Italo Calvino's Succession And Transcendence Of The Traditional Novel Types

Italo Calvino is one of the most influential Italian writers in the twentieth century. Because of his various styles and continual innovative literature forms, he obtained more and more readers. He used the traditional novel types reasonably. On the one hand, he made them vitality with adding the modern consciousness and modern ideas into the novel types. On the other hand, he has done a lot experiments and innovations in the styles based on the traditional novel types, tried to give more roads for novel forms creation.At present, the study on Calvino has taken shape. But the research on the relationship between Calvino and the traditional literature wasn't systematical. This thesis attempts to use archetypes theory, structuralism and de-structuralism with careful reading to analyze six famous works in different periods of Calvino, and at the same time tries to discuss the relationship between Calvino's novels and the traditional novel types, and also tries to research how he uses the tradition source successfully.The thesis has four parts. The introduction part introduced Calvino and his creation, the studies on his oeuvre in China, and the innovation of this thesis. The first chapter discussed his early main novels: The path to the nest of spiders, Our ancestor trilogy and Cosmicomics and how they learned from picarcsque novel, fairy tale and science fiction, and at the same time how they blended with modern sprits. The second chapter analyzed Invisible cities, The castle of crossed destinies, If on a winter's night a traveler these three main novels of his later period. And try to discuss how they inherited and exceeded itinerar, folktales and whodunit. The last chapter talked about that in the later creation period Calvino got more influence of structuralism and post-modern conception. So he emphasized particularly on the form art in his later works. Which made the early and later works displayed different styles and characteristics. Besides, this chapter presented the influence of Calvino in and out of China.All in all, this thesis attempts to grasp the relationship between Calvino and the traditional literature, and do a comprehensive study and arrangement about the innovation of Calvino. On the basis of that summarize Calvino's successful experiences, and presents some useful advices for the novel creation of China.