Luigi Pirandello
(1867-1936)

A Quick Overview
He was born on June 28, 1867,  in Agrigento, Sicily, Ital and died. on Dec. 10, 1936, in Rome.  He is remembered as an Italian playwright, novelist, and short-story writer, and winner of the 1934 Nobel Prize for Literature. With his invention of the "theatre within the theatre" in the play Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore (1921; Six Characters in Search of an Author), he became an important innovator in modern drama.

"Pirandello, Luigi" Britannica Online.
<http://www.eb.com:180/cgi-bin/g?DocF=micro/469/7.html>
[Accessed 12 November 1998]

Comments: Thus far the stories I have encountered have been about the simple people of Italy.

His Life
Links
His Works

Links
Search engine: Lycos found 91 documents.

The query string sent was Luigi Pirandello

Displaying first 10 documents.

Luigi Pirandello Winner of the 1934 Nobel Prize in Lite
LUIGI PIRANDELLO 1934 Nobel Laureate in Literature for his bold and ingenious revival of dramatic and scenic art. Backgr
http://www.almaz.com/nobel/literature/1934a.html
Similar Pages | More pages from www.almaz.com | www.almaz.com

Agrigento - Luigi Pirandello
Scrittori Siciliani SICILIA Luigi Pirandello ( Agrigento 1867 - Roma 1936) E' il piu' famoso commediografo italiano che
http://www.sicily.infcom.it/it/cultura/letteratura/lett
Similar Pages | More pages from www.sicily.infcom.it | www.sicily.infcom.it

Luigi Pirandello
mazzoni pamphlet exhibit main menu gallery menu 72 dpi .gif version 150 dpi.jpeg version 72 dpi .gif version 150 dpi.jpe
http://odyssey.lib.duke.edu/mazzoni/exhibit/modernlit/E
Similar Pages | More pages from odyssey.lib.duke.edu | odyssey.lib.duke.edu

Great Books Index - Luigi Pirandello
GREAT BOOKS INDEX Luigi Pirandello (1867--1936) An Index to The Great Books in English Translation With Links to Online
http://books.mirror.org/gb.pirandello.html
Similar Pages | More pages from books.mirror.org | books.mirror.org

PIRANDELLO LUIGI (in MARION)
PIRANDELLO LUIGI Pirandello, Luigi, 1867-1936. ( about) (86 titles) Pirandello, Luigi, 1867-1936. Cavallo nella luna. En
http://www-catalog.cpl.org/MARION?A=Pirandello+Luigi
Similar Pages | More pages from www-catalog.cpl.org | www-catalog.cpl.org

L'esclusa di Luigi Pirandello
L'esclusa di Luigi Pirandello PARTE SECONDA Capitolo VIII - Venga, due passi... Il mal di capo le svanirà. Vede che gior
http://www.citynet.re.it/ebook/esclusa/parte208.htm
Similar Pages | More pages from www.citynet.re.it | www.citynet.re.it

!A Modern World: Ten Great Writers - Luigi Pirandello
Modern World: Ten Great Writers - Luigi Pirandello Time 60 Minutes Price $ 29.98 Item # 7743 Video and CD ....Catalog Vi
http://amr1.com/cat-des/bio/bio7743.htm
Similar Pages | More pages from amr1.com | amr1.com

Luigi Pirandello
hanno visitato questa pagina. I contenuti di queste pagine sono frutto di ricerche personali di un gruppo di studenti, t
http://tzetze.simplenet.com/pirandello/
Similar Pages | More pages from tzetze.simplenet.com | tzetze.simplenet.com

Knox College Theatre: About Henry IV
Luigi Pirandello's Henry IV by Ivan Davidson, professor of theatre, Knox College   Pirandello, a Nobel Laureate in
http://www.knox.edu/knoxweb/academic/theatre/henry_iv/a
Similar Pages | More pages from www.knox.edu | www.knox.edu

Next set from Lycos


Search engine: InfoSeek found 669 documents.
The query string sent was +Luigi +Pirandello

Displaying first 10 documents.

