Gadda - Carlo Emilio Gadda

Italian author. Born on November 14th to a fallen noble family in Milan, a large city in northern Italy. Served as an infantryman in World War I, he was captured by the German army and held until the end of the war. Immediately after the war, he began working as an electrical engineer while also studying philosophy, gradually deepening his involvement with literature. In 1926, he published a series of works as a member of the Florentine literary magazine Solaria, which won him acclaim from the start. He continued his creative activities for about 30 years, but in the mid-20th century, Italian literature was influenced by fascism and the resistance, and neorealism was the mainstream, so he maintained his own isolated literary field. His works, which attempt to construct a new novel language by distorting or destroying existing language due to his distrust of it, and furthermore by making full use of technical terms and dialects, are extremely difficult to understand and chaotic, but this is also a reflection of his worldview. His experimental and avant-garde style, which can be called the literature of deformation or the literature of the absurd, captured the hearts of young writers who were no longer satisfied with traditional neorealism in the midst of the development of new capitalist society after World War II, and had a great influence on promoting the Neoavanguardia movement centered on the so-called "Group of '63." He moved to Florence in 1940, but lived in Rome from 1950 onwards, and died there on May 21, 1973. His representative works include his first collection of short stories, "Madonna of the Philosophers" (1931), "The Castle of Udine" (1934), which describes his experiences in the military, "Adalgisa" (1944), subtitled "Milan Sketches" and containing extensive notes, and the full-length novels "The Massacre of the Rue Merulana" (definitive edition, 1957) and "Recognition of Sorrow" (definitive edition, 1963), which made Gadda famous internationally. In addition to the Viareggio Prize in 1953, he received numerous national and international awards.

[Kyoko Washibira]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

イタリアの作家。11月14日、北イタリアの大都会ミラノの没落した名家に生まれる。第一次世界大戦では歩兵として従軍し、ドイツ軍の捕虜となって終戦まで抑留された。終戦直後から電気工学技師の職務につく一方、哲学の勉強を始め、他方ではしだいに文学とのかかわりを深めて、1926年からはフィレンツェの文芸雑誌『ソラーリア』の同人として次々に作品を発表し、当初から評判をよんだ。以後、約30年にわたり創作活動を続けていくが、ファシズムとレジスタンスの洗礼を受けた20世紀中葉のイタリア文学がネオレアリズモをその主流とするなかで、孤絶した独自の文学的領域を固守した。既成の言語への不信からそれをゆがめ、もしくは破砕し、さらには専門用語や方言を縦横に駆使することによって新しい小説言語の構築を試みた彼の作品は、難解きわまりない混沌(こんとん)とした様相を呈しているが、それはそのまま彼の世界観の反映でもある。デフォルメの文学とも不条理の文学ともよびうる実験的かつ前衛的な作風は、第二次大戦後の新資本主義社会発展のなかで、もはや従来のネオレアリズモに飽き足らなくなった若い世代の文学者たちの心をとらえ、いわゆる「63年グループ」を中心とするネオアバングァルディアの運動の促進に多大な影響を与えた。40年にフィレンツェへ移住したが、50年以降はローマに住み、73年5月21日、当地で死去した。代表作として、最初の短編集『哲学者たちの聖母』（1931）、従軍体験をつづった『ウーディネの城』（1934）、「ミラノ・スケッチ」の副題をもち膨大な注を付した『アダルジーザ』（1944）、ガッダの名声を国際的にも高めた長編小説『メルラーナ街の惨劇』（決定版・1957）および『悲しみの認識』（決定版・1963）などがあげられる。53年のビアレッジョ賞のほか、国内外の数々の賞を受けた。

［鷲平京子］

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