Italian Science Fiction Literature

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Alberto Iozzia (University of Pittsburgh)

Ed. by Jo Ann Cavallo, Columbia University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.6.1: Italian Writing and Culture, 453-present.
Vol. editors: Carla Bregman (Independent Scholar - North America), Jo Ann Cavallo (Columbia University)

Dates

Date of occurrence c.1900-

Places

Italy (Location; Involved)

Genres and Modes

Science Fiction/ Speculative

Resources

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Recommended Reading

Both scholars and enthusiasts have fiercely debated the historical timeline of science fiction as well as its definition: while some believe the genre to originate only in 1926 – with Hugo Gernsback’s first issue of

Amazing Stories

(Delany 26) – others point to 1818 – the year Mary Shelley published

Frankenstein

(Aldiss and Wingrove 18). Some scholars go back much further: Adam Roberts, for instance, drafts a chronology of key titles that, along with authors such as Plutarch and Lucian (346), includes several figures of the Italian literary tradition. According to Roberts, the interplanetary travels described in both Dante Alighieri’s

Divina Commedia

[

The Divine Comedy

] (c. 1320) and Ludovico Ariosto’s

Orlando Furioso

(1532) (45), the “imaginative speculations concerning the…

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3931 words

Citation: Iozzia, Alberto. "Italian Science Fiction Literature". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 14 November 2020 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19590, accessed 31 October 2024.]

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Italian Science Fiction Literature

Dates

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