The Cloven Viscount

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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.

Contents 1 Plot summary 2 Characters 3 Notes 4 References

[edit] 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.” ^[1] 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.

[edit] 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

[edit] Notes

[edit] 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.