Papers by Daragh O'Connell
An Irish Dante, Part I: Possible Precursors to the Commedia
Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Jun 1, 2022
L'arte della scrittura delle vite : contesti auto-biografici e autobiografismo nella letteratura italiana
Franco Cesati eBooks, 2014
Between concatenatio pulcra and the ‘Tyranny of Rhyme’
Routledge eBooks, Aug 9, 2022
The Warfare Within: Conflict Resolution and the Integration of the Personality in Purgatorio
Resistance in Italian culture from Dante to the 21st century
This book brings together nineteen studies exploring original research perspectives that seek to ... more This book brings together nineteen studies exploring original research perspectives that seek to expand our understanding of the concept of resistance in Italian culture. The scope is not restricted to the theme of the political Resistance leading up to and following World War II, or to the legacy of the Resistance in the context of modern Italian society and its institutions – as has been the case of all important volumes that have dealt with this subject so far. Instead, we have embraced historical and multidisciplinary perspectives to examine ideas and practices adopted from early modern Italy to the 21st century challenging ideologies, political powers, patriarchal society, and, more recently, globalisation. In doing so, we intend to recognize that the concept of resistance should be seen as a distinctive mark of Italian cultural identity.
An Irish Dante, Part II: A Dantean Afterlife
Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review
Renaissance and Reformation, 2017
This essay interrogates Ludovico Ariosto’s theatrical poetics by charting his developing sense of... more This essay interrogates Ludovico Ariosto’s theatrical poetics by charting his developing sense of the theatrical space and his embrace of the contemporary. From an initial appropriation of Roman stage models to a more nuanced appreciation of the comic possibilities afforded through a modernizing use of the contemporary city as more than a mere backdrop, Ariosto inscribed his native Ferrara in comic form, at once a subversive antithesis to the idealized courtly city and a repository for comedic potentialities. This is most evident in two of his comedies: Il Negromante (1520; 1528) and, in particular, La Lena (1528), in which Ferrara (both named and unnamed) assumes an increasingly important role in the construction of the “comic city.” Ultimately, Ariosto’s transformation of theatrical tradition may be located in his interrogation and satirization of the vices and mores of Ferrara, resulting in the creation of one of the finest plays of the Italian Commedia erudite. Cet essai examine...
Italian Studies, 2020
The article opens by considering how contemporary Italian Studies scholarship is situated in rela... more The article opens by considering how contemporary Italian Studies scholarship is situated in relation to the long-standing dominance of literary culture as a major disciplinary concern, and the persistence of traditionally conceived canons, questions, and methods. The authors discuss how the scope of literary research has expanded in recent years and become more enmeshed with sociological, political, and ideological enquiry. They review how previous definitions of literary cultures and practices have been refreshed with new theoretical and interdisciplinary approaches, and through transnational dialogues and collaborative modes of research. A diachronic survey discusses key innovations both in the study of canonical or 'high culture' literary phenomenasuch as Dante, Leopardi, or Futurism -, and in engagements with previously overlooked writing in popular genres or media, or by socially marginalised authors. It concludes by reflecting on how literary studies is both critiqued and defended within current debates over the standing of humanities research within and beyond the academy.
Staged Narratives/Narrative Stages: Essays on Italian Prose Narrative and Theatre
Italian Culture, 2019
Using textual examples linked to one major literary tradition, the present volume examines relati... more Using textual examples linked to one major literary tradition, the present volume examines relationships between the different but related media of theatre and narrative literature. For many centuries stories were mostly consumed by listening to someone reciting or reading them aloud: they were essentially performances rather than the silent reading experiences that have become the default in our literate societies. This books reminds us that the written word is also the spoken word and that relations between page and stage, literature and performance, constitute a dynamic two-way street. Drawing on multiple theoretical and methodological approaches, the volume includes essays on Boccaccio, Manzoni, Pirandello, Campanile, De Filippo, Fo, Gadda, Vittorini, Consolo, Sciascia, Testori and Racco.