Scuola Media Luigi Pirandello
Santi Gentiluomo - tel. 090/2936840 Nome scuola Indirizzo Telefono Fax Luigi Pirandello Via Catania, 99 - 2936840 Succ. Pirandello Via Catania, 99 - -
86%  Date: 4 Apr 1992,  Size 0.6K,  http://www.comune.messina.it/servizi/scuole/medie/pirandel.htm

Great Books Index - Luigi Pirandello
Luigi Pirandello - Great Books Index.
86%  Date: 16 Jun 1998,  Size 4.2K,  http://books.mirror.org/gb.pirandello.html

Luigi Pirandello's One-Act Plays: denver.sidewalk
Complete event information, times, and review. Luigi Pirandello's One-Act Plays - An Evening of one-act plays includes "The Vise," "A Man with a Flower in his Mouth" and "Chee Chee." Also check out: · Dramatic License for weekly theater news and ...
85%  Date: 16 Oct 1998,  Size 8.7K,  http://denver.sidewalk.com/detail/35200
Grouped results from http://denver.sidewalk.com/detail/35200

Eleven Short Stories; Undici Novelle: A Dual-Language Book by Pirandello, Luigi ISBN: ...
Eleven Short Stories; Undici Novelle: A Dual-Language Book by Pirandello, Luigi ISBN 0486280918 BOOK TOPICS COMPANY INFO SEARCH COMMENT ON A BOOK MOTIVATIONAL PRODUCTS Copyright © 1998 Open Communications, Inc Pub Date: June 1994 Pub: ...
85%  Date: 16 Oct 1998,  Size 11.7K,  http://www.opengroup.com/open/pabooks/048/0486280918.shtml

Luigi Pirandello Winner of the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature
Luigi Pirandello, a Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature, at the Nobel Prize Internet Archive.
84%  Date: 4 Sep 1998,  Size 5.1K,  http://www.nobelprizes.com/nobel/literature/1934a.html

Agrigento - Luigi Pirandello
Scrittori Siciliani SICILIA Luigi Pirandello ( Agrigento 1867 - Roma 1936) E' il piu' famoso commediografo italiano che ebbe il premio Nobel per la letteratura nel 1934. Le sue ceneri sono, per sua volonta', poste sotto un pino solitario in contrada Caos vicino alla ...
84%  Date: 29 Apr 1998,  Size 2.4K,  http://www.sicily.cres.it/it/cultura/letteratura/letterati/scrittori/pirandello.html
Grouped results from http://www.sicily.cres.it/it/cultura/letteratura/letterati/scrittori/pirandello.html

Six Characters: The Brustein Version
The Brustein Version. Undying Six Characters search for a winter home at the A.R.T. The A.R.T. is reviving the celebrated Robert Brustein staging of Luigi Pirandello's revolutionary play, Six ...
83%  Date: 6 Aug 1998,  Size 6.6K,  http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~art/version.html
Grouped results from http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~art/version.html

Antologia (fragmentaria) della Letteratura Italiana
A collection of Italian literature and writings. (In Italian).
80%  Date: 13 Sep 1998,  Size 8.3K,  http://www.crs4.it/HTML/Literature.html
Grouped results from http://www.crs4.it/HTML/Literature.html

Letture sul web by i-2000net provider
Considerate la vostra semenza: fatti non foste a viver come bruti, ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza". "Divina Commedia" Inferno canto XXVI In questa pagina trovere molti capolavori della letteratura mondiale. Sono testi in formato DOC che potete tranquillamente scaricare dal nostro sito. Sono stati ...
77%  Date: 17 Oct 1997,  Size 14.0K,  http://www.i-2000net.it/leggere/

Blues Brothers - Box Office
Stagione teatrale 1995/1996 ORARIO SPETTACOLI Lunedi' RIPOSO. Dal Martedi' al Sabato Serale ORE 21.00 - Domenica diurno ORE 17.00 1 "L'Opera dei centosedici" con A.Antico, F.Castiglia, L.Giulivo, di Roberto De Simone regia di Roberto De Simone dal 31 ottobre al 12 novembre 2 "Come prima meglio di prima" di ...
77%  Date: 7 Jul 1997,  Size 2.8K,  http://www.panservice.it/bb/teatro_valle.html

Next set from Infoseek



Search engine: Excite Web Search found 696 documents.
The query string sent was Luigi AND Pirandello

Displaying first 10 documents.

Italian literature in HTML  - La Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri La Vita Nuova di Dante Alighieri Dubbi Amorosi di Pietro Aretino Orlando Furioso di Ludovico Ariosto Rime di Guido Cavalcanti I Sonetti di Ugo Foscolo Dei Sepolcri di Ugo Foscolo Tutte le Poesie di Guido Gozzano Canti di Giacomo Leopardi (alcuni) Il Cinque Maggio di Alessandro Manzoni Sulla morte di Giuda di Vincenzo Monti
http://www.crs4.it/HTML/Literature.html

