applying gender studies and related theory to Belli for the first time. Chapter four, ‘War and peace: the silent revolution’, examines Belli’s creation of a totally new literary language, fulfilling the criteria for what Deleuze and Guattari, within broadly Marxist parameters, would identify as a ‘minor literature’ in the work of Kafka, in which a major language is somehow wrested from its anchors of power, or ‘deterritorialized’, to subvert the literary world from within. The thesis shows that Belli is more revolutionary than previously thought as a literary innovator, and an understudied giant of modern European literature as opposed to the marginal figure the historiography is wont to maintain.</p>
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spelling oxford-uuid:eaa66fdb-827c-4c78-bc1d-190000f7d7802022-03-27T11:03:47ZCasus Belli: Giuseppe Gioachino waging war between tradition and experimentationThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:eaa66fdb-827c-4c78-bc1d-190000f7d780Italian,Romanian,Rhaeto-Romanic literatureEnglishOxford University Research Archive - Valet2012Howard, PZancani, D<p>This thesis explores the notion of opposition in the <em>Sonetti romaneschi</em> by the Roman poet Giuseppe Gioachino Belli (1791-1863). It sees the poet as a warring rebel on the literary scene and examines his poetics and rhetoric of war through his choice of form (the hallowed sonnet structure), language (the ‘rotten’ vernacular) and subject (the downtrodden, previously voiceless underclass); it shows that these cornerstones of Belli’s opus are in polemical response to literary stimuli and intimately connected to the political, religious and sociological upheavals in and beyond Rome in the troubled run-up to Unification. Chapter one, entitled ‘Breaking the mould’, draws on Belli’s explicit declaration of war on his literary predecessors, and considers the influence of the Milanese writer Carlo Porta, arguing that Belli is more inimical than amicable, and not the simple imitator as thought to date. Chapter two, ‘A passage of arms: possessing the dialogue sonnet’, maintains that the fulcrum of Belli’s antagonistic poetics and his realist enterprise lies in his unprecedented use of the dialogue sonnet form and the staging of direct debate. Chapter three, entitled ‘The Battle of the Sexes’, treats opposition at a thematic level, applying gender studies and related theory to Belli for the first time. Chapter four, ‘War and peace: the silent revolution’, examines Belli’s creation of a totally new literary language, fulfilling the criteria for what Deleuze and Guattari, within broadly Marxist parameters, would identify as a ‘minor literature’ in the work of Kafka, in which a major language is somehow wrested from its anchors of power, or ‘deterritorialized’, to subvert the literary world from within. The thesis shows that Belli is more revolutionary than previously thought as a literary innovator, and an understudied giant of modern European literature as opposed to the marginal figure the historiography is wont to maintain.</p>
spellingShingle Italian,Romanian,Rhaeto-Romanic literature
Howard, P
Casus Belli: Giuseppe Gioachino waging war between tradition and experimentation
title Casus Belli: Giuseppe Gioachino waging war between tradition and experimentation
title_full Casus Belli: Giuseppe Gioachino waging war between tradition and experimentation
title_fullStr Casus Belli: Giuseppe Gioachino waging war between tradition and experimentation
title_full_unstemmed Casus Belli: Giuseppe Gioachino waging war between tradition and experimentation
title_short Casus Belli: Giuseppe Gioachino waging war between tradition and experimentation
title_sort casus belli giuseppe gioachino waging war between tradition and experimentation
topic Italian,Romanian,Rhaeto-Romanic literature
work_keys_str_mv AT howardp casusbelligiuseppegioachinowagingwarbetweentraditionandexperimentation