The refashioning of Calvino's public self-image in the 1950s and early 1960s

Francese, Joseph

doi:10.1179/026143407781480942

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“…As I have argued elsewhere (see Francese 2007), the purpose of the 1954 preface (an autobiographical piece and self-appraisal written in the third person so as to acquire a patina of objective detachment) was that of gaining distance from the literary debut that had defi ned him as a writer. The preface to the 1964 edition is also auto-exegetical, but lengthier and richer in autobiographical detail.…”

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confidence: 97%

“…Equally relevant to our hypothesis is Calvino's abandonment, in the 1950s, of the neorealist investigation that defi ned the fi rst decade of his career in favour of works dominated by autobiographical concerns, that is to say fi ctions that questioned the condition of the intellectual using either allegoric or realist strategies. 4 In the 1950s Calvino moved away from neorealist investigation of broad social issues in favour of fi ctions that used either allegoric or realist strategies to examine his own condition as an intellectual. Subsequently, in the early 1960s, he established his reputation as an 'Olympian' intellectual au dessus de la mêlée (an image grounded in rationality and ethical coherence: that of, to use his term, a 'franco tiratore'5 intent on excogitating a metanarrative of human existence) before participating -in the 1960s and 1970s, as a sort of founding father -in a 'postmodern' literary season defi ned by its 'playful' refusal of social engagement and authorial responsibility over texts, and by its metaliterary turn into self-refl exivity.…”

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The Engaged Intellectual: Calvino's Public Self-image in the 1960s

Francese

2008

Romance Studies

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This article analyses Calvino's editing of his autobiography as a thinker and an artist from the late 1950s through the 1960s. By creating and then reaffi rming the perception that change had occurred within continuity, Calvino successfully established the criteria by which his works have been judged, thus guiding readings and exegeses of his works and perpetuating his image of a coherent, committed intellectual. Integral parts of this strategy are the complex literary games for which Calvino is well known. One such game centres on his contention that works of fi ction and also of non-fi ction transcend and exist independently of their authors: he, the empirical author, and the narrating voice he uses in his non-fi ctions and fi ctions are not one and the same. Such games are of a piece with Calvino's refusal of authority over his writings and of the need to defl ect responsibility for their content away from himself. These games are also re-occurrences of regressive behaviour learned in childhood, a behaviour that had served Calvino as a means of escaping identifi cation and responsibility for his actions. An analysis of this strategy presents us with the paradox of an author who both promotes a public self-image of social commitment and refuses responsibility for the infl uential role played by his writings in the development of Italian and Western literature over the second half of the twentieth century.

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confidence: 97%

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confidence: 99%