Luciano Anceschi
Luciano Anceschi was an influential Italian philosopher and literary critic, born in Milan in 1911. He excelled academically, focusing on languages and classic literature, and later studied under the prominent philosopher Antonio Banfi at the University of Milan, where he graduated with a degree in philosophy in 1934. Anceschi's early work included reviews of contemporary poets and critical analyses of writers from various countries. His first book, published in 1936, explored the dynamic nature of poetry and emphasized the importance of context in literary criticism.
Post-World War II, Anceschi became a notable figure in literary debates and served as a professor at the University of Bologna, where he established a chair in aesthetics. He founded the literary journal Il Verri in 1956 to promote his critical philosophy, which underscored the significance of an author's intentions in interpreting their work. Anceschi’s contributions include developing models for understanding poetry's interaction over time and publishing several influential works, including "Da Bacone a Kant" in 1972, which argued for the English origins of aesthetic theory. He also played a pivotal role in establishing the Italian Association for Aesthetic Studies. Anceschi retired in 1985 and passed away in 1995, leaving behind a legacy as a "militant critic" and a major figure in the realms of literary criticism and aesthetics.
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Luciano Anceschi
Writer
- Born: February 20, 1911
- Birthplace: Milan, Italy
- Died: May 2, 1995
- Place of death: Bologna, Italy
Biography
Luciano Anceschi was born in the cosmopolitan city of Milan, Italy, in 1911. A precocious young man, Anceschi readily learned difficult subjects. In school, he concentrated on studying languages and classic literature. When he entered the University of Milan, he studied under the tutelage of well-known philosopher Antonio Banfi, who taught Anceschi that poetry is dynamic and contains a reflective, operative component that opens it up to interpretation and keeps it from being confined to only the set of underlying principles established by the writer. In 1934, Anceschi received a degree in philosophy from the University of Milan. Using his collegiate training, Anceschi wrote numerous reviews about younger poets and their works. He also wrote critical reviews about writers from France, Spain, and the United States. For a period of time, he worked on Greek translations with poet Salvatore Quasimodo, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1958.
In 1936, Anceschi published his first book, Autonomia ed eteronomia dell’arte, which emphasized the “unpure” elements of poetry and art, principles that had been taught to him by Banfi. Anceschi pointed out that interpretations and criticisms of poetry must take into account the ideas, values, and aesthetic systems that constrain a given author, because they shape the artist’s final product. He espoused the concept that literary criticism is dynamic, with no absolute, unchanging models or methods. The majority of his subsequent publications involved further development and variations of the key concepts contained in his first book.
After World War II, Anceschi became actively involved in debates concerning the classification and purpose of literature and criticism. His career progressed as a literary professor at the University of Bologna, where he was appointed as the chair of aesthetics in 1952. In 1956, Anceschi founded the literary journal Il Verri, in which he promoted his critical philosophy that the writer’s reasons are pivotal for proper evaluation of individual works and necessary for understanding the aesthetic process involved in the work. Based on his research of the history of literature, Anceschi developed working models for how different types of poetry interact. He published his results in Le istituzioni della poesia (1968). Anceschi was married; his son, Giovanni, became a successful visual graphic artist during the 1970’s.
Because of his staunch, strict philosophy about literary criticism, Anceschi became known as the “militant critic.” His critical method was reformulated in the 1970’s and became known as the new critical phenomenology. In 1972, Anceschi published Da Bacone a Kant, in which he concluded that the discipline of aesthetics originated in England instead of in Germany or Italy, as most experts had supposed.
The flexibility of Anceschi’s critical method is clearly manifested in Da Ungaretti a D’Annunzio (1976). Although best known as a philosopher-critic concerned with the proper evaluation of poetry, Anceschi also published books and articles about interpretation, aesthetics, the history of aesthetic and poetic concepts, and the development of relationships between literature and philosophy. In 1984, Anceschi helped found the Italian Association for Aesthetic Studies, and he served as its first president. Anceschi retired from the University of Bologna in 1985. He died in 1995.