Invisible Cities
Invisible Empire: The Power of Language and Metaphor in Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities
by Sara Beth Seay
Departmental Honors Thesis The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga English
Project Director: Dr. Gregory O’Dea Examination Date: 5 May 2007 Dr. Craig Barrow, Dr. Matthew Guy, Dr. Robert Marlowe, Dr. Gregory O’Dea Examining Committee Signatures: _________________________________________________________
Project Director
_________________________________________________________
Department Examiner
_________________________________________________________
Department Examiner
_________________________________________________________
Liaison, Departmental Honors Committee
_________________________________________________________
Chairperson, University Departmental Honors Committee
Abstract In this analysis of a single text, I mean to demonstrate that I have fulfilled three purposes in the study of literature: becoming a better reader, understanding and developing increasingly complex metaphors, and discovering a personal voice in writing. Through a discussion of the critical dialogue and the thematic, structural and linguistic elements of a text, I demonstrate a capacity for conversing with text – wrestling it if necessary – a clear understanding of metaphor, its use and its limitations, an ability to explicate complex metaphors and construct them myself, and exercised a style and voice particular to myself and not entirely unpleasant. I begin with a discussion on the critical dialogue concerning Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, followed by a brief description of my methodology for studying the text. What follows is my own analysis of the book, informed by critical dialogue and postmodern theory, but not steered by it. I conclude that the power of language and metaphor in this text exemplifies the power they signify in life, that they offer us, the constructors and users of signs and words space to know and hope that we can manage
by Sara Beth Seay
Departmental Honors Thesis The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga English
Project Director: Dr. Gregory O’Dea Examination Date: 5 May 2007 Dr. Craig Barrow, Dr. Matthew Guy, Dr. Robert Marlowe, Dr. Gregory O’Dea Examining Committee Signatures: _________________________________________________________
Project Director
_________________________________________________________
Department Examiner
_________________________________________________________
Department Examiner
_________________________________________________________
Liaison, Departmental Honors Committee
_________________________________________________________
Chairperson, University Departmental Honors Committee
Abstract In this analysis of a single text, I mean to demonstrate that I have fulfilled three purposes in the study of literature: becoming a better reader, understanding and developing increasingly complex metaphors, and discovering a personal voice in writing. Through a discussion of the critical dialogue and the thematic, structural and linguistic elements of a text, I demonstrate a capacity for conversing with text – wrestling it if necessary – a clear understanding of metaphor, its use and its limitations, an ability to explicate complex metaphors and construct them myself, and exercised a style and voice particular to myself and not entirely unpleasant. I begin with a discussion on the critical dialogue concerning Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, followed by a brief description of my methodology for studying the text. What follows is my own analysis of the book, informed by critical dialogue and postmodern theory, but not steered by it. I conclude that the power of language and metaphor in this text exemplifies the power they signify in life, that they offer us, the constructors and users of signs and words space to know and hope that we can manage
Bibliography: Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author.” Roland Barth’s “The Death of the Author,” 1977. 2 July 2004. Becker, Howard S. “Italo Calvino as Urbanologist.” 9 March 2007. Howie 's Homepage. 12 March 2007 . Bolongaro, Eugenio. Italo Calvino...and the Compass of Literature. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, Inc., 2003. Breiner, Laurence. “Italo Calvino: The Place of the Emperor in Invisible Cities.” Modern Fiction Studies 34, n 4 (1988): 559-73. Calvino, Italo. Hermit in Paris: Autobiographical Writings. Trans. Martin McLaughlin. New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 2003. ---. Invisible Cities. New York, NY: Harcourt, 1978. ---. Six Memos for the Next Millennium. Trans. Patrick Creagh. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1993. ---. Uses of Literature, The. Trans. William Weaver. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986. Carter, III, Albert H. “A Review of Invisible Cities.” The New Republic, 28 December 1974. Literature Resource Center. Gale Group Databases. Lupton Library, Chattanooga, TN. 2 March 2007 . Di Pace-Jordan, Rosetta. “Italo Calvino 's Legacy: The Constant and Consistent Vision.” World Literature Today 66, n 3 (1992): 468-71. Harris, Paul A. “Italo Calvino: The Code, the Clinamen and the Cities.” Mosaic 23, n 4 (1990): 67-85. “Italo Calvino.” Contemporary Authors Online. Literature Resource Center. Gale Group Databases. Lupton Library, Chattanooga, TN. 2 March 2007 . Kimmelman, Burt. “Text and Selfhood in Medieval and Postmodern Worlds.” Readerly/Writerly Texts (2002): 51-60. McLaughlin, Martin. Italo Calvino. Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press, 1998. Pedoto, Constance A. “Game Playing in the Fiction of Italo Calvino.” Italian Quarterly 30 (Winter- Spring 1989): 43-53. Literature Resource Center. Gale Group Databases. 33 Lupton Library, Chattanooga, TN. 2 March 2007 . Ricci, Franco. “Italo Calvino.” Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 196: Italian Novelists Since world War II, 1965-1990. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Edited by Augustus Pallotta. Literature Resource Center. Gale Group Databases. Lupton Library, Chattanooga, TN. 2 March 2007 . Rushdie, Salman. “Calvino.” London Review of Books (17-30 September 1981): 16-17. Sbragia, Albert. “Italo Calvino 's Ordering of Chaos.” Modern Fiction Studies 39, n 2 (1993): 283-306. Literature Resource Center. Gale Group Databases. Lupton Library, Chattanooga, TN. 28 April 2007 . 34