Diana Glenn - Published Works
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This collection contains works focusing on Dante Studies, eighteenth-century criticism and contemporary Italian literature.
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Item 'Ti voglio raccontare.' Oral narratives of a migration stream from Campania (Italy) to Adelaide after the Second World War(AM International Edizioni, Italy, 2007) Glenn, Diana Cavuoto; Costanzo, MicheleThis paper presents selected findings from the oral testimonies of a group of first generation Italians who were born in the region of Campania in Southern Italy and who emigrated to the city of Adelaide, in South Australia, in the 1950s-1960s. It considers data drawn from two discrete groups: firstly, Campanians who migrated to Adelaide after the Second World War, and who now live there; and secondly, a small number of them who moved to Adelaide in the same period but who decided to return to Italy. The narratives of both groups were examined to analyse issues of cultural dislocation, the maintenance of core values, identity formation and the development of ways to help the integration of Australian-born children. The reasons for repatriation of the second group were of particular interest.Item The Envious Eye: Echoes of Inferno XIII in Purgatorio XIII (the figures of Pier della Vigna and Sapia)(LYTHRUM PRESS, 2005) Glenn, Diana CavuotoItem [BOOK REVIEW] Aldo S. Bernardo & Anthony L. Pellegrini (2006). Companion to Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Comprehensive Guide for the Student and General Reader, Revised Edition.(Department of Languages, Flinders University, 2006-12) Glenn, Diana CavuotoThis revised edition, at a distance of 38 years since its appearance as A Critical Study Guide to Dante’s Divine Comedy (a volume long out of print), offers useful study aids, including schematic charts, visual representations of the topography of the Comedy, biographical highlights and comparative chronological data. Composed in an accessible, unadorned style, Bernardo’s and Pellegrini’s companion study guide has appeal for English-speaking readers such as undergraduates, members of Dante reading or study groups and general readers of the poem.Item "Unrecorded lives": oral narratives of a group of first-generation Campanian women residing in Adelaide, South Australia(Department of Languages, Flinders University, 2006-12) Glenn, Diana CavuotoThis study examines issues of identity and cultural maintenance, as evidenced by the oral testimonies of a generational cohort who were born in the region of Campania in Southern Italy and who emigrated to Australia in the 1950s-1960s. During the post-war period of mass migration by Italians to overseas destinations, an Assisted Migration Agreement was signed by Australia and Italy (in 1951); however, the majority of Campanian migrants to Adelaide were not the beneficiaries of assisted passages. Rather, sponsorship by spouses, relatives or paesani, followed by cluster settlement patterns, were strong features of transnational immigration by Campanians to South Australia in the post-WWII period. As a result, the journeying and resettlement experiences of this project’s sampling of first generation Campanian women were predominantly influenced by family kinship networks operating within a system of chain migration. The paper will consider the ways in which the project informants developed mechanisms in order to survive the difficulties of cultural displacement and marginalisation from mainstream culture. The participants’ “outsider” point of view provides valuable information on the significance of cultural dislocation as a feature of South Australian society in the last fifty years.Item "Unrecorded Lives": Oral Narratives of a Group of First-Generation Campanian Women Residing in Adelaide, South Australia. [abstract].(2006) Glenn, Diana CavuotoThis paper will focus on issues of identity and cultural maintenance, as evidenced by the oral testimonies of a generational cohort who were born in the region of Campania in Southern Italy and who emigrated to Australia in the 1950s-1960s. Although, during the post-war period of mass migration by Italians to overseas destinations, an Assisted Migration Agreement was signed by Australia and Italy (in 1951), the majority of Campanian migrants to Adelaide were not the beneficiaries of assisted passages. Instead, sponsorship by spouses, relatives or paesani, followed by cluster settlement patterns, were strong features of transnational immigration by Campanians to South Australia in the post-WWII period. Therefore the journeying and resettlement experiences of this project’s sampling of first generation Campanian women were predominantly influenced by family kinship networks operating within a system of chain migration.Item "Tra mille abissi e precipizi": The Contribution of Algarotti, Bettinelli and Gozzi to Dante's Critical Fortune in the Eighteenth Century(Dept. of Italian, University of Melbourne, 1986) Glenn, Diana CavuotoThe eighteenth century holds a unique place in the history of Dante Studies, especially with regard to the criticial evalutaion of the 'Divine Comedy'. After the sensitive exegesis undertaken in the fourteenth century and on the strength of the humanist evaluation of Dante as poet and philosopher in the fifteenth century, the Cinquecento focused attention on the linguistic and grammatical aspects of the 'Comedy'.Item New Vistas in Eighteenth Century Critical Methodology: The Contribution of Gian Vincenzo Gravina(The Italian Discipline, Flinders University of South Australia, 1992) Cavuoto, DianaGian Vincenzo Gravina, distinguished jurisconsult, energetic reformer, particularly in the field of Dante Scholarship, and founding member