The Cloven Viscount

The Cloven Viscount

"The Cloven Viscount" (Italian: "Il visconte dimezzato") is a fantasy novel written by Italo Calvino. It was first published by Einaudi (Turin) in 1952 and in English in 1962 by William Collins Sons & Company (New York), with a translation by Archibald Colquhoun.

Plot summary

The Viscount Medardo of Terralba, and his squire Kurt, ride across the plague-ravaged plain of Bohemia en route to join the Christian army in the Turkish wars of the seventeenth century. On the first day of fighting, a Turkish scimitar unhorses the inexperienced Viscount. Fearless, he scrambles over the battlefield with sword bared, and is sundered in two by a cannonball hitting him square in the chest. But field doctors - aided by Medardo's "strong Terralba constitution" - manage a stitching miracle and the following day, the Viscount is “alive and cloven.” [Calvino, Italo, 'The Cloven Viscount' in "Our Ancestors" (London: Vintage, 1998), p. 10.] With one eye and a dilated single nostril, he returns to Terralba, twisting the half mouth of his half face into a scissors-like half smile.

Characters

* Medardo, the Viscount of Terralba
* The narrator, Medardo’s young nephew
* Dr. Trelawney, the English court physician
* Pamela, the shepherdess
* Sebastiana, faithful nurse to the Viscount
* Pietrochiodo, the court carpenter
* Ezekiel, leader of a Huguenot colony
* Esau, Ezekiel’s son
* Ariolfo, the former Viscount of Terralba, Medardo’s father
* Kurt, Medardo’s squire

Notes

References

* Bloom, Harold (ed.). "Bloom's Major Short Story Writers: Italo Calvino." Broomall, Pennsylvania: Chelsea House Publishers, 2002.
* Calvino, Italo. "Our Ancestors": "The Cloven Viscount", "The Baron in the Trees", "The Nonexistent Knight". Trans. Archibald Colquhoun. London: Vintage, 1998.
* Carter III, Albert Howard. "Italo Calvino: Metamorphoses of Fantasy." Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1987.


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