Italian Stories: A Dual-Language Book

By Robert A. Hall Jr.

Book Overview

Designed for the language student as well as the lover of fine literature, this convenient dual-language book features eleven great short stories -- each one appearing in the original Italian, with vivid and accurate English translations on facing pages.
Robert A. Hall, Jr., Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Italian, Cornell University, has compiled a stimulating and representative collection ranging from a 14th-century selection from Boccaccio's The Decameron to Alberto Moravia's "Competition," a 20th-century view of lower-and middle-class Italian life. Among the other works are Machiavelli's "Belfagor; Story of the Devil Who Took a Wife," Matteo Bandello's reflections of 16th-century morals in "Madonna Zilia," Giovanni Verga's objective portrayal of lower-class Sicilian life in "Rosso Malpelo," Gabriele d'Annunzio's revelations of a depraved peasantry in "The Idolaters," Luigi Pirandello's fascinating study of hypocritical social attitudes in "The Tight Frock Coat," as well as equally significant works by Antonio Fogazzaro, Renato Fucini, Aldo Palazzeschi, and Corrado Alvaro.
Arranged chronologically so that the growth of the literary art may be followed, as well as enjoyed, each story is prefaced by a concise biographical/critical introduction. Also included are linguistic and cultural notes, a valuable Italian-English vocabulary, study questions on each story, and an informative essay on Italian fiction. Students of the Italian language will find the dual-language format timesaving and extremely helpful; readers of Italian literature will want to add this treasury of small masterworks to their personal libraries.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0486261808
• ISBN13: 9780486261805
• Release Date: January 1990
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Italian Stories - Dual language

Another excelent book for intermediate Italian Students. A good learning tool that is easy to follow.

Good for learning Italian

OK I haven't read much italian literature, but the italian stories I have read mostly seem to follow this rule: You start with a problem...people work towards solving that problem...things end up much worse than you could have ever possibly imagined... so its like American stories just instead of a happy ending, something terrible happens...or they just don't really end, the author just seems to stop writing... but I digress...this book is a great tool for learning italian...I learned a lot, especially about conjugating verbs and such...vocab as well...even though I didn't like some of the stories, they weren't that bad and some of them I thought were entertaining...the one by Machiavelli, "Belfagor" I really liked...but the real great thing about these books is you are learning Italian w/o realing studying it...you know what I mean? Its not fun to sit in class but it is fun to read stories...you will be learning a lot more than you realize...sometimes I will try to read a whole story w/o looking at the translation, other times I will look at the translation for each line...its fun to go back and see how close you were to figuring out what really happened... OK my favorite parts about this book were the vocab section and questionnaire at the end...the questions check to see if you understand what is going on, and the vocab has a many words, most of which I had never heard before...A great book...

Invaluable to the Serious Student of Italian

I bought this book many years ago. The stories are short, between 5-20 pages each. They span many periods of history and is a great introduction to some of the great Italian writers.Most of all, it really helps the Italian student bridge the gap between "classes" and "real Italian."Although my speaking abilities were limited to an Intermediate Level, my classmates in a recent course I took thought that my vocabulary was tremendously large in comparison to their own. I hold this book and another book by Penguin to be responsible. After reading these stories, I can read most anything in print and get the "gist" of what is being said.

Highly recommended for serious students of Italian.

For the serious advanced student of Italian, I know of no better book to use as first step in exploring Italian literature. Translations are literal enough to give accurate correspondence to Italian, but literate enough to stand on their own in English as well: a marvelous achievement.

Great source for studying Italian at intermediate level.

The short stories are entertaining, and they cover Italian writers from Machiavelli to Pirandello. But the reason I bought this book is to study Italian. With Italian on the left and English on the right, this collection presents students with an easy way to build vocabulary and sample "literary" writing not found in regular textbooks. Students should have at least an intermediary knowledge of Italian, in order to at least recognize the various past tenses employed.