Quaderns d’Italià, 2008
Il contributo tenta di delineare la poetica di Vincenzo Consolo attraverso i suoi interventi gior... more Il contributo tenta di delineare la poetica di Vincenzo Consolo attraverso i suoi interventi giornalistici e saggistici e attraverso momenti «testuali» della sua trilogia narrativa: Il sorriso dell'ignoto marinaio; Nottetempo, casa per casa; Lo Spasimo di Palermo.
Italian Modernism: Italian Culture between Decadentism and Avant-Garde Luca Somigli and Mario Moroni (Eds) Toronto/Buffalo/London, University of Toronto Press, 2004 465 pp., pbk, ISBN: 0802086020 (£25.00)
Modern Italy, 2007
Mafia and Antimafia: Sciascia and Borsellino in Vincenzo Consolo’s Lo spasimo di Palermo
Assassinations and Murder in Modern Italy, 2007
In this study, the figure of Paolo Borsellino and his assassination are analyzed in a literary co... more In this study, the figure of Paolo Borsellino and his assassination are analyzed in a literary context in relation to Vincenzo Consolo’s 1998 novel Lo spasimo di Palermo (The Agony of Palermo). This narrative constitutes a break within the Sicilian literary tradition and is one of the first examples in Sicilian literature in which a judicial figure is accorded positive values and heroic status. Consolo’s Giudice (Judge) figure is the unnamed, though thinly veiled Paolo Borsellino, whose assassination at the end of the novel represents the death of the Italian state and articulates Consolo’s own disavowal of the novel form. Conversely, positive values accorded to an institutional figure such as a judge are notably lacking in the writings of Consolo’s mentor Leonardo Sciascia: the figure of the judge, who ought to embody and be an agent of justice, is more often portrayed as an unjust, negative element corrupted by and partaker in the shadowy power structures of Italian life.1 Consolo’s text establishes a dialogue with Sciascia’s polemical pronouncements on the professionisti dell’antimafia (antimafia professionals) and attempts to reconcile the literary and judicial antimafia traditions of the island.
“Providential Divining”: Heresies and Controversies in Giambattista Vico’s Scienza Nuova
Beyond Catholicism, 2014
In 1721, Pietro Metastasio, assessing Giambattista Vico’s De constantia iurisprudentis, observed ... more In 1721, Pietro Metastasio, assessing Giambattista Vico’s De constantia iurisprudentis, observed that it was “a work in a pure Latin tongue, of high erudition and metaphysical acumen.” It was, he continued, notwithstanding its merits, badly received due largely to the fact that it was “taken to be a little too obscure” (Metastasio 1954, p. 24).1 This charge of obscurity has been leveled at all of Vico’s work and survives down to the present day. It is, in fact, the only point where scholars of Vico are in complete agreement. Some have found Vico’s obscurity tantalizing, believing it to add to the special appeal of the New Science. In 1911, Benedetto Croce even went so far as to write that Vico’s obscurity was “itself the novelty and profundity of his concepts” (1973, p. 208). Others have seen it as a deliberate attempt to conceal unorthodox views, despite frequent claims by Vico himself that he was a devout son of the Catholic church. In his lifetime, Vico was believed to be an exemplary Catholic, one who, both in his private and professional life, stood for the Roman Catholic church against the more subversive elements of Naples and of Northern Europe. After his death, however, this reputation underwent a metamorphosis: in Naples, rumors began to circulate suggesting that Vico had deliberately obscured the New Science presumably because he feared ecclesiastical censure and the possibility of more serious consequences with the Roman Curia.
