"Embracing the whole of Italian literature, from the early thirteenth century to the present, The Oxford Companion to Italian Literature is based on a broad view of what constitutes literature, covering historical writing, travel writing, theatre, and philosophy as well as the novel, poetry, literary dialogues, and critical theory. It gives generous space to canonical figures - from Dante and Petrarch to Montale and Calvino - and contains a wealth of short entries on significant minor figures." "The Companion also explores Latin literature written by Italian authors - a major feature of Renaissance culture - and Italian dialect literature; and strong emphasis is given to contextual articles which place the writers and their works in their wider social, historical, artistic, and political setting." "The 2,400 alphabetically-arranged entries provide clear, up-to-date coverage of Italian literature, making this an essential reference work for specialists and non-specialists alike. Written by expert contributors, the entries reflect the current state of international scholarship, which has developed in many different and exciting directions in recent years."--Jacket.