Background
Biasin, Gian-Paolo was born on November 7, 1933 in Reggio Emilia, Italy. Son of Giovanni and Vittoria (Bedeschi) Biasin.
( Integrating the study of both music and art into an exp...)
Integrating the study of both music and art into an exploration of the early poetry of Eugenio Montale (1896-1982), this book situates Italy's premier poet of the twentieth century within the Modernist movement. Gian-Paolo Biasin finds in Montale's poetry broad resonances, reverberations, and comparisons that involve it in the European culture of its time and that invite the reading of poetry, music, and painting as texts in a cultural system. This interdisciplinary approach expands our appreciation of Montale's work in a way not possible with literary analysis alone. Biasin's study first shows the structural homology between some of Debussy's preludes for piano and certain poems in Montale's Ossi di seppia, emphasizing the rhythmic qualities of the compositions. This formal analysis leads to an understanding of the respective texts' thematic, symbolic, and cultural meaning--specifically, antiheroism as a choice of life. Similar methodology is then used to reveal the relationship between the poetry of Montale and Giorgio Morandi's etchings and between Montale's poetic persona, Arsenio, and the novelistic characters of Svevo and Pirandello. Each of these comparisons brings to light a shared image, that of the clown (or antihero) as a mocking self-portrait of the modern artist. Originally published in 1989. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691608164/?tag=2022091-20
( Focusing on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Italian l...)
Focusing on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Italian literature, Gian-Paolo Biasin explores a series of challenges posited for literary criticism by the success of semiotics, testing theoretical concepts not so much on theoretical grounds as in their practical application to literary texts from the high Romantic lyric of Ugo Foscolo to the postmodern, cosmicomic tales of Italo Calvino. Originally published in 1985. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691066329/?tag=2022091-20
( From Rabelais's celebration of wine to Proust's madelei...)
From Rabelais's celebration of wine to Proust's madeleine and Virginia Woolf's boeuf en daube in To the Lighthouse, food has figured prominently in world literature. But perhaps nowhere has it played such a vital role as in the Italian novel. In a book flowing with descriptions of recipes, ingredients, fragrances, country gardens, kitchens, dinner etiquette, and even hunger, Gian-Paolo Biasin examines food images in the modern Italian novel so as to unravel their function and meaning. As a sign for cultural values and social and economic relationships, food becomes a key to appreciating the textual richness of works such as Lampedusa's The Leopard, Manzoni's The Betrothed, Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz, and Calvino's Under the Jaguar Sun. The importance of the culinary sign in fiction, argues Biasin, is that it embodies the oral relationship between food and language while creating a sense of materiality. Food contributes powerfully to the reality of a text by making a fictional setting seem credible and coherent: a Lombard peasant eats polenta in The Betrothed, whereas a Sicilian prince offers a monumental macaroni timbale at a dinner in The Leopard. Similarly, Biasin shows how food is used by writers to connote the psychological traits of a character, to construct a story by making the protagonists meet during a meal, and even to call attention to the fictionality of the story with a metanarrative description. Drawing from anthropology, psychoanalysis, sociology, science, and philosophy, the author gives special attention to the metaphoric and symbolic meanings of food. Throughout he blends material culture with observations on thematics and narrativity to enlighten the reader who enjoys the pleasures of the text as much as those of the palate.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691032750/?tag=2022091-20
Biasin, Gian-Paolo was born on November 7, 1933 in Reggio Emilia, Italy. Son of Giovanni and Vittoria (Bedeschi) Biasin.
Laurea Jurisprudence, Modena University, Italy, 1956. Master of Arts in Political Science, Syracuse University, 1958. Doctor of Philosophy in Romance Literature, Johns Hopkins University, 1964.
Assistant professor, Cornell Univercity, Ithaca, New York, 1964-1967; associate professor, Cornell Univercity, Ithaca, New York, 1967-1973; professor, University Texas, Austin, 1973-1981; professor, University of California, Berkeley, since 1981. Chairman comparative literature University Texas, Austin, 1974-1975. Chairman Italian department University of California, Berkeley, 1983-1988.
( Focusing on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Italian l...)
( Integrating the study of both music and art into an exp...)
( From Rabelais's celebration of wine to Proust's madelei...)
( From Rabelais's celebration of wine to Proust's madelei...)
( Disease—real or imagined, physical or mental—is a commo...)
Member Coemit, Italian Government Committee on Emigration, San Francisco, 1987-1990. Member International Association Study Italian Literature, Modern Language Association, American Association Italian Studies, American Association Teachers Italian, Dante Society of America, Accademia Italiana della Cucina.
Married Maria Rita Francia, December 28, 1970. 1 child, Giovanni.