Research Catalog

Title

Buried Caesars, and other secrets of Italian American writing / Robert Viscusi.

Author

Viscusi, Robert.

Publication

Albany : State University of New York Press, ©2006.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xxii, 272 pages; 24 cm.

Summary

• "Robert Viscusi takes a comprehensive look at Italian American writing by exploring the connections between language and culture in Italian American experience and major literary texts. Italian immigrants, Viscusi argues, considered even their English to be a dialect of Italian, and therefore attempted to create an American English fully reflective of their historical, social, and cultural positions. This approach allows us to see Italian American purposes as profoundly situated in relation not only to American language and culture but also to Italian nationalist narratives in literary history as well as linguistic practice.
• Viscusi also situates Italian American writing within the "eccentric design" of American literature, and uses a multidisciplinary approach to read not only novels and poems, but also houses, maps, processions, videos, and other artifacts as texts."--Jacket.

Series Statement

SUNY series in Italian/American culture

Uniform Title

SUNY series in Italian/American culture.

Subject

• American literature > Italian American authors > History and criticism
• American literature > Italian influences
• Italian Americans > Intellectual life
• Italian Americans in literature
• American literature > Italian American authors
• Literatur
• Schrijvers
• Italianen
• Amerikanen
• USA
• Italiener

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 219-248) and index.

Contents

Secrets of Italian American writing -- English as a dialect of Italian -- De vulgari eloquentia: ordinary eloquence in Italian America -- Il caso della casa: stories of houses in Italian America -- Immigrant ambitions and American literature -- The text in the dust: writing Italy across America -- The semiology of semen: questioning the father -- Circles of the cyclopes: concentric history -- A literature considering itself: the allegory of Italian America -- The Italian American sign -- The imperial sopranos.

ISBN

• 0791466337
• 9780791466339
• 0791466345
• 9780791466346

LCCN

• 2005003758
• 9780791466339

OCLC

• ocm57669699
• 57669699
• SCSB-1381297

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library