Casti libertino: Le Novelle galanti con un saggio di edizione / Mirra, Alessandra.

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Mirra, Alessandra, author.

Contributor:

Finotti, Fabio, degree supervisor.

Pizzamiglio, Gilberto, degree committee member.

Del Soldato, Eva, degree committee member.

Brownlee, Kevin, degree committee member.

Benini, Stefania, 1964- degree committee member.

University of Pennsylvania. Romance Languages, degree granting institution.

Language:

Italian

Subjects (All):

Literature.

0401.

Local Subjects:

Literature.

0401.

Genre:

Academic theses.

Physical Description:

1 electronic resource (224 pages)

Contained In:

Dissertation Abstracts International 77-02A(E).

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2005.

Language Note:

Italian

Summary:

The Novelle galanti is a collection of licentious tales in verse written by the Italian poet Casti at the end of the XVIII century. The tales mostly portray love affairs involving religious characters, and usually conclude with Casti condemning conventional moral restraints and praising libertinism. Although the book was an authentic best seller in Europe at the time, no critical edition has ever been published. My dissertation consists of two parts, the first one offering an overall introduction to the collection, contextualizing its ties with European libertinism, and the second one providing, as a sample of a larger project, a reliable annotated edition of seven novellas from the collection.

In the Introduction I argue that, though seemingly intended as a form of entertainment, this collection is, in fact, an extraordinary embodiment of a crucial ideological controversy of that period, and does not belong solely to the marginal genre of erotic literature. My analysis reveals that eroticism is employed here as a tool to challenge the legitimacy of the ethics imposed by the Ancien Regime. Through the analysis of recurrent topics, I demonstrate that unrestrained sexuality, and the violation of the religious environment in particular, embodies a rebellion against repression enacted on individuals by both political and ecclesiastical institutions, and that immoderation in sexual habits can be read as an unconscious response to the unnatural repression of natural desires, which will eventually, and violently, emerge. My conclusion, therefore, is that Casti's indefatigable defense of the bodily and the sensuous, in the wake of libertine philosophy, is not a praise of eroticism for its own sake, but rather a critique of the repressive society of the Ancient Regime, and a call for a new set of values, founded on the primacy of natural law over positive law.

I base my edition of the text on the editio princeps of 1804, which I compare with the autograph manuscripts, as well as with other clandestine editions. Every novella is preceded by a short introduction presenting its most relevant thematic and stylistic features, and is accompanied by an apparatus of linguistic footnotes.

Notes:

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 77-02(E), Section: A.

Advisors: Fabio Finotti Committee members: STEFANIA BENINI; KEVIN BROWNLEE; EVA DEL SOLDATO; GILBERTO PIZZAMIGLIO.

Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania 2005.

Local Notes:

School code: 0175

ISBN:

9781339050805