Tales from Italy When Christianity Met Italy

Thomas Frederick Crane 지음

마주 2014년 01월 23일 출간

작품소개

책소개

“Scherza coi fanti e lascia stare i santi” is an Italian sentence that means “don’t mix the sacred with the profane”. Clearly, more than two-thousand years of Christianity have molded and deeply influenced the culture and traditions of many parts of Italy. This book is formed by tales Selected from the Book: Italian Popular Tales by Thomas Frederick Crane. These stories will present the origin of many idioms and customs of many Italian regions, and also how in many Italian tales' tradition, religious characters ？ such as Saint Peter or the Holy Mary or even the Devil - replace the classic fairytale characters: fairies, robbers, gnomes and so on.

목차

PREFACE OF THE EDITOR
PART ONE
THE BUCKET
THE STORY OF CRIV？LIU
THE STORY OF ST. JAMES OF GALICIA
THE STORY OF ST. ONIRI？ OR NERI？
THE BAKER'S APPRENTICE
PART TWO
THE LORD, ST. PETER, AND THE APOSTLES
THE LORD, ST. PETER, AND THE BLACKSMITH
IN THIS WORLD ONE WEEPS AND ANOTHER LAUGHS
THE ASS
WHY CERTAIN WOMAN DON’T COMB THEIR HAIR ON FRIDAY
THE LORD WILL
THE MOTHER OF SAINT PETER
ST. PETER AND HIS SISTERS
PART THREE
PILATE
THE STORY OF JUDAS
THE DESPERATE MALCHUS
THE STORY OF BUTTADEU
PART FOUR
THE STORY OF THE HERMIT
THE POOR BOY
BROTHER GIOVANNONE
COPYRIGHTS

출판사 서평

The tales contained in this book have been selected from the Book: Italian Popular Tales by Thomas Frederick Crane.
More than two-thousand years of Christianity have molded and deeply influenced the culture and traditions of many parts of Italy.
In our view, this has been possible only because of the above-mentioned cultural integration between Christianity and the many different local cultures that were present on the Italian territory. We believe that the tales collected in this book will explain this inter-cultural process through their narrations.
In order to let the reading of these tales more easy and flowing, we decided to divide the book in four sections or parts.
The first part is mainly formed by tales that, even if the environment of the tales is still magic and enchanted, the characters and above all, the morality that these tales want to teach, are taken from a Christian framework. We will find here stories linked with Christian Saints as well as tales that will introduce some basic Christian values. Of greater interest is a legend of St. James the Elder, the patron-saint of Spain, of whom the pilgrimage to his shrine at Santiago in Galicia was verypopular during the Middle Ages.
In the second part we will meet many characters of the New Testament. Some of them real, such as Jesus or St. Peter and a few others out of whole cloth?, such as the mother or the sisters of Saint Peter. This part is interesting because it will explain some of the ways of saying belonging to some specific region in Italy.
The third part will introduce some of the negative characters of the Gospel, such as Pontius Pilate, Judas, the betrayer of Jesus, Malchus or Buttadeo (literally Strike God), the Jew who slapped Jesus. Judas is believed to have hanged himself on a tamarind-tree, which, before that time, was a tall, beautiful tree. After Judas's death it became the diminutive, shapeless shrub called vruca, which is a synonym for all that is worthless. The soul of the traitor is condemned to wander through the air, and every time it sees this shrub it pauses, and imagines it sees its miserable body dangling from it, the prey of birds and dogs. An interesting legend is told of the Jew who struck our Lord with the palm of his hand (St. John xviii. 22), and whom the popular imagination has identified with the Malchus mentioned by St. John, xviii. 10.
The fourth part will present some tales about the Christian morality. We will meet "The Story of the Hermit," which has as its subject the mystery of God's Providence, and is familiar to English readers in the form of Parnell's Hermit. The tales of Brother Giovannone ends this section and the book.
We hope that these stories will be a way to approach the deep and rich Italian culture and tradition. At the same time, we hope that this book will be a good companion in the moments that you want to devote to reading.

작가정보

저자(글) Thomas Frederick Crane