Italian Fables
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Authors
Calvino, Italo
Issue Date
1959
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Type
Book, Whole
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Abstract
Really a set of oral Italian folk tales, as the preface itself (x) comes close to saying. Perhaps fiabe has a different range in Italian literary criticism from fable's range in English. A perusal of the first five stories shows that they are about the tricks and scams people play on each other. The stories are sometimes curiously not successful or coherent in a traditional way. What is, for example, the upshot of The Barber's Clock (8)? Or why does Giovannino the Fearless (10) include its suprising last sentence? The first eleven lines on 21 are mixed up by the printer. The Palace Mouse and the Field Mouse (136) is a genuine fable but is different from the traditional TMCM. It starts with terror in the palace and ranges only as far as the garden. When they return to the palace to see that mouse's uncle, the cat captures that mouse while the field mouse has been waiting at the window sill. Hearing Ungk! shrieked, the field mouse surmises a hostile reception and leaves. The paperbound version by Collier is under 1961.
Description
Citation
Publisher
Orion Press
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DOI
Identifier
1871 (Access ID)