of the literary movement 'Arcadia', is vividly remembered for his part in the 1711 schism within the Society. For twenty-one years Gravina had been an active participant and organiser within the fraternity. During that time, Gravina had helped organize and administer the activities of the 'Accademia' and her eight 'colonie'.Item Francesca Revisited(Berg Publishers Inc., 1993) Cavuoto, DianaCanto V of 'Inferno', in which Dante meets the souls of Paolo Malatesta and Francesca da Rimini, has long been a source of inspiration for poets, writers, and musicians. It also has been a source of much debate and critical entrepreneurship. Unhappily, Dantes characterization of Francesca, even until recently, has engendered a number of critical expositions that safeguard what can only be described as a fallacious dichotomy, whereby the figure of Francesca has been subjected to rigid stereotyping, resulting in extemporaneous fictions that are not borne out by the text. This article examines the figure of Francesa da Rimini in Dante's 'Comedy'.Item Of Thieves and Salvation Victories: Purgatorio V, 133(Australian Humanities Press, 2000) Glenn, Diana CavuotoDante's discourse with the penitent souls in the 'Purgatorio' reveals that these shades are characterised by a tendency towards self-effacement that is radically different from the destructive and self-absorbed attitude of the infernal spirits. Whereas the latter preserve an inner core of obduracy devoid of remorse, the contrite souls in 'Purgatory', through their trusting openness and willingness to communicate information about their private lives and the wider social and political circles of influence in which they once moved, help the Wayfarer to gain immeasurably in courage and inner strength. Throughout his journey, Dante-character is privy to surprising disclosures and, if the souls in Purgatory express amazement at his living presence among them, he is equally astonished by the news they relay to him, which has the potential to alter the destiny of members of the living Christian community and also to advance the spiritual cause of members of the community in Purgatory: "qui per quei di là molto savanza" (Purg. III, 145). Through his encounter with the shade of Pia in 'Purgatorio' V, the Pilgrim Dante is led to a higher level of spiritual cognition, not only as regards the souls in 'Purgatory', whose dialogues move back and forth in temporal and spatial terms as they reconstruct past events, relationships and places on earth, but also in relation to social networks and the interconnectedness of human society at large.Item Montedidio. Erri De Luca (2001) [review](Department of Languages, Flinders University, 2004-11) Glenn, Diana CavuotoA review of 'Montedidio' by Erri De Luca published by Feltrinelli 2001. ISBN 88-07-01600-1. In 2001, the appearance of two luminous novels about boyhood rites of passage and the loss of innocence caught the imagination of the Italian reading public. Although Niccolò Ammaniti’s 'Io non ho paura' and Erri De Luca’s 'Montedidio' were very different in their narrative approach and techniques (Ammaniti’s text had originally been developed for cinema), their sensitive exploration of human relationships from a child’s perspective assured them prize-winning success in the highly competitive literary market. However, while Ammaniti’s protagonist, Michele, spends his free time pedalling through a wide open, rural landscape, the unnamed boy in 'Montedidio' must grow his adult wings amidst the crush of a sprawling urban metropolis: the ancient city of Naples, a city that never sleeps.Item Io non ho paura by Niccolò Ammaniti (2001) [review](Department of Languages, Flinders University, 2003-12) Glenn, Diana CavuotoA review of 'Io non ho paura' (I'm Not Scared) by Niccolò Ammaniti published by Einaudi 2001. ISBN 88-06-14210-0 (Italian), ISBN 1 877008 46 X (English). In the torrid summer of 1978, while the grown-ups take refuge indoors behind drawn blinds, the first-person narrator, nine-year-old Michele Amitrano, is trudging about through the drought-stricken wheatfields in the stifling heat, keeping an eye on his five-year-old sister, Maria, while simultaneously fending off the bullish threats of gang-leader, il Teschio (“Skull”). Michele, now adult, recalls a harrowing episode from a childhood summer twenty-two years earlier.Item Matelda in the Terrestrial Paradise(Department of Languages, Flinders University, 2002-03) Glenn, Diana CavuotoThis analysis of the enigmatic figure of Matelda, guardian of the Terrestrial Paradise in Dante's Purgatorio, considers both the unresolved question of Matelda's historical identity, in particular whether Dante is alluding to the historical personage, Countess Matilda of Tuscany (1046-1115), and the numerous critical glosses that have emerged over the years, whereby Matelda has been interpreted as a symbolic figure, for example, as the biblical typology of the active/contemplative life, as the representation of human wisdom, or in a variety of other symbolic guises. Whilst alluding to recognisable idyllic poetic images, such as the donna angelicata of the vernacular tradition, Dante's conceptualisation of Matelda is nevertheless aligned to the pilgrim-poet's own development in via of a redemptive poetics in which the writer articulates an urgent message of reform, at both the secular and ecclesiastical levels. The linking of Matelda with the notion of the loss of the prelapsarian state of humankind's innocence and her supervision of the penitential cleansing rites performed on Dante-protagonist, in anticipation of his ascent to Paradise in the company of Beatrice, represent crucial moments in Dante's mapping out of prudential history for his readers and his call for a recovery of Christian values.