SOURCE: Catani, R. D. “Structure and Style as Fundamental Expression: The Works of Carlo Levi and Their Poetic Ideology.” Italica 56, no. 2 (summer 1979): 213-29.

In the following essay, Catani provides a stylistic analysis of Levi's prose works.

The resurgence over the last decade in critical studies on Levi has largely been based on a recognition that convictions first expressed theoretically in Paura della libertà (1939) offer a key to a deeper comprehension of his work. As a result, a daunting task of interpretation has been set and undertaken.¹ This article will attempt to define and analyze certain processes in the author's prose writings as illustrating the interrelated concepts of differenziazione and contemporaneità which are central to his fundamental convictions. The first part of the article will deal with the conscious application of these concepts to literature in structural processes directed towards the intentional breaking down of conventional narrative sequence: especially...