Pirandello and the Crisis of Modern Consciousness

by Anthony Francis Caputi

Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936), the Nobel Prize-winning Italian novelist and dramatist, was both a witty manipulator of paradox and a serious commentator on twentieth-century angst. In this book, Anthony Caputi treats the major plays, essays, and works of fiction as explorations of how we define who we are, the ways meaning is conferred on what we do, and how these affect the quality and content of our experience. -- Those who perceive Pirandello as a thinker fascinated by the way the mind becomes caught up in itself and trapped by its own contradictions will recognize the importance of consciousness and self-consciousness to Pirandello's work. As Caputi explains, Pirandello identified our desperate need to create artifices for living - the fictions, roles, and self-serving conceptions that give temporary focus and coherence to the individual. Caputi also examines and elucidates the crucial yet complex concepts of umorismo and sincerita. -- "Of all the great modern dramatists Pirandello is the least written about in English and the least well understood. There's a vacuum, which this book helps to fill. Caputi's central theses serve to correct a widespread misreading of Pirandello as a 'cerebral', 'unfeeling' writer. He wasn't this at all and Caputi makes a good case that he wasn't" - Richard Gilman, author of Faith Sex Mystery.

184 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988