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International Coffeehouse: Italy

Fiction

Poetry

Literary Figures

Dante Alighieri (1215-1321)

"Dante was a great thinker and one of the most learned writers of all time. Many scholars consider The Divine Comedy a summary of medieval thought. Dante had a tremendous influence on later writers. Geoffrey Chaucer and John Milton imitated his works. Dante influenced such writers as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, Lord Tennyson, Victor Hugo, Friedrich Schlegel, and T. S. Eliot."  Read More.

Giovanni Boccaccio (1313?-1375)

"Boccaccio was the son of an Italian merchant. He was probably born in Certaldo, near Florence, Italy, but he spent most of his life in Naples and Florence. Boccaccio greatly admired Dante and Petrarch. He wrote many poems and prose works in Latin and in Italian, as they did. Most of his Italian works were written in the 1330's and 1340's. Discouraged by public objection to some portions of the Decameron as obscene, Boccaccio devoted his later years to writing highly scholarly works in Latin. He also gave public lectures on Dante. He died on Dec. 21, 1375." Read more. 

Grazia Deledda (1871-1936)

Deledda was born in Nuoro, Sardinia. She wrote her first stories at the age of 17. Her most significant novels include After the Divorce (1902), Elias Portolu (1903), Ashes (1904), and The Mother (1920). She wrote an autobiographical novel, Cosima, which was published in 1937, after her death. Read more. 

Umberto Eco (1932-2016)

 An Italian philosopher, novelist, and literary critic, Eco's first novel, the medieval mystery story The Name of the Rose (1980), was a worldwide best seller. The novel deals with the nature of truth as seen from the viewpoints of theology, philosophy, history, and scholarship. Its preoccupation with words, symbols, and ideas was further developed in the thriller Foucault's Pendulum (1988). Read more. 

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