Luigi Pirandello Biography and List of Works

Italian author, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934. Pirandello's plays are often seen as forerunners for the theatre of the absurd. Typically Pirandello's plays reveal how fiction mixes with reality and how people see things in very different ways. Art was for Pirandello the ultimate paradox, in which reality is both true and false, and in which the unmasking of illusion often causes violence. Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and c. 40 plays, some of which are written in Sicilian dialect.

"I hate symbolic art in which the presentation loses all spontaneous movement in order to become a machine, an allegory - a vain and misconceived effort because the very fact of giving an allegorical sense to a presentation clearly shows that we have to do with a fable which by itself has no truth either fantastic or direct; it was made for the demonstration of some moral truth."
(from Playwrights on Playwrighting, ed. by Toby Cole, 1961)

Pirandello was born in Girgenti (now Agrigento) on the island of Sicily. His father owned a prosperous sulphur mine, which was later destroyed by a flood. From his teens Pirandello showed literary talents but he first planned to study law. In 1887 he entered the University of Rome and then transferred to the University of Bonn, Germany, receiving his doctoral degree in Roman philology in 1891. Pirandello's dissertation, written in Germany, dealt with the dialect of his native region. After returning to Rome, aided financially by his family, Pirandello started his career as a writer. He published the novel L'ESCLUSA and a collection of short stories, AMORI SENZ' AMORE. In 1898 he became a professor of Italian literature at a teacher's college for women, and worked there for 24 years.

In 1894 Pirandello married Antonietta Portulano, a fellow Sicilian, who unfortunately suffered a mental breakdown in 1904. As her condition steadily worsened, the illness deeply influenced Pirandello's writing and became a turning point in his career. During World War I both of Pirandello's sons became prisoners of war and his wife's illness got worse. In 1919 Prandello was forced to place her in a mental institution.

In 1903 the Pirandello family business collapsed and he had to turn his writing into a financially profitable activity. In 1904 Pirandello gained his first literary success with the novel IL FU MATTIA PASCAL. After 1915, and for the next six years, he concentrated on the theatre and wrote sixteen plays. COSI É (SE VI PARE), 1917 (Right You Are - if You Think You Are) was about a woman whose identity remains hidden and who could be one of two very different people. In 1923 he requested membership in the Fascist party and obtained Mussolini's support in founding the National Art Theatre of Rome. However, the company closed in 1928 because of financial problems. In 1934 the Fascist authorities criticized Pirandello's libretto for Gian Francesco Malipiero's opera The Fable of the Changeling, and the following year he did not support the Ethiopian invasion by Italy.

Pirandello died in Rome on December 10, 1936. His central themes, the enigma of personality, and the ambiguity of truth and reality, have been compared to the explorations of Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg. Pirandello influenced such writers as Jean Anouilh, Jean-Paul Sartre, Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Jean Genet, Eugene O'Neill, and Edward Albee.

With the trilogy SEI PERSONAGGI IN CERCA D'AUTORE (1921, Six Characters in Search of An Author), in which the characters of the title are brought into existence by a writer, CIASCUNO A SUO MODO (1924) and QUESTA SERA SI RECITA A SOGGETO (1930), Pirandello revolutionized modern theatrical techniques, creating a far greater degree of immediacy and involvement than had existed previously. A second trilogy, LA NUOVA COLONIA (1928), LAZZARRO (1929), and I GIGANTI DELLA MONTAGNA (1937, The Mountain Giants) moved from the individual experience to society itself. The Mountain Giants was left unfinished. It portrays a magician who lives in an abandoned villa that he has transformed into the realm of fantasy. A theatrical company decides to perform at a celebration given by the 'Giants of the Mountain'. The barbaric audience tears two of the actors to pieces and kills one of the directors of the company.

Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921) - 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 reinterpret crucial moments of their lives. The Father says 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. The Son refuses to acknowledge his family and runs into the garden. He shoots himself and the actors say that the situation is only make-believe. The Father insists that the events are real. The director of the company sees that the day has been wasted.

For further reading: Characters and Authors in Luigi Pirandello by Ann Caesar (1998); Luigi Pirandello, 1867-1936, His Plays in Sicilian by Joseph F. Privitera (1998); Luigi Pirandello: The Theatre of Paradox, ed. by Julie Dashwood (1997); Ars dramatica: Studi sulla poetica di Luigi Pirandello by Rena A. Lamparska (1997); Understanding Luigi Pirandello by Fiora A. Bassanese, James N. Hardin (1997); Pirandello & Film by Nina Davinci Nichols, et al (1995); A Companion to Pirandello Studies, ed. by John Louis Digaetani (June 1991); Moments of Selfhood by James V. Biundo (1990); Luigi Pirandello by S. Bassnett-McGuire (1983); Luigi Pirandello: an Approach to his Theatre by O. Ragusa (1980); Dreams of Passion: The Theatre of Luigi Pirandello by R, Oliver (1979); Introduzione alla critica pirandelliana by A. Illano (1976); Pirandello: a Biography by G. Giudice (1975); Pirandello fascista by G.F. Vené (1971); Luigi Pirandello by G. Giudice (1963); L' arte di Luigi Pirandello by F. Puglisi (1958); Playwrights on Playwrighting, ed. by Toby Cole (1961); Luigi Pirandello by L. Ferrante (1958); Luigi Pirandello by L. Baccalo (1949); L' Uomo segreto by F.V. Nardelli (1944); L'opera di Luigi Pirandello by M. Lo Vecchio Musti (1939)

LAUTE UND LAUTENTWICKLUNG DER MUNDART VON GIRGENTI, (1891)