A Study Of Italo Calvino's Literary Thought

Italo Calvino is the most distinguished Italian writer in 20th century.His novels and theoretical criticism bear unique charm due to their own characteristics.Calvino's literary thought is composed of three parts:fiction poetics,literary peculiarity and literary criticism practice.In addition to the introduction and conclusion part,this dissertation constitutes of five chapters.The first chapter briefly sorts out Calvino' whole life and his exploration of novel creation,in other words,the changing course from characteristics of new realism to fairy tales description,and the development from fairy tales description to the exploration of postmodernism writing skills,also discusses the influence of his literary thoughts,which are basically from European traditional culture.The second chapter analyzes the significance of Calvino' s fiction poetics,and focuses on his two new models of novel writing---"Open Encyclopedia Novel." and "Crystal Model Novel"."Open Encyclopedia" means novels tend to be tolerant of the infinite diversity of the universe.The infinite diversity contains the extension of indefinite extension,and also contains the details of infinite details."Crystal Model",means short texts are constructed into crystal structure like crystal surface,independent of each other,having mutual equality,but with an internal logical connection and characteristics of self-generation."Crystal Model "contains the attempt to achieve the diversity through the constitution of crystal surfaces.Calvino advocates fairy tale thinking of novel creation and poetic attitude of the lightness of life and looking at life with a light poetic attitude,transcending the heavy burden of reality.Fairy tale thinking is a unique way of Calvino's understanding of the world.The third chapter analyzes the characteristic of his literary peculiarity,makes comments on his understanding and interpretation of such literary peculiarities as lightness,quickness,accurateness,obviousness and complication.These literary characteristics constitute a whole system of the basic problems of literature.The peculiarity of lightness is the foundation,and it is the method of literature recognition and reflection of reality.It not only reveals the function of literature,but also provide the basic form of literature;Quickness is about narrative rhythm,more exactly,is about language accuracy;Obviousness is on the image of imagination.They are all based on lightness.The general elements of literature are stated from the basic structure of literature in terms of narration,language and image.Finally complication,the general characteristics of literature,is integrated to achieve a wish,the possibility of literature to hold and to be tolerant of infinite diversity.The fourth chapter explores Calvino's view of literary criticism.It firstly explores his definition of literary classics and critical activity to individual cases starting from the classical definition.Calvino's literary criticism has a very wide range of objects,but focusing on the following aspects:text,narration,ethical problems in the practice of criticism and the subjective intervention in critical practice.Calvino's literary criticism practice cares more about the fiction and meaning of the text.He thinks that all the themes of the text can be revealed in the other way and explores the ethical issues that embody the spirit of professionalism and the complex relationship between the technique of narration and the construction of meaning from the point of view of the writer's psychology and the psychology of the writer.He also explores the ethical issues that embody the spirit of professionalism.The interaction with the object of criticism is Calvino's another major characteristics of his criticism practice.The fifth chapter summarizes the characteristics of Calvino's literary thoughts.Calvino's literary thoughts have the universal feelings of inclusive universe.It emphasizes on grasping the universe from self-consciousness and identifying oneself in the universe as the background,and confirming everything.The most important feature of Calvino's literary thought is practice.His theory of literature and art is based on his long literary creation and literary criticism.The third is its potential systematic characteristics,which is the fundamental guarantee of overall coherence of his literary thoughts.Calvino's literary thoughts also have the characteristics of dialectical thinking advocating surpassing the thinking pattern of binary opposition,and has the characteristics of harmonious thinking.The conclusion part refines the value and significance of Calvino's literary thoughts and its influence on the development of Chinese literature.