Roberto Calasso (Author of The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony)

Roberto Calasso鈥檚 Followers (633)

Roberto Calasso

Born

in Florence, Italy

May 30, 1941

Died

July 28, 2021

Genre

Nonfiction, Literature & Fiction

edit data

Roberto Calasso (1941-2021) was an Italian publisher and writer. He was born into a family of the local upper class, well connected with some of the great Italian intellectuals of their time. His maternal grandfather Giovanni Codignola was a professor of philosophy at Florence University. Codignola created a new publishing house called La Nuova Italia, in Florence, just like his friend Benedetto Croce had done in Bari with Laterza. His uncle Tristano Codignola, partigiano during the Resistenza, after the war joined the political life of the new republic, and was for a while Minister of Education. His mother Melisenda 鈥� who gave up a promising academic career to raise her three children 鈥� was a scholar of German literature, and had worked on Roberto Calasso (1941-2021) was an Italian publisher and writer. He was born into a family of the local upper class, well connected with some of the great Italian intellectuals of their time. His maternal grandfather Giovanni Codignola was a professor of philosophy at Florence University. Codignola created a new publishing house called La Nuova Italia, in Florence, just like his friend Benedetto Croce had done in Bari with Laterza. His uncle Tristano Codignola, partigiano during the Resistenza, after the war joined the political life of the new republic, and was for a while Minister of Education. His mother Melisenda 鈥� who gave up a promising academic career to raise her three children 鈥� was a scholar of German literature, and had worked on H枚lderlin鈥檚 translations of the Greek poet Pindar. His father Francesco was a law professor, first at Florence University and then in Rome, where he eventually became dean of his faculty. He has been working for Adelphi Edizioni since its founding in 1962 and became its Chairman in 1999. His books have from 1990 been translated into most European languages. After a successful career in publishing he has become a leading intellectual.[citation needed]

He is the author of a work in progress, that started with The Ruin of Kasch in 1983, a book welcome by Italo Calvino, dedicated to the French statesman Talleyrand and to a reflection on the culture of modernity. This was followed in 1988 by The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, a book where the tale of Cadmus and his wife Harmonia becomes a pretext for re-writing the great tales of Greek mythology and reflect on the reception of Greek culture for a contemporary readership. The trend for portraying whole civilizations continues with Ka (where the subject of the re-writing is Hindu mythology). K. instead restricts the focus to one single author(Franz Kafka); this trend continues with Il rosa Tiepolo, inspired by an adjective used by Proust to describe a shade of pink used by Tiepolo in his paintings. With his latest book, La folie Baudelaire, Calasso goes back to the fresco of whole civilisations, this time re-writing the lives and works of the artists that revolutionised our artistic taste, the symbolist poets and impressionist painters.

His essaystic production is collected in a few books: I quarantanove gradini (The Forty-nine Steps, a collection of essays about major authors and thinkers in European modernity addressed to Pierre Klossowski and his wife). His Oxford lessons are collected in Literature and the Gods. In 2005 Calasso published La follia che viene dalle ninfe, a collection of essays on the influence of the nymph in literature, which is discussed through authors ranging from Plato to Nabokov. ...more

Combine Editions
Roberto Calasso鈥檚 books

Average rating: 3.96 · 11,534 ratings · 1,451 reviews · 59 distinct works 鈥� Similar authors

	The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony by Roberto Calasso, Tim Parks (欧宝娱乐 Author) (Translator) 4.23 avg rating — 2,842 ratings — published 1988 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Ka: Stories of the Mind and Gods of India 4.13 avg rating — 1,016 ratings — published 1996 — 44 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Come ordinare una biblioteca 3.25 avg rating — 1,127 ratings — published 2020 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	L'impronta dell'editore 3.81 avg rating — 760 ratings — published 2013 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	L'innominabile attuale 3.84 avg rating — 453 ratings — published 2017 — 23 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Literature and the Gods 3.94 avg rating — 433 ratings — published 2001 — 23 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Ruin of Kasch by Roberto Calasso, William Weaver (Translator), Stephen Sartorelli (Translator) 4.04 avg rating — 396 ratings — published 1983 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	L'ardore 4.41 avg rating — 285 ratings — published 2010 — 30 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	K. by Roberto Calasso, Geoffrey Brock (Translator) 4.09 avg rating — 290 ratings — published 2002 — 41 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	La Folie Baudelaire by Roberto Calasso, Alastair McEwen (Translation) 4.12 avg rating — 278 ratings — published 2008 — 28 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Roberto Calasso…

Quotes by Roberto Calasso (?)

“The monster does not need the hero. it is the hero who needs him for his very existence. When the hero confronts the monster, he has yet neither power nor knowledge, the monster is his secret father who will invest him with a power and knowledge that can belong to one man only, and that only the monster can give.”
― Roberto Calasso

62 likes

“The gods are fugitive guests of literature. ”
― Roberto Calasso

21 likes

“Whatever else it might be, the divine is certainly the thing that imposes with maximum intensity the sensation of being alive.”
― Roberto Calasso, Literature and the Gods

19 likes

See all Roberto Calasso's quotes »

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
The World's Liter...: Future Readings after Greece	20	80	Nov 30, 2010 09:36PM
Crazy Challenge C...: * R2: Team Six - Page Chewers	308	114	Nov 17, 2012 02:40AM

欧宝娱乐

Roberto Calasso鈥檚 Followers (633)

Roberto Calasso

Combine EditionsRoberto Calasso鈥檚 books

Topics Mentioning This Author

Combine Editions
Roberto Calasso鈥檚 books