The quiet avant-garde : crepuscular poetry and the twilight of modern humanism / Danila Cannamela.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cannamela, Danila, 1983- author.

Series:

Toronto Italian studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Italian poetry--20th century--History and criticism.

Italian poetry.

Avant-garde (Aesthetics)--Italy--History--20th century.

Avant-garde (Aesthetics).

Italy.

History.

Modernism (Literature)--Italy.

Modernism (Literature).

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

History.

Physical Description:

x, 344 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Toronto; Buffalo; London : University of Toronto Press, 2019.

Summary:

"The blending of people and living machines is a central element in the futurist "reconstruction of the universe." However, prior to the futurist break, a group of early-twentieth-century poets, later dubbed crepuscolari (crepusculars), had already begun an attack against the dominant cultural system, using their poetry as the locus in which useless little objects clashed with the traditional poetry of human greatness and stylistic perfection. The Quiet Avant-Garde draws from a number of twenty-first-century theories--vital materialism, object-oriented ontology, and environmental humanities--as well as Bruno Latour's criticism of modernity to illustrate how the crepuscular movement sabotaged the modern mindset and launched the counter-discourse of the Italian avant-garde by blurring the line dividing people from "things." This liminal poetics, at the crossroad of tradition, modernism, and the avant-garde, acted as the initiator of the ethical and environmental transition from a universe subjected to humans to human-thing co-agency. This book proposes a contemporary reading of Italian twentieth-century movements and offers a foothold for scholars outside Italian studies to access authors who are still unexplored in North American literature."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

1 A Matter of Things; Modernity, Modernism, Avant-Garde p. 30

2 The Avant-Garde Is Made of Useless Objects p. 75

3 Being a Living Thing: Towards a New Notion of Body p. 125

4 Love and the Grand Solidarity of Sound p. 178

5 Avant-Garde Immersive Onto-Cognition p. 217.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

148750506X

9781487505066

OCLC:

1066053198