Italian

Question 1

Dante Alighieri

Answer 1

Italian (1265-1321)

Made famous or conceived of the Nine Rings of Hell.

Question 2

Paradiso

Answer 2

Dante Alighieri (Italian)
guide through paradise is Beatrice, who is the object of Dante’s love at first sight in Vita Novea.

Question 3

Inferno and Purgatorio

Answer 3

Dante Alighieri (Italian)
Virgil is Dante’s guide here, because Virgil was born before Christ, so he couldn’t enter Paradise.  This is where the nine rings of hell come in.  Different famous sinners seen receiving punishments fitting of their crimes.

Question 4

Vita Novea

Answer 4

Dante Alighieri (Italian)
Dante sees Beatrice and falls in love at first sight.  Most famous love at first sight in literature.

Question 5

Luigi Pirandello

Answer 5

(1867-1937) Italian
– Pirandello’s plays are often seen as forerunners for theatre of the absurd. Typical for Pirandello’s plays is to show how fiction mixes with reality and how people see things in very different way. Art was for Pirandello the ultimate paradox, in which reality is at the same time is true and false, and the unmasking of illusion often causes violence.

Question 6

Six Characters in Search of an Author

Answer 6

Luigi Pirandello (Italian) 
Rehearsal preparations of a theatrical company are interrupted by a Father and his family who explain that they are characters from an unfinished dramatic works. They want to interpret again crucial moments of their lives, claiming that they are "truer" than the "real" characters. "How can we understand each other if the words I use have the sense and the value I expect them to have, but whoever is listening to me inevitably thinks that those same words have a different sense and value, because of the private world he has inside himself too. We think we understand each other: but we never do," says the Father. He tells that he has helped his wife to start a new life with her lover and the three illegitimate children born to them. The Wife claims that he forced her into the arms of another man. The Stepdaughter accuses the Father for her shame - they met before in Mme Pace's infamous house, and he did not recognize her. She was forced to turn to prostitution to support the family. The Son refuses to acknowledge his family and runs into the garden. He shots himself and the actors argue about whether the boy is dead or not. The Father insists that the events are real. The Producer says: "Make-believe?! Reality?! Oh, go to hell the lot of you! Lights! Lights! Lights!" and The Stepdaughter escapes into the audience laughing maniacally.