Siti Internet - NetGroup  - Letteratura Poesia La Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri La Vita Nuova di Dante Alighieri Dubbi Amorosi di Pietro Aretino I Sonetti di Ugo Foscolo Dei Sepolcri di Ugo Foscolo Canti di Giacomo Leopardi Il Cinque Maggio di Alessandro Manzoni Sulla morte di Giuda di Vincenzo Monti
http://www.netgroup.it/SITI/let.htm

Letteratura  - La Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri La Vita Nuova di Dante Alighieri Dubbi Amorosi di Pietro Aretino I Sonetti di Ugo Foscolo Dei Sepolcri di Ugo Foscolo Canti di Giacomo Leopardi Il Cinque Maggio di Alessandro Manzoni Sulla morte di Giuda di Vincenzo Monti
http://www.nol.netgroup.it/NAVIGA/let.htm

PIRANDELLO  - Réf: -17577- : Librairie : Bât d'Argent Revue. 15 Janvier 1935. Couverture légèrement défraîchie. Exemplaire numéroté. Paul Claudel: Judith.
http://www.livre-rare-book.com/Matieres/gd/3185.html

Letteratura  - Poesia La Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri La Vita Nuova di Dante Alighieri Dubbi Amorosi di Pietro Aretino I Sonetti di Ugo Foscolo Dei Sepolcri di Ugo Foscolo Canti di Giacomo Leopardi Il Cinque Maggio di Alessandro Manzoni Sulla morte di Giuda di Vincenzo Monti La mitologia Greca e Romana Hella On Line The Aeneid By Virgilio The Odyssey By Homer The Iliad By Homer
http://www.langhe.com/naviga/lettura.htm

Scuola Media Luigi Pirandello  - Preside: Santi Gentiluomo - tel. 090/2936840 Nome scuola Indirizzo Telefono Fax Luigi Pirandello Via Catania, 99 Succ. Via Catania, 99 Scuola Media Luigi Pirandello
http://www.comune.messina.it/servizi/scuole/medie/pirandel.h...

Carrie: Italian Literature  - Italian Literature (Versione ufficiale della CEI) La Bibbia (HTML at CRS4) Costituzione della Repubblica Italiana (HTML at CRS4) Aretino, Pietro: Dubbi Amorosi (HTML at CRS4) Boccaccio, Giovanni: Decameron (HTML at CRS4)
http://ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu/carrie/stacks/italian_main.html

LETTERATURA  - La Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri La Vita Nuova di Dante Alighieri Dubbi Amorosi di Pietro Aretino I Sonetti di Ugo Foscolo Dei Sepolcri di Ugo Foscolo Canti di Giacomo Leopardi (alcuni) Il Cinque Maggio di Alessandro Manzoni Sulla morte di Giuda di Vincenzo Monti
http://www.ntb.it/letterat.html

Liber Liber: biografia di Luigi Pirandello  - Luigi Pirandello Drammaturgo e narratore italiano, nasce ad Agrigento nel 1867. Formatosi nell'ambiente siciliano, frequentò l'Università di Roma e concluderà i suoi studi laureandosi a Bonn. Rappresentò sulle scene l'incapacità dell'uomo di identificarsi con la propria personalità, nel dramma della ricerca di una verità al di là delle convenzioni e delle apparenze.
http://sunsite.dsi.unimi.it/liberliber/biblioteca/biografie/...

Letteratura Adriatic Net  - Antologia della Letteratura Italiana vengono qui proposti di seguito le edizioni integrali di alcuni libri della nostra letteratura in versione integrale. Ci promettiamo, di ampliare questa pagina nel tempo, perciòvi chiediamo di visitarla spesso.
http://www.adriatic.net/lettera.htm

Next set from Excite Web Search

The information following this banner was drawn from. . .

Related Internet Links

Luigi Pirandello--1934 Nobel Laureate in Literature
Information on the playwright.

Luigi Pirandello
Brief biography of the playwright.
His Life
Pirandello was the son of a sulfur merchant who wanted him to enter
                   commerce. Pirandello, however, was not interested in business; he
                   wanted to study. He first went to Palermo, the island's capital, and, in
                   1887, to the University of Rome. After a quarrel with the professor of
                   classics there, he went in 1888 to the University of Bonn, Ger., where in
                   1891 he gained his doctorate in philology for a thesis on the dialect of
                   Agrigento.
 
