The Italian Cultural Institute and the Department of Classics, Modern Languages and Linguistics of Concordia University are pleased to present the conference “Behind a Literary Masterpiece of Italian Literature: Two Hundred Years of Leopardi’s Infinito” by Paola Italia. Dario Brancato, professor Concordia University, and Francesco D’Arelli, Director of the Italian Cultural Institute, present the speaker and the themes of the conference.
Tuesday April 30 2019, 6pm
Italian Cultural Institute
1200, Av. du Dr. Penfield
Montréal (QC), QC H3A 1A9
Conference in Italian
What makes Giacomo Leopardi’s Infinito, a short poem written two hundred years ago (1819), a masterpiece of modern Italian literature, a piece of unparalleled poetic purity and stunning beauty? University of Bologna Professor Paola Italia, with the expertise and passion that characterized her most recent work on Leopardi—a new critical edition of Leopardi’s Canti (Firenze, presso l’Accademia della Crusca, 2nd ed., 2009) and a monograph on Leopardi’s method (Il metodo di Leopardi, Rome, Carocci, 2016)—invites us into Leopardi’s poetical workshop, with a view to exploring the genius behind one of Italy’s greated works of literature. By showing us the different stages of production of Leopardi’s poetry, she guides us through the various phases of his creative genius—a fascinating journey into the secret and mysterious world of an author’s poetical creation, where, behind the process of correcting, re-writing, and printing, one can discover the extraordinary machine of the poetic genius in the very act of creating a work of art which, two hundred years later, continues to fascinate us.
Paola Italia has studied in Pavia, Ginevra, Pisa and since 2005 she has been Associate Professor of Italian Literature. She has been teaching at the University of Siena, Roma “La Sapienza”, Bologna. She has studied Modern Literature, from ‘700 to ‘900, with a specific interest in ecdotic problems and Authorial Philology (www.filologiadautore.it). She took part in two philological teams devoted to the critical edition of Promessi Sposi’s first draft (Fermo e Lucia, edited by Dante Isella, published in 2006), and Canti’critical edition, directed by Franco Gavazzeni, published in 2006 and 2009 by Accademia della Crusca). She carried out a research on 20th century Italian Literature language and philology, focused on different authors such as Gadda (Glossario di Carlo Emilio Gadda ‘milanese’, Edizioni dell’Orso, 1998 [Premio “Marino Moretti” per la Critica e la Filologia nel 1999]), Manganelli, Savinio (Il pellegrino appassionato, Sellerio 2004; Premio “Domenico Rea” 2005), Bassani, Tobino. With Giorgio Pinotti and Claudio Vela she is now the editor of Carlo Emilio Gadda’s work in Adelphi, and with Giorgio Pinotti has edited Eros e Priapo’s new critical edition based on the first draft (Milano, 2016).
Reservation no longer available