Includes bibliographic references (pages 253-269).
Contents:
The golden nut. (1962). Deer park -- In medio coeli -- On fairy tales -- Les sources de la Vivonne -- Nights -- The unforgivable -- A digression: on language -- With light hands -- The flute and the carpet -- Fairy tale and mystery (1962). Deer park -- Attention and poetry -- The maximal flavor of each word. On William Carlos Williams -- On John Donne -- A doctor -- Homage to Borges -- Supernatural senses. Introduction to Sayings and deeds of the desert fathers -- Introduction to The way of a pilgrim -- Supernatural senses -- Other writings. Introduction to Katherine Mansfield -- A tragedy by Simone Weil: Venice saved -- Gravity and grace in Richard II -- The golden nut.
Summary:
"In the biographical note accompanying one of her books, Cristina Campo said of herself: "She has written little and would like to have written less". That little is almost all collected in this book and will impose an observation on every perceptive reader: these pages belong to the most beautiful Italian prose has been shown in the last fifty years. Cristina Campo was unforgivable, in the sense that the word has in the essay that gives the title to this book: like Marianne Moore, like Hofmannsthal, like Benn, like Weil, she had the "passion for perfection". She could not otherwise have written the pages that are read here on Chopin or on the fairy tale, on the Arabian Nights or about language. "I salute a wisdom among the strangest today" Ceronetti once wrote from Campo. Perhaps the time has come for readers to realize that in Italy, among so many promoters of their own mediocrity, this "trappist of perfection" also lived"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.