 
 

                   In 1894 his father arranged his marriage to Antonietta Portulano, the
                   daughter of a business associate, a wealthy sulfur merchant. This
                   marriage gave him financial independence, allowing him to live in Rome
                   and to write. He had already published an early volume of verse, Mal
                   giocondo (1889), which paid tribute to the poetic fashions set by Giosuè
                   Carducci. This was followed by other volumes of verse, including
                   Pasqua di Gea (1891; dedicated to Jenny Schulz-Lander, the love he
                   had left behind in Bonn) and a translation of J.W. von Goethe's Roman
                   Elegies (1896; Elegie romane). But his first significant works were short
                   stories, which at first he contributed to periodicals without payment.
 
 
 

                   In 1903 a landslide shut down the sulfur mine in which his wife's and his
                   father's capital was invested. Suddenly poor, Pirandello was forced to
                   earn his living not only by writing but also by teaching Italian at a
                   teacher's college in Rome. As a further result of the financial disaster, his
                   wife developed a persecution mania, which manifested itself in a frenzied
                   jealousy of her husband. His torment ended only with her removal to a
                   sanatorium in 1919 (she died in 1959). It was this bitter experience that
                   finally determined the theme of his most characteristic work, already
                   perceptible in his early short stories--the exploration of the tightly closed
                   world of the forever changeable human personality.
 
 
 

                   Pirandello's early narrative style stems from the verismo ("realism") of
                   two Italian novelists of the late 19th century--Luigi Capuana and
                   Giovanni Verga. The titles of Pirandello's early collections of short
                   stories--Amori senza amore (1894; "Loves Without Love") and Beffe
                   della morte e della vita (1902-03; "The Jests of Life and
                   Death")--suggest the wry nature of his realism that is seen also in his first
                   novels: L'esclusa (1901; The Outcast) and Il turno (1902; Eng. trans.
                   The Merry-Go-Round of Love). Success came with his third novel,
                   often acclaimed as his best, Il fu Mattia Pascal (1904; The Late
                   Mattia Pascal). Although the theme is not typically "Pirandellian," since
                   the obstacles confronting its hero result from external circumstances, it
                   already shows the acute psychological observation that was later to be
                   directed toward the exploration of his characters' subconscious.
 
 
 

                   Pirandello's understanding of psychology was sharpened by reading
                   such works as Les altérations de la personnalité (1892), by the French
                   experimental psychologist Alfred Binet; and traces of its influence can be
                   seen in the long essay L'umorismo (1908; On Humor), in which he
                   examines the principles of his art. Common to both books is the theory of
                   the subconscious personality, which postulates that what a person
                   knows, or thinks he knows, is the least part of what he is. Pirandello
                   had begun to focus his writing on the themes of psychology even before
                   he knew of the work of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis.
                   The psychological themes used by Pirandello found their most complete
                   expression in the volumes of short stories La trappola (1915; "The
                   Trap") and E domani, lunedi` . . . (1917; "And Tomorrow, Monday . . .
                   "), and in such individual stories as "Una voce," "Pena di vivere così," and
                   "Con altri occhi."
 
 
 

                   Meanwhile, he had been writing other novels, notably I vecchi e i
                   giovani (1913; The Old and The Young) and Uno, nessuno e
                   centomila (1925-26; One, None, and a Hundred Thousand). Both are
                   more typical than Il fu Mattia Pascal. The first, a historical novel
                   reflecting the Sicily of the end of the 19th century and the general
                   bitterness at the loss of the ideals of the Risorgimento (the movement that
                   led to the unification of Italy), suffers from Pirandello's tendency to
                   "discompose" rather than to "compose" (to use his own terms, in
                   L'umorismo), so that individual episodes stand out at the expense of the
                   work as a whole. Uno, nessuno e centomila, however, is at once the
                   most original and the most typical of his novels. It is a surrealistic
                   description of the consequences of the hero's discovery that his wife (and
                   others) see him with quite different eyes than he does himself. Its
                   exploration of the reality of personality is of a type better known from his
                   plays.
 
 
 

                   Pirandello wrote over 50 plays. He had first turned to the theatre in
                   1898 with L'epilogo, but the accidents that prevented its production until
                   1910 (when it was retitled La morsa) kept him from other than sporadic
                   attempts at drama until the success of Così è (se vi pare) in 1917. This
                   delay may have been fortunate for the development of his dramatic
                   powers. L'epilogo does not greatly differ from other drama of its period,
                   but Così è (se vi pare) began the series of plays that were to make him
                   world famous in the 1920s. Its title can be translated as Right You Are
                   (If You Think You Are). A demonstration, in dramatic terms, of the
                   relativity of truth, and a rejection of the idea of any objective reality not at
                   the mercy of individual vision, it anticipates Pirandello's two great plays,
                   Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921) and Enrico IV (1922;
                   Henry IV). Six Characters is the most arresting presentation of the
                   typical Pirandellian contrast between art, which is unchanging, and life,
                   which is an inconstant flux. Characters that have been rejected by their
                   author materialize on stage, throbbing with a more intense vitality than the
                   real actors, who, inevitably, distort their drama as they attempt its
                   presentation. And in Henry IV the theme is madness, which lies just
                   under the skin of ordinary life and is, perhaps, superior to ordinary life in
                   its construction of a satisfying reality. The play finds dramatic strength in
                   its hero's choice of retirement into unreality in preference to life in the
                   uncertain world.
 