Quaderni d'italianistica, 2019
Il volume raccoglie dodici saggi, nove dei quali dedicati all'approfondimento di una singola voce... more Il volume raccoglie dodici saggi, nove dei quali dedicati all'approfondimento di una singola voce del settenario evocato nel titolo: superbia (Mangini, Took), invidia (O'Connell), ira (Skoda), accidia (Dorigatti), avarizia (Black, More O'Ferrall), gola (Armstrong) e lussuria (Kay). I restanti contributi, con l'eccezione del saggio di Ferzoco, in cui è proposta una riflessione sulle anime raccolte nel vestibolo dell'Inferno, offrono un'indagine di più ampio respiro sulla funzione dei sette vizi capitali nell'opera dantesca: Moevs ne esamina le ricadute sulla struttura della Commedia, Barnes sulle 'autobiografie' del poeta. I saggi di Moevs e di Barnes, posti rispettivamente in apertura e in chiusura, rispondono all'esigenza di consolidare la funzione monografica del libro, e al contempo di dimostrare la centralità dell'argomento scelto nell'economia della produzione di Dante. Moevs in particolare, facendo proprie alcune pagine di Singleton, insiste sulle ricorrenze del numero sette nei canti centrali del Purgatorio: «In 1965 Charles Singleton noticed a symmetrical 3 + 1 + 3 pattern at the centre of the Commedia» (11). La catena di rispondenze numeriche -di per sé affascinanti, ma non certo decisive, perlomeno rispetto all'evidenza del dato concettuale, che è in questo caso perfettamente esplicito -induce a riconoscere nel dibattito sul libero arbitrio il cuore dell'opera dantesca: il che è tanto vero quanto, appunto, noto. Già l'estensore dell'antico accessus a Cangrande non aveva dubbi a riguardo: ricondotta al suo nucleo di verità, la Commedia ha infatti per «soggetto» -così al § 25 dell'Epistola XIII -«l'uomo in quanto, meritando e demeritando attraverso la libertà dell'arbitrio, è sottoposto alla giustizia del premio e della punizione»
Contesting the Monument: The Anti-Illusionist Italian Historical Novel (review)
Italian Culture, 2007
Selbstwahrnehmung im Wek von Pier Maria Rosso di San Secondo” [Come i siciliani vedono se stessi ... more Selbstwahrnehmung im Wek von Pier Maria Rosso di San Secondo” [Come i siciliani vedono se stessi nei lavori di Pier Maria Rosso], di Thomas Stauder, al teatro di Pirandello in “La stagione teatrale siciliana di Pirandello: Ragione e mito”, di Sarah Zappulla Muscarà, per arrivare ad Angela Barwig, che indaga sulla carriera di due musicisti siciliani, Franco Battiato e Pippo Pollina (“‘Vie che portano all’essenza’ versus ‘Strade dei sogni e delle dimenticanze’: Zu den Liederdichtern Franco Battiato und Pippo Pollina”). A differenza delle sezioni che precedono, la sesta parte del volume, “Appendice Letteraria”, non propone saggi critici ma due selezioni da “A Mineo nel secolo XVII: Paolo Maura” (tratto dal volume La Cattura, di Paolo Maura, curato da Giuseppe Bonaviri [Palermo: Sellerio, 1979]), e un racconto di Turi Vasile, “Il profumo dell’anima” (tratto da Male non fare: Racconti [Palermo: Sellerio, 1997]). Eterogeneità—o per rimanere con Bhabha, la Sicilia quale terzo spazio, ibrido storico, sociale e letterario—diventa una parola cardine per comprendere sia la struttura che lo scopo del volume. Da qui nasce appunto il carattere dell’antologia di Dagmar Reichardt, che vede raccolti 33 contributi da parte di vari studiosi della Sicilia il cui interesse pluridisciplinare si estende in diversi campi: dalla letteratura all’archeologia, dalla linguistica alla musica e al teatro. In conclusione, Dagmar Reichardt, attraverso una polifonia di voci, è riuscita a ricostruire una Sicilia quale crocevia culturale, riposizionandola, non solo geograficamente, al centro del Mediterraneo.
Comparative Becomings
Inactive DOIs, 2016
Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme 40.1, Winter / hiver 2017 (Special Issue), 2017
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Papers by Daragh O'Connell