Tench, Darby

Dr. Darby Tench earned her Ph.D. from Yale University and her M.A. from Middlebury College. She is Lecturer in Italian at the University of New Hampshire and has taught at the University of Virginia, Purdue University and Middlebury College. She has published on Dante, Vico, Tommaseo, Serao, and Gadda as well as Verga.

Fictive Mediation and Mediated Fiction in the Novels of Giovanni Verga

2005 0-7734-6107-8
This is a fascinating study on the many ways that immediacy and mediation function in the novels of the nineteenth-century Italian novelist Giovanni Verga (1840-1922). Against the backdrop of an understanding of nineteenth-century realism, the author demonstrates how mediation and “the immediacy impression” function as rhetorical devices in Verga’s writings, and in I Malavoglia in particular. Girard, Bakhtin, and Serres provide important conversation partners for her throughout. The author has translated all of the Italian passages into English and has provided thorough annotation both in the form of endnotes and footnotes. This work makes important contributions to the study of Giovanni Verga and nineteenth-century realism.