 
 

                   The production of Six Characters in Paris in 1923 made Pirandello
                   widely known, and his work became one of the central influences on the
                   French theatre. French drama from the existentialistic pessimism of Jean
                   Anouilh and Jean-Paul Sartre to the absurdist comedy of Eugène Ionesco
                   and Samuel Beckett is tinged with "Pirandellianism." His influence can
                   also be detected in the drama of other countries, even in the religious
                   verse dramas of T.S. Eliot.
 
 
 

                   In 1920 Pirandello said of his own art:
 
 
 

                        I think that life is a very sad piece of buffoonery; because
                        we have in ourselves, without being able to know why,
                        wherefore or whence, the need to deceive ourselves
                        constantly by creating a reality (one for each and never the
                        same for all), which from time to time is discovered to be
                        vain and illusory . . . My art is full of bitter compassion for
                        all those who deceive themselves; but this compassion
                        cannot fail to be followed by the ferocious derision of
                        destiny which condemns man to deception.
 
 
 
 

                   This despairing outlook attained its most vigorous expression in
                   Pirandello's plays, which were criticized at first for being too "cerebral"
                   but later recognized for their underlying sensitivity and compassion. The
                   plays' main themes are the necessity and the vanity of illusion, and the
                   multifarious appearances, all of them unreal, of what is presumed to be
                   the truth. A human being is not what he thinks he is, but instead is "one,
                   no one and a hundred thousand," according to his appearance to this
                   person or that, which is always different from the image of himself in his
                   own mind. Pirandello's plays reflect the verismo of Capuana and Verga
                   in dealing mostly with people in modest circumstances, such as clerks,
                   teachers, and lodging house keepers, but from whose vicissitudes he
                   draws conclusions of general human significance.
 
 
 

                   The universal acclaim that followed Six Characters and Henry IV sent
                   Pirandello touring the world (1925-27) with his own company, the
                   Teatro d'Arte in Rome. It also emboldened him to disfigure some of his
                   later plays (e.g., Ciascuno a suo modo [1924]) by calling attention to
                   himself, just as in some of the later short stories it is the surrealistic and
                   fantastic elements that are accentuated.
 
 
 

                   After the dissolution, because of financial losses, of the Teatro d'Arte in
                   1928, Pirandello spent his remaining years in frequent and extensive
                   travel. In his will he requested that there should be no public ceremony
                   marking his death--only "a hearse of the poor, the horse and the
                   coachman." (J.H.W.)
 
 
 

                   BIBLIOGRAPHY.
 
 
 

                   Gaspare Giudice, Pirandello (1975), presents the life and work of
                   Pirandello in the setting of his time; it is probably the best general
                   account of the author. Works of criticism include Walter Starkie, Luigi
                   Pirandello, 1867-1936, 3rd ed. rev. and enlarged (1965), a very
                   personal, critical account, with extracts and synopses, of Pirandello's
                   work in the context of European literature; Thomas Bishop, Pirandello
                   and the French Theater (1960), a useful discussion of Pirandello's
                   ideas, and an account of his lasting influence on the French theatre;
                   Glauco Cambon (compiler), Pirandello: A Collection of Critical
                   Essays (1967), a helpful set of discussions of various aspects of
                   Pirandello criticism; Oscar Büdel, Pirandello, 2nd ed. (1969), a brief
                   work that will be more useful to those who already have some idea of the
                   European background of Pirandello; Douglas Radcliff-Umstead, The
                   Mirror of Our Anguish: A Study of Luigi Pirandello's Narrative
                   Writings (1978); Olga Ragusa, Luigi Pirandello: An Approach to
                   His Theatre (1980); A. Richard Sogliuzzo, Luigi Pirandello,
                   Director: The Playwright in the Theatre (1982); and Anthony Caputi,
                   Pirandello and the Crisis of Modern Consciousness (1988).

"Pirandello, Luigi" Britannica Online.
<http://www.eb.com:180/cgi-bin/g?DocF=micro/469/7.html>
[Accessed 12 November 1998]