The Oxford Companion to English Literature | Croce, Benedetto
Croce, Benedetto
(
1866
–
1952
), Italian philosopher, historian, and critic. His aesthetics and criticism, published in his journal La critica from
1903
to
1944
, were profoundly influential in Italy before the Second World War. His most influential work is Estetics come scienza dell'espressione e linguistica generale (Aesthetics as the Science of Expression and General Linguistics,
1902
). Central to all phases of his thought is the concept of art as a ‘lyrical intuition’. His best criticism is in Poesia popolare e poesia d'arte (Popular Poetry and Literary Poetry,
1933
), an original interpretation of Italian literary history from the 14th to the 16th cents; in his essay on Ariosto, Shakespeare, Corneille (
1920
); and in La poesia (Poetics,
1936
). His historical works include detailed analysis, as in Storia d'Europa nel secolo XIX...
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