Petrarch to Pirandello

This collection of studies in Italian literature is a tribute to Professor Corrigan on her retirement from active teaching at the University of Toronto. The essays, contributed by thirteen scholars in North America and Europe, cover a range of topics that reflect Professor Corrigan's many and varied interests. This book opens with a translation of Petrarch's first eclogue and ends with a comprehensive bibliography of Dr. Corrigan's publications. The eleven intervening essays examine some of the most significant moments in Italian literature from the fourteenth to the twentieth century. The influence of the Renaissance and pastoral drama on Elizabethan England is discussed, as well as the literary achievement in Italian-English relations brought about by the translation of Addison's Cato. The works of Roberto Bracco are considered in the light of the plays of Ibsen, who in the eyes of the critics influenced the work of every Italian dramatist. Bracco is shown to be a dramatist in his own right. Other subjects treated in this Festschrift are Manzone's conception of the profound significance of the moment in the interpretation of the individual personality, Verga's mastery of style and language, and Pirandello's special techniques of transforming a short story into a play.