Gadda, Carlo Emilio

Gadda, Carlo Emilio (kär`lō āmē`lyō gäd`dä), 1893–1973, Italian novelist. Although trained as an electrical engineer, Gadda devoted his energies to writing. His difficult style, deliberately obscure, precludes a wide audience. A fascination with words led him to use phonetic tricks (e.g., deliberate misspellings, dialects) to distort and mock formal writing and produce a fresh realism. Gadda's early works are collected in I sogni e la folgore (1955). His best-known novel is Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana (1957, tr. That Awful Mess on Via Merulana, 1965). His Acquainted with Grief appeared in English in 1969.

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Gadda, Carlo Emilio 

Born Nov. 14, 1893, in Milan. Italian writer.

Gadda began his literary career at the end of the 1920’s. His talent unfolded after Italy’s liberation from fascism: the antifascist collection Stories From the Duchy Aflame (1953) and the satirical-grotesque novel Acquainted With Grief (final version, 1963). His most characteristic work is the novel That Awful Mess on Via Merulana (1948; final version, 1957), which depicts life in Rome under fascism. Uniquely interwoven in Gadda’s works are elements of verism and satire as well as a refined psychologism. The writer exposes the mores of bourgeois Italy. Elements of various dialects and slang are merged in Gadda’s complex language.

WORKS

La madonna dei filosofi. Florence, 1931.
Il castello di Udine. Florence, 1934.
Eros e Priapo. Milan, 1967.
La Meccanica. Milan, 1970.

REFERENCES

Fiorentino, L. Narratori del Novecento. Milan, 1960.
Seroni, A. “C. E. Gadda.” Paragone, 1969, no. 230.

G. D. BOGEMSKII