| The Nonexistent Knight | |
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First italian edition cover |
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| Author(s) | Italo Calvino |
| Original title | Il cavaliere inesistente |
| Language | Italian |
| Publication date | 1959 |
| Published in English |
1962 |
The Nonexistent Knight (Italian: Il cavaliere inesistente) is an allegorical fantasy novel by Italo Calvino, first published in Italian 1959 and in English translation in 1962. The novel tells the story of Agilulf, a medieval knight who perfectly exemplifies chivalry, piety, and faithfulness, but exists only as an empty suit of armor. It explores questions of identity, integration with society, and virtue.
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The Nonexistent Knight is set in the time of Charlemagne, and draws material from the literary cycle known as the Matter of France, referencing Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. The knight Agilulf is a righteous, perfectionist, faithful and pious knight with only one shortcoming: he doesn't exist. Inside his armor there is no man, just an echoing voice that reverberates through the metal. Nevertheless, he serves the army of a Christian king out of "goodwill and faith in the holy cause".
Agilulf does not exist as a person, but only as the fulfillment of the rules and protocols of knighthood. This theme is strongly connected to modern conditions: Agilulf has been described as "the symbol of the 'robotized' man, who performs bureaucratic acts with near-absolute unconsciousness."[1] The romance is also a bit of a satire, playing with the fact that Agilulf is both the ideal of man and nonexistent, along with many suggestions that Sister Theodora is actually making up most of the story. In the end, she must face that such a perfect knight could only live in one's imagination.
The idea of confusion of one's own identity with others and the outside world continued to be developed in Calvino's later works.[2]
The Nonexistent Knight was collected together with The Cloven Viscount and The Baron in the Trees in a single volume, Our Ancestors, for which Calvino was awarded the Salento Prize in 1960.[3] The book was adapted to film by the Italian director Pino Zac in 1970.[4]
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