Tuscan Spaces: Literary Constructions of Space
© 2010
An important locus for English-speaking writers, the region of Tuscany is also well represented in the Italian literary canon. In Tuscan Spaces, Silvia Ross focuses on constructions of Tuscany in twentieth-century Italian literature and juxtaposes them with English prose works by such authors as E.M. Forster and Frances Mayes to expose the complexity of literary representation centred on a single milieu.
Ross uses the works of writers such as Federigo Tozzi, Aldo Palazzeschi, Vasco Pratolini, and Elena Gianini Belotti, to seek out alternative visions of Tuscan space and emphasizes that each author fashions the region in a manner which reflects their personal poetics, background, and experiences. Theories of cultural geography, space, travel, and narrative contribute to Ross's consideration of the dualisms commonly employed in writings about Tuscany, such as country/city, nature/culture, female/male, and self/other, all of which are in turn affected by her interrogation of the local/foreign opposition that underlies the study as a whole.
Product Details
- Series: Toronto Italian Studies
- World Rights
- Page Count: 208 pages
- Dimensions: 6.0in x 0.0in x 9.0in
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Reviews
‘This book presents readers with a number of innovative representations of the region… A well written and interesting book that provides historical context and geographical specificity to a subject that has long engaged writers, directors, tourists, and literary theorists.’
Elisabetta Tesser
Studies in Travel Writing vol 16:02:2012
'Silvia Ross's subtly delineated study shows how much more varied Tuscany and Tuscans themselves prove to be when treated by writers with a profound grasp of the language and culture. Ross's comparative presentation of major Tuscan and other Italian authors who have treated the region presents a bracing antidote to platitudes about (often primitivized) locals written by "real-estate-style" travel writers.'
Jonathan White, Professor Emeritus in Literature, University of Essex -
Author Information
Silvia Ross is a senior lecturer in the Department of Italian at University College Cork. -
Table of contents
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements iv List of Illustrations v Introduction 1 1. The Country and the City: Vertigo and Legendary Psychasthenia
in Tozzi's Tuscany31 2. Palazzeschi's Spaces of Difference: The Materassi Sisters at the Window 78 3. Vasco Pratolini's Florentine Spaces of Exclusion 119 4. The Stendhal Syndrome, or The Horror of Being Foreign in Florence 162 5. 'Going Native': Tuscan Houses and Italian Others in Contemporary
American Travel Writing219 6. The Tuscan Countryside: Nature and the (Non)Domestic in
Elena Gianini Belotti260 Afterword: Further Tuscan Spaces of Alterity 298 Works Cited 307
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