Prison Notebooks, Volume 1

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Columbia University Press, 2011 - History - 656 pages
This second volume of Antonio Gramsci's Letters from Prison covers the years 1931 to 1937. Beginning with a letter to Tania Schucht, his sister-in-law, that expresses troubled concern about his wife's family, and ending with a series of notes to his two sons, Delio and Giuliano, these letters chronicle Gramsci's rapidly declining health, his numerous efforts, assisted by Tania and Piero Sraffa, his friend and mentor, to obtain relief from the physical and administrative oppression of imprisonment at Turi, and his transfers from Turi to Civitavecchia, to Formia, and finally to Rome, where he died on April 27, 1937." "What gives the letters in Volume Two their distinctive character is the lucidity with which Gramsci confronts a variety of difficult problems of modern civilization. His exchange of letters with Tania on anti-Semitism are remarkable for their range of historical, political, and psychological considerations. His letters to his ailing wife, Giulia, on Freudianism and psychoanalysis, although brief and fragmentary, reveal fruitful perspectives on the relationship between the individual and society in periods of social and political turmoil. Gramsci's exchange of ideas with Piero Sraffa, mediated by Tania, on the philosophy of Benedetto Croce are indispensable supplements to his ideas on philosophical idealism expressed in the Prison Notebooks." "Also of great interest are the letters in which Gramsci confronts his feelings of estrangement from his wife and children. These emotions prompted him to probe his own psyche with exceptional candor. Gramsci's letters to Giulia are an especially poignant aspect of his attempt to transcend the real and metaphorical walls that prevented full communication with his loved ones. Another series of letters discusses his philosophy of education, as applied to his nieces and nephews in Sardinia, as well as his two
 

Contents

Introduction I
1
Chronology
65
Prison Notebooks
95
Notes
282
Copyright

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About the author (2011)

Born to a poor family in Sardinia, Gramsci had to go to work as a child but still managed to distinguish himself as a bright and promising student. In 1910, after winning a scholarship, he attended the University of Torino, where he was influenced by Benedetto Croce and Francesco De Sanctis. He eventually rejected Croce's idealism, as well as the academic life, for Marxism and politics. His primary interest was the empowerment of the working class. He rose within the Socialist party to the position of secretary of the socialist section of Torino and founded the influential newspaper L'Ordine Nuovo (the New Order). In 1921 he cofounded the Italian Communist party and fought against Fascist policy. Elected party secretary in 1924, two years later he was arrested and sent to prison, where he produced much of his writing. He remained incarcerated until his death. Gramsci's writings chronicle the development of his thought on politics, culture, and education.

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