Voices of Italian America

Voices of Italian America

A History of Early Italian American Literature with a Critical Anthology

  • Auteur: Marazzi, Martino; Goldstein, Ann
  • Éditeur: Fordham University Press
  • ISBN: 9780823239733
  • eISBN Pdf: 9780823245734
  • eISBN Epub: 9780823245727
  • Lieu de publication:  New York , United States
  • Année de publication: 2011
  • Année de publication électronique: 2011
  • Mois : Novembre
  • Langue: Anglais

Voices of Italian America presents a top-rate authoritative study and anthology of the italian-language literature written and published in the United States from the heydays of the Great Migration (1880–1920) to the almost definitive demise of the cultural world of the first generation soon before and after World War II. The volume resurrects the neglected and even forgotten territory of a nationwide “Little Italy” where people wrote, talked, read, and consumed the various forms of entertainment mostly in their native Italian language, in a complex interplay with native dialects and surrounding American English.

The anthological sections include excerpts from the ethnically tinged thrillers by Tuscan-born first-comer Bernardino Ciambelli, as well as the first short stories by Italian American women, set in the Gilded Age. The fiction of political activists such as Carlo Tresca coexists with the hardboiled autobiography of Italian American
cop Mike Fiaschetti, fighting against the Mafia. Voices of Italian America presents new material by English-speaking classics such as Pietro di Donato and John Fante, and a selection of poetry by a great bilingual voice, the champion of the “masses” and Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) poet Arturo Giovannitti, and by a lesserknown, self-taught, satirical versifier, Riccardo Cordiferro/Ironheart. Controversial documents on the difficult interracial relations between Italian Americans and African Americans live side by side with the first poignant chronicles from Ellis Island.

This study sheds light on the “fabrication” of a new culture of immigrant origins—pliable, dynamic, constantly shifting and transforming itself—while focusing on stories, genres, rhythms, the “human touch” contributed by literature in its wider sense. Ultimately, through a rich sample of significant texts covering various aspects
of the immigrant experience, Voices of Italian America offers the reader a literary history of Italian American culture.

  • Cover
  • Contents
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction
  • 1. The Novel of the Italian in America
    • The Kid from Genoa
    • The Mysteries of Mulberry Street
    • The Underworld of New York
    • The Mysteries of New York
    • The Blond Devil
    • The Flapper
    • The Two Friends
    • Hold Up!
    • The Diary of an Immigrant
    • Toward the Ideal
    • On the Island of Tears: Ellis Island
    • President Scoppetta
    • You Must Be Rough
    • Faraway People
  • 2. Stowaway on Board: Ezio Taddei
    • The Gates of Hell
    • I Gave Up Freedom
  • 3. The New World of the Second Generation: Pietro di Donato and John Fante
    • The World of Tomorrow
    • A Letter from John Fante to Giuseppe Prezzolini
  • 4. Poetry of the Italian Americans
    • May Day
    • To Alarico
    • The 20th of September Parade in New York
    • Publius Ovid
    • “O Labor of America: Heartbeat of Mankind”
    • The Day of War
    • Words Without Song
    • The Walker
    • Samnite Cradle Song
    • The Bricklayers Came
    • Proletarian Nostalgias
    • Neapolitan Rhapsody
    • The Dream
    • Advertising Sonnets
    • My Summer Vacation: A Scherzo
    • In Union Square Park
  • 5. Prose of Testimony: the Color Line
    • Whites and Blacks: An Analysis by Prof. Prezzolini
  • 6. At Ellis Island
    • A Picture of 1907
    • Racketeers and Human Contraband
  • 7. Italian Americans and Italian Writers
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index
    • A
    • B
    • C
    • D
    • E
    • F
    • G
    • H
    • I
    • J
    • K
    • L
    • M
    • N
    • O
    • P
    • Q
    • R
    • S
    • T
    • U
    • V
    • W
    • Z

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