Griffiths, C. E. J.

About the author: Clive Griffiths is Senior Lecturer in Italian at the University of Manchester. He has taught most major periods of Italian literature, from Dante to Moravia, as well as specialist courses on the Risorgimento and Italian Fascism. His main

Cultural Heritage of the Italian Renaissance Essays in Honour of T. G. Griffith

1993 0-7734-9396-4
These essays address unifying themes such as the acquisition of knowledge (Fracastoro's theories on the cognitive process); textual criticism (the editing of the works of Livy and Alberti); the academic and social value of humanist studies (the views of Dante and Lombardelli); literary imitation (of the classics and the Bible in Piccolomini, humanists' imitation of each other in the case of Petrarch and Boccaccio); and the reflection of social reality in literature (freedom versus duty in Ariosto and Quarini, marriage and the law in Renaissance comedy, the role of women in the chivalric epic, in comedy and in the novellas of Masuccio, political expediency in Machiavelli and in treatises on the courtier from Castiglione on). An indication of the breadth of the impact of the movement is given by studies which describe its effect on the literary tradition of Wales and on writers of the Enlightenment like Parini.

Theatrical Works of Giovacchino Forzano - Drama for Mussolini’s Italy

2000 0-7734-7726-8
This monograph is the first major study of Giovacchino Forzano’s theatrical works in either English or Italian. Forzano’s success as a writer and practitioner working in the popular theater in Italy has usually been ascribed to his well-known artistic relationship with Mussolini, but this study goes beyond that. By a detailed analysis of his major plays and contemporary reactions to them, the study shows how Forzano was able successfully to reflect the interests and concerns of contemporary, largely middle-class audiences. It show how he was able to exploit his skills as a dramatist to articulate and exploit contemporary emotions, the study includes the annotated text of a play, Racconti d’autunno, d’inverno e primavera (1937), here published for the first time. It is an interesting example of propagandistic drama whose aim was to celebrate the triumphs of the fascist regime.