Italo Calvino, Il Cavaliere inesistente [The Nonexistent Knight]

Simona Wright (College of New Jersey)
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Italo Calvino’s chivalric novella, Il cavaliere inesistente [The Nonexistent Knight], is written in the form of an act of penance by a cloistered nun, sister Theodora, an omniscient narrator who plays a critical part in the story (Barrett 1992). Published in 1959 and included in the trilogy of the Antenati [Our Ancestors 1960], it is the last of the three allegorical tales whose protagonists — Medardo, of Il visconte dimezzato [The Cloven Viscount 1952], Cosimo, of Il barone rampante [The Baron in the Trees 1957], and Agilulf, of this work — form Calvino’s genealogic tree of the archetypal forebears of …

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Citation: Wright, Simona. "Il Cavaliere inesistente". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 August 2019 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=11650, accessed 29 March 2024.]

11650 Il Cavaliere inesistente 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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