by Valeria Fanelli –

The essays gathered together in Erudizione e leggerezza, Essays on Comparative Philology, offer a sample from the broad expanse of Paolo Cherchi’s scholarship ranging over classical and contemporary times, Italian and Hispanic studies, examining the cultural realities of Europe and America, and moving between the languages of Latin and English, against the background of Cherchi’s work in Romance Languages and Literatures.

Avoiding the trap of reducing literary criticism to solely philological considerations, while nevertheless respecting the field when it has something new to say, the author has always kept his distance from literary theory, trusting instead the profound and rare insight that allows him to roam freely – with lightness and humor – through the various fields of the humanities.

The thread that ties these essays together is woven from the sheer variety of Cherchi’s interests, and constitutes an attempt to encapsulate his particular mode of combining philology and erudite comparative methodology that is at once unique and immensely valuable.
Paolo Cherchi has been Professor of Italian Literature at the University of Chicago and has taught at the University of Ferrara.

The event is presented by the Director of the Italian Institute of Culture Silvio Marchetti.

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