Carlo Levi Biography

Carlo Levi

(Turin, 1902-Rome, 1975) Italian writer and painter.With a degree in Medicine, he soon devoted himself to cultivating broader cultural interests.As a painter, he stood out for the first time in 1923, and six years later he joined the "Gruppo dei Sei" in Turin.He was one of the young people gathered around Pietro Gobetti, and later joined "Giustizia e Libertà".

He was confined to politics in 1935-1936, and later moved to Paris.From 1943 on he participated in the Resistance movement, and was director of newspapers in Florence and Rome.Later, he combined his work as a journalist and painting (in 1945 he exhibited in his own room at the Venice Biennale).In 1963 and in 1968 he was elected senator of the Republic, as an independent, on the list of communists.

His first literary work, Christ stopped at Eboli ( Cristo si è fermato a Eboli , 1945), evokes his experiences during confinement, when discover, in a passionate and lacerating way, the peasant world of southern Italy.The narrative (which served to reconsider the view of the southern world from the north) illustrates a solidly structured mythical story.Levi's realistic and neo-baroque prose confronts two contradictory ways of approaching peasant civilization: the fascination for the primitive and the false and manipulative mythologization of that scenario.The work contributed to the dissemination of the "southern question", which would be the fundamental theme of almost all his later works.

He raised in a very personal way the problem of the human presence in the world and its permanent risk of crisis, taking into account the profound reality of symbols and archetypes, which E.de Martino studied during the same years.After Paura della libertà (1946), written before the war, came L'orlogio (1950). Le parole sono pietre (1955) is also set in the South, specifically in Sicily, and the climax of the play is the unforgettable episode of Carlo Levi's visit to the mother of a murdered trade unionist, Salvatore Carnevale.

Il future à un cuore antico (1956) and La doppia notte dei tigli (1959) are dedicated to the Soviet Union and Germany, respectively.In Tutto il miele è finito (1965) he takes up the theme of the South, the island of Sardinia.The figures of the peasants and the shepherds come to the fore and become the true characters of a myth, which the author always tries to transform into rational, systematic, scientific and socialist achievements, with a prose in which, however , there are elements of great emotional intensity that reflect his fascination for primal presences.

Comments

Jose Maria de Aguirre Biography

José María de Aguirre (Tolosa, 1896- id ., 1933) Spanish writer in the Basque language.Under the pseudonym Xabier de Lizardi , he wrote books of poems ( En el corazón y en los ojos , 1932), a play ( The boy who did not could marry ) and a volume of prose ( Plain Word , 1934).

Georges bruhat Biography

Georges Bruhat (Besançon, 1887-Buchenwald, 1944) French physicist.Graduated in physical and mathematical sciences in 1908, he later received his doctorate with a thesis entitled The abnormal dispersion of the power of molecular rotation , which he defended shortly before the outbreak of the First World War.Mobilized in 1915, he developed sound-tracking devices during the war that earned him the cross of war. Georges Bruhat In the interwar period he was a professor at the University de Lila and at the Sorbonne, he carried out various works on physical optics and thermodynamics and published the Course in General Physics , a manual of exceptional pedagogical value divided into four volumes: Electricity ( 1924), Thermodynamics (1926), Optics (1930) and Mechanics (1934).In 1944, after refusing to expose a student, he was arrested by the Gestapo; a year later he died in a concentration camp.

Godfrey of Bouillon Biography

Godfrey de Bouillon Knight of the First Crusade, creator of the Kingdom of Jerusalem (Baisy, Brabant, c.1061-Jerusalem, 1100).He was Duke of Lower Lorraine (Netherlands) and a faithful ally of the Emperor Henry IV, whom he had helped in his struggles against Rudolph of Swabia and against Pope Gregory VII.When Pope Urban II appealed to Christendom for a Crusade to liberate the "Holy Places" from the hands of Islam, Godfrey was one of the first to go (1095).He sold most of his domains to finance his own army, with which he arrived in Constantinople in 1096.He loaned vassal to the Byzantine emperor in exchange for food and troops.And, after his outstanding participation in several victorious battles against the Muslims (Nicaea, Dorilea, Antioch), he became head of the crusaders.These named him king of Jerusalem once the city was taken in 1099; but Godfrey did not admit the title, claiming Christian humility, and changed it to "protector of the Holy Sepulcher." He or...

