No open-access location is known for this record yet.
No open-access location is known for this record yet.
I I42 Reviews most readers, as she does not make much of a case for them: throughout the book, she largely bypasses themusic of her chosen compositions inorder to trace sources forand connections between thecomponents of their texts. When one considers that, apart from theUngaretti poems set by Gentilucci and the libretto of Ulisse, these texts scarcely inviteconsideration away from theirmusic, and further,that inParole da Beckett, as Suvini-Hand puts it, thewords 'are, to a large extent, treated as raw elementary sound, and the actual text is often unintelligible' (p. I42), the project begins to take on an air of perversity. Nor is one convinced by the author's argument forgathering these fivestudies to gether, all ofwhich have previously appeared as articles. In the introduction Suvini Hand states that her 'precise focus' is 'collage libretti comprised of or inspired by exclusively literary texts' (p. I). All of the 'libretti' treated in her book 'employ a Neo-Avant-garde collage technique' (p. 4). Both these statements are problematic. The notion of an exclusively literary collage applies only to theManzoni. It is in troduced to justify the failure to discuss a text that is truly a collage libretto, that of Nono's Intolleranza I 96o, which juxtaposes literaryand documentary materials. Nei therof the texts ofLaborintus II orAusstrahlung is 'exclusively literary': the former contains extracts from amedieval encyclopaedia, the latter fragments from ancient Indian sacred writings. Gentilucci assembles a short cycle of brief poems by a single author, an entirely conventional procedure. And there isnothing 'Neo-Avant-garde' about Dallapiccola's libretto, which isnot collage-like but 'unobtrusively' allusive, as Suvini-Hand acknowledges (p. 29), even 'old-fashioned' (p. 68). Ulisse provokes the richest discussion of thebook. The author interprets thehero's epiphanic acknowledgement of divine presence at the end of the opera not as the redemption of his search for meaning and identity,but as confirmation of thedespair ing notion that haunts him: that he iswithout identity, 'nessuno'. Ulysses comes to understand the 'hubris' of his attempts to grasp 'absolute knowledge' (p. 53). It is a readingwhich suggests that, forall Suvini-Hand's references toKierkegaard, she has not appreciated the existential character ofDallapiccola's theology.As toher gestures towards the scores of this and theotherworks, it would be kindest not to comment in any detail. Non-specialist readersmay be satisfied by the level ofmusical commentary provided; they should be aware that, from amusicological perspective, it is barely competent. UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM BEN EARLE The Selected Poetry and Prose ofAndrea Zanzotto: A Bilingual Edition. Ed. and trans. by PATRICK BARRON. Chicago: University ofChicago Press. 2007. xv+466 pp. $35; ?22-50. ISBN 978-o-226-97884-0. This inviting volume represents themost complete anthology to date of Zanzotto's work inEnglish translation, including an ample selection of poems drawn from all his major books of poetry and thirteen prose pieces thatpresent some of the central ideas underpinning thecreative project of an author considered tobe one of themost original voices operating in Italy today. Italian poetry in translation is difficult to come by and this recent publication is therefore particularly welcome, bringing together a score of previously published translations of Zanzotto's poetry by Ruth Feldman, Thomas J.Harrison, Brian Swann, John P.Welle, and Elizabeth A. Wilkins. Patrick Barron also adds many new translations of his own, compiled with the co-operation of Zanzotto himself, as well as additional editorial notes to complement thepoet's. In addition, he provides a useful introduction that sets the tone for the anthology, which has a strong topo graphical vein running through it,showing theextent towhich Zanzotto's originality MLR, 103.4, 2008 I I43 lies in his configuration of a textual landscape that embodies the undulating, often uneven terrainof thepoetic voice itsstruggle to assert an identityand place for itself in theworld which is at once aworld of nature, of society, and of poetry itself.This poetic landscape has its roots inZanzotto's native Veneto -vident inhis earlyworks, Dietro ilpaesaggio ( I 5 i) and Vocativo ( 957)-but extends as far as the boundaries of themythical or unreal, beginning with the greater linguistic experimentation of La Belta (I968), through the 'Selva Incantata' (p. I96) of II Galateo...
Loading…
Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.