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Wearied by his life as an administrator at the Duke's court in Weimar, in 1786 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe departed unannounced in the middle of the night for what had been the destination of his imagination since childhood: Italy. His extended stay there dramatically affected his views of art, architecture, prose, poetry, and science. When he returned to Germany and Weimar, Goethe's experiences translated into his life and work in ways that influenced countless others as they developed Germany's own brand of high culture. The Spell of Italy: Vacation, Magic, and the Attraction of Goethe tracks the peculiar space Italy occupies in the cultural consciousness of German writers by reconsidering the Italian journeys of Goethe and Winckelmann and the legacy of those journeys in the works of Heine, Nietzsche, Freud, Mann, Carossa, and Bachmann. Author Richard Block contests previous assumptions about Italy as a place to encounter classical culture and creative rebirth. His study examines the degree to which Germany's literary and cultural traditions appropriated a phantasmic Italy, showing how Winckelmann's art history and Goethe's Italian journey predisposed later writers to search for an aesthetic ideal in Italy that did not exist, and how their search for this absent ideal eventually resulted in disillusionment and deception. Building on previous work on Goethe, literary theory, and cultural history, The Spell of Italy offers compelling new ways of understanding Germany's fascination with Italy from the eighteenth century to its troubled political history of the twentieth century.
Montenero Val Cocchiara is usually referred to simply as Montenero, or Mundunur in the local dialect. It is a typical mountain village on the border of Italy's Abruzzo and Molise regions, but Montenero is more than that. Certainly the village and its people retain unique traditions and character traits because of its relative seclusion. At the same time-as fully revealed in this book-its history was tinted by contacts with numerous powerful groups over many centuries. Since Naples was the political and cultural heartbeat of south Italy, it sewed threads that tie Montenero to a heritage common to all living in the sunny south. Anyone with roots in south Italy will certainly benefit from reading this book. However, the author's greater aspiration is that others will equally enjoy the story of Montenero as a metaphor for their own ancestral village or town, regardless of country-or even see the village as a microcosm of the world, where the forces of history and culture forge the character of people.
In this fascinating journey through the magical, folkloric, and healing traditions of Italy the reader learns uniquely Italian methods of magical protection and divination and spells for love, sex, control, and revenge. "Mary-Grace Fahrun's Italian Folk Magic is an intimate journey into the heart of Italian folk magical practices as they are lived every day. Having grown up in an extended Italian family in North America and Italy, the author presents us with the stories, characters, saints, charms, and prayers that form the core of folk religion, setting them in context in an authentic, down-to-earth, and humorous voice. A delight to read!"—Sabina Magliocco, Professor of Anthropology, University of British Columbia Italian Folk Magiccontains: magical and religious rituals prayers divination techniques crafting blessing rituals witchcraft The author also explores the evil eye, known as malocchio in Italian, explaining what it is, where it comes from, and, crucially, how to get rid of it. This book can help Italians regain their magical heritage, but Italian folk magic is a beautiful, powerful, and effective magical tradition that is accessible to anyone who wants to learn it.
John Hooper presents the ideal companion for anyone seeking to understand contemporary Italy and the unique character of the Italians. Digging deep into their history, culture and religion, he offers keys to assessing everything from their bewildering politics to their love of life and beauty.
This third edition of Kenneth Katzner's best-selling guide to languages is essential reading for language enthusiasts everywhere. Written with the non-specialist in mind, its user-friendly style and layout, delightful original passages, and exotic scripts, will continue to fascinate the reader. This new edition has been thoroughly revised to include more languages, more countries, and up-to-date data on populations. Features include: *information on nearly 600 languages *individual descriptions of 200 languages, with sample passages and English translations *concise notes on where each language is spoken, its history, alphabet and pronunciation *coverage of every country in the world, its main language and speaker numbers *an introduction to language families
Elizabeth Spencer is captivated by Italy. Collected in this volume are The Light in the Piazza, which is her signature piece, and six other Italian tales in which her American characters encounter and respond to the mysteries of Italian mores.
Montenero Val Cocchiara is usually referred to simply as Montenero, or Mundunur in the local dialect. Montenero is a typical mountain village on the border of the Abruzzo and Molise regions, but it is more than that. Its history was tinted by contacts with numerous powerful groups over many centuries. The village and its people prove to be unique, but they also are highly embued with elements common to all in South Italy. Of course it is the hope of the author that anyone with roots in South Italy will benefit from reading this book. However, his much greater aspiration is that others will equally enjoy the story of Montenero as a metaphor of their own ancestral village or town, regardless of country or even see the village as a microcosm of the world where the forces of history and culture forge the character of people.