Robert Viscusi takes a comprehensive look at Italian American writing by exploring the connections between language and culture in Italian American experience and major literary texts. Italian immigrants, Viscusi argues, considered even their English to be a dialect of Italian, and therefore attempted to create an American English fully reflective of their historical, social, and cultural positions. This approach allows us to see Italian American purposes as profoundly situated in relation not only to American language and culture but also to Italian nationalist narratives in literary history as well as linguistic practice. Viscusi also situates Italian American writing within the “eccentric design” of American literature, and uses a multidisciplinary approach to read not only novels and poems, but also houses, maps, processions, videos, and other artifacts as texts.
Author(s): Robert Viscusi
Series: SUNY Series in Italian American Studies
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Year: 2006
Language: English
Pages: 272
Buried Caesars,and Other Secrets of Italian American Writing......Page 2
Contents......Page 7
Preface......Page 10
Acknowledgments......Page 20
Introduction: Secrets of Italian American Writing......Page 24
1. English as a Dialect of Italian......Page 48
2. De vulgari eloquentia: Ordinary Eloquence in Italian America......Page 62
3. Il caso della casa: Stories of Houses in Italian America......Page 82
4. Immigrant Ambitionsand American Literature......Page 92
5. The Text in the Dust Writing Italy across America......Page 104
6. The Semiology of Semen: Questioning the Father......Page 118
7. Circles of the Cyclopes: Concentric History......Page 134
8. A Literature Considering Itself: The Allegory of Italian America......Page 162
9. The Italian American Sign......Page 184
10.The Imperial Sopranos......Page 212
Notes......Page 241
Index......Page 271
A......Page 272
B......Page 273
C......Page 274
D......Page 277
E......Page 278
F......Page 279
G......Page 280
H......Page 281
I......Page 282
L......Page 284
M......Page 285
N......Page 287
P......Page 288
R......Page 290
S......Page 291
T......Page 292
V......Page 293
Z......Page 295
