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During the Second World War, American literature in Italy became a cultural myth. Ernest Hemingway found himself at the core of such an ambivalent and contradictory myth: his books were a forbidden, subversive pleasure, something to be held secretly against the bans of the fascist regime. Hemingway's works (and his own life) acquired a peculiar meaning for writers of the Left such as Elio Vittorini and Cesare Pavese, for politically engaged critics, as well as for the Italian publishing industry, which aimed at owning and controlling (and of course selling) his books. The history of the two most important Italian publishing houses of the period, Einaudi and Mondadori, is indissolubly intertwined with the reception of Hemingway's works: it is not possible to trace the one without evoking the other. In the second half of the 1940s, Arnoldo Mondadori and Giulio Einaudi were opponents in what Einaudi himself defined the "Hemingway match", a duel that neither of the two publishers was willing to lose for any reason. By using documentary sources, biographical works, as well as books tracing the history of the two publishing houses, this essay will recapitulate some salient steps of the critical reception of Hemingway's works in Italy from the postwar period to the present day.

During the Second World War, American literature in Italy became a cultural myth. Ernest Hemingway found himself at the core of such an ambivalent and contradictory myth: his books were a forbidden, subversive pleasure, something to be held secretly against the bans of the fascist regime. Hemingway's works (and his own life) acquired a peculiar meaning for writers of the Left such as Elio Vittorini and Cesare Pavese, for politically engaged critics, as well as for the Italian publishing industry, which aimed at owning and controlling (and of course selling) his books. The history of the two most important Italian publishing houses of the period, Einaudi and Mondadori, is indissolubly intertwined with the reception of Hemingway's works: it is not possible to trace the one without evoking the other. In the second half of the 1940s, Arnoldo Mondadori and Giulio Einaudi were opponents in what Einaudi himself defined the "Hemingway match", a duel that neither of the two publishers was willing to lose for any reason. By using documentary sources, biographical works, as well as books tracing the history of the two publishing houses, this essay will recapitulate some salient steps of the critical reception of Hemingway's works in Italy from the postwar period to the present day. ; Durante la Seconda guerra mondiale la letteratura americana in Italia svolge un ruolo fondamentale, fino a configurarsi come un vero e proprio mito culturale. Al centro di questo mito ambivalente e contraddittorio c'è Ernest Hemingway: i suoi libri vengono letti come un piacere proibito e sovversivo, da assaporare in segreto contravvenendo al bando del regime fascista. Le opere di Hemingway, come anche la sua vita, assumono un significato mitico per scrittori di sinistra come Elio Vittorini e Cesare Pavese, oltre che per i partigiani e i critici militanti – un mito che l'industria letteraria italiana cerca immediatamente di accaparrarsi per poi rivenderlo. La storia delle due più importanti case editrici del periodo, Einaudi e Mondadori, è infatti legata a doppio filo alla ricezione delle opere di Hemingway: nella seconda metà degli anni Quaranta Arnoldo Mondadori e Giulio Einaudi sono avversari in quella che lo stesso Einaudi definisce "partita Hemingway", un duello che nessuno dei due editori è intenzionato a perdere. Servendosi di fonti documentarie, letterarie e biografiche, oltre che di alcune opere incentrate sulla storia delle due case editrici, questo saggio si propone di ripercorrere alcune tappe importanti della ricezione critica di Hemingway in Italia, a partire dal secondo dopoguerra e fino agli sviluppi più recenti.

The aim of this essay is to read Clarel (1876) as Melville's most mature reflection on issues related to democracy and emancipation in the United States. Clarel's situation at the end of the poem reflects that of the ex-slaves after emancipation. Most importantly, I argue that Melville significantly structured Clarel as a sailor's narrative, adapting the popular devices of sea-writing to versification in order to bridge the gap between his early fiction and his later poetry. Finally, I propose to read Clarel as the author's poetic pilgrimage to offset the excessive autobiographical impulse of his early fiction in order to gain artistic, as well as personal, emancipation.