In the following essay, Beckwith examines the sources of Calvino's Italian folklore.

In the following favorable review, LeGuin maintains that “one of the innumerable delights of Italian Folktales is its mixture of the deeply familiar with the totally unexpected.”

Stylistically [in "Italian Folktales"] the English is everything we would expect in a good translation of such a master as Calvino: colloquial but never corny, plain-spoken, economical, wry and flexible, and sometimes—like the best authentic folk-speech everywhere—stunningly lyrical, capable of turning (as at the end of the first tale, "Dauntless Little John") unexpectedly somber, moving. Even if this impression of the translation's probable accuracy should p...

I must say now that, on finishing [Italian Folktales] (a genuine labour of love, and also a pointer to Calvino's literary aims, which have more to do with the recovery of the folktale than the innovations for which his novels have been praised), I went straight back to Grimm and read it through. Being occasionally bored by the Italian stories, I wondered if the fault was in myself, but I found I was never bored by the Teutonic tales and must conclude that they are superior. Certainly there is nothing...

One of the innumerable delights of Italian Folktales is its mixture of the deeply familiar with the totally unexpected. Most of the basic "story-types," of which Calvino says there are about 50 represented here, are more or less familiar to members of the English folk/literary tradition. The themes that recur in all Western folktales run through these; we meet the youngest son of the king, the wicked stepmother, the stupid giant, the helpful animals…. But the recombinations of these the...