Abstract:
In 1985, Italo Calvino set out to write six lectures for the upcoming
Charles Eliot Norton lectures at Harvard University. As an allegorical fiction writer,
literary analyst, and essayist, Calvino intended to discuss his faith in the future of
literature in the coming millennium and advocate that there are things that only
literature can give us, by means specific to it. Thus, he devoted his lectures to certain
values, qualities, or peculiarities of literature that are close to his heart and situate them
within the perspective of the new millennium. Unfortunately, he died from the effects
of a stroke in September 1985, before he was able to complete his sixth and final
lecture. Now, fifteen years after the tum of the millennium, I will imaginatively engage
with a representative collection of Italo Calvino' s work including, unfinished lectures,
literary essays, allegorical fiction, published letters in order to derive a proposal for the
content of his missing sixth memo "Consistency." My purpose is to provide a deductive
inquiry-not a speculative piece-supported by Calvino's own words and a logically
based methodology. Towards this end, my own preparation necessitates a mathematical
and classical education to which I have added my own personal interest in the
convergence of philosophy and science. In pursuit of this convergence between
philosophical and scientific discourses I am applying to graduate programs that share a
similar affinity for interdisciplinary studies.
Description:
91 pages. A thesis presented to the Department of Philosophy and the Clark Honors College of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for degree of Bachelor of Arts, Winter 2015.