The Poetics On Novels Of Italo Calvino

This thesis deals with the topics in the poetics on novels of Italo Calvino (1923-1985). He is a world-renowned novelist in 20th century and an outstanding contemporary Italian litterateur and literary theorist. He is committed to the development of novel art, neither imitating other's styles nor following his own past mode on the road of writing; constantly exploits new fields with the courage and wisdom. The research of his novel poetics will certainly be conducive to the understanding and exploration of the novels which are important new forms of literature. However, this subject has not been paid much attention to enough in the academic field. In order to fill in this gap and hope to get a clear understanding of the aesthetics difficulties and cultural chances in the process of creating and studying the contemporary novels, this thesis is intended to rationally interpret and comment novel poetic issues under the guidance of the cultural perspective and overall thinking, along with Calvino's creative practice and theoretical criticism.Apart from introduction and conclusion, this thesis is divided into eight chapters. Chapter One briefly introduces Calvino's life and the development, the main contents of his poetics on novels. Chapter Two explores Calvino's ultimate pursuit of philosophy, that is to say, helping the lost self return to the road, pursuing the"cosmic vision"which is beyond the pursuit of a personal and human selfishness centre. Chapter Three discusses Calvino's ultimate goal of the poetics on novels ----"open-encyclopedic novel". Chapter Four explains Calvino's crystal model in the specific narrative arts. Chapter Five explains Calvino's emphasis on the"light writing"and spirit of games in his poetics on novels. Chapter Six discusses Calvino's"fairytale mind". Chapter Seven and Eight separately summarize Calvino's special viewpoints of writing and reading.The conclusion of this thesis is that Calvino has explored and directed the way where the contemporary novels should go in his poetics on novels in both theory and practice. His ultimate pursuits of philosophy reflected in his poetics on novels is that he concerns and emphasizes the recognizant values of novels. The"encyclopedic novel"guides the novels to the openness, pluralism and communication. The spirits of suspicion and dialectical thinking in poetics can avoid the biased conclusions caused by the position absence of thinking mostly. He is concerned about innovation and the tradition, attaches particular importance to the existence of the writer. His poetics on novels not only concentrate on the form and the styles of novels, but also inspect the substance of these novels. Thus, one side, he grasps the unique charm of the novels, on the other side, provides a great deal of techniques and the operational practices. However, as a major literary critic and theorist, Calvino's model of poetics on novels is scattered and miscellaneous; in some cases, the thoughts are contradictory. At the same time, he is good at discovering problems, not solving the problems. Therefore, his poetics on novels often develops from an unfinished state to another unfinished state. Of these deficiencies and limitations, people should have sober understandings.The breakthrough in the study is: First, in recent years, the objective introductions of Calvino and his works and aesthetic articles gradually increase, but using the 20th century's advanced research models and this critical theory to comprehensively outline Calvino's poetic theory and practice of academic research in China are also rare. In this sense, the subject itself is of innovative and academic value. Second, in the process of studying Calvino's poetics on novels, the author does not echo other people's views, not stereotype Calvino's thinking and creativity with a certain kind of theory and the existing areas (such as post-modernism, structuralism, narratology, semiotics, etc.), but summarizes independent views based on the full data collections and careful texts readings. Third, the author proposes some valuable new perspectives. For example: Calvino's main concepts are carefully combed out and comprehensively illustrated, such as"open-encyclopedic novel","crystal model"of novels and so forth; some new concepts are originally put forward and defined such as"fairytale mind","light writing"; Calvino's unique viewpoints of writing and reading are summarized.