Gaudenzio ferrari Biography

Gaudenzio Ferrari (Valduggia, c .1480-Milan, 1546) Italian painter, sculptor and architect.He was inspired by Bramantino and collaborated with Rafael Sanzio in Rome.He worked in Saronno ( Concert of Angels , 1535) and in Vercelli. While in Florence the lessons of Leonardo da Vinci were assumed as an important trend, although no less than others, in Lombardy they had an exclusive and immediate repercussion, forming a true school focused on both the aesthetic content and the more technical aspects of the master's painting.Leonardo's teachings also reached the Piedmont region, where the painter and sculptor Gaudenzio Ferrari made, in the city of Varallo Sesia, large fresco cycles with scenes from the life of Jesus Christ, both in the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie and in the Sacro Monte chapel, some of them also made up of sculptures. Natividad (1511), by Gaudenzio Ferrari The art of Gaudenzio Ferrari fuses elements of diverse origin, both Peruginescos and Rafaele...

Joseph plateau Biography

Joseph Plateau (Brussels, 1801-Ghent, 1883) Belgian physicist.Professor at the University of Ghent, he carried out research work on static and fluid dynamics phenomena.He devised a strobe system for the study of vibratory movements.

Alfred Maham, maritime power as a way to dominate the world

With the publication at the end of the 19th century of "Influence of power maritime on the history " , Alfred Maham showed that maritime power had been the decisive factor in the domain of the world .His book greatly influenced the policies of the most powerful of the world, collaborating to the arms race prior to the First World War . Alfred T.Maham was a navigator of the United States Navy and a geopolitical visionary .His work called " Influence of maritime power on history, 1660 - 1783 " contributed to the formation of the modern fleets of the world . His hypothesis states that terrestrial power without access to the sea was called to decay. Maham argued that a nation able to dominate the sea with its naval power and maintain a merchant marine can exploit the wealth of the world And the author saw England as the best example of that. The ship of the line Victory, battle of Trafalgar , 1805 .Painting of C...

Hector Poleo Biography

Héctor Poleo (Caracas, 1918) Venezuelan painter.He studied mural painting in Mexico, where he met Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros.Among his works are The curators , which won him the Boulton Prize in 1943, a mural in the University City of Caracas, Los novios and his Self-portrait .

Ivan Kotliarevski Biography

Ivan Kotliarevski (Poltava, 1769- id ., 1838) Ukrainian writer.Considered the father of modern Ukrainian literature, he is the author, among other works, of an Aeneid in disguise (1798) and two comedies ( Natalka de Poltava and The magical Muscovite ).

Hevelius [Johannes Havelke] Biography

Hevelius [Johannes Havelke] (Danzig, 1611- id. , 1687) German astronomer.He drew up a first lunar map, published under the name Selenography (1647), in which he assigned names to the various features of the lunar surface and called the dark areas the sea.He determined the period of rotation of the Sun, observed its spots and discovered the faculae.In 1657 he began a catalog in which he determined the positions of 1,500 stars and that he could not finish because of a fire that destroyed his observatory (1679).

Elizabeth barrett browning Biography

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Coxhoe Hall, 1806-Florence, 1861) British poet.He published the epic poem The Battle of Marathon at age 14, a translation of Aeschylus's Prometheus in Chained (1833) and The Seraph and other poems (1838).In 1846 she secretly married Robert Browning, with whom she fled to Italy.His Poems (1850) contain the Sonnets of the Portuguese .He also wrote the novel in verse Aurora Leigh (1856).

History Today Online

Search This Blog