Nonexistent Knight by Italo Calvino 1959

¶ … Nonexistent Knight is a character driven narrative and, therefore, should be summarized within the framework of those characters and their exploits throughout the novella. The titular character, the nonexistent knight, Agilulf, who exists not in the flesh but in a suit of armor, seeks to restore his honor by confirming that his good deed that earned him his knighthood, saving the virginity of a young royal woman from the lecherous ways of two brutes, did indeed happen per his recollection.

The youth, Raimbaut, is a young knight in the making who falls in love with a dastardly lady knight. The lady knight, Bradamante, falls in love with the chivalric and impeccably noble ways of the nonexistent knight and sets up a love triangle of sorts. Then there's Torrismund, another knight, who ends up falling in love with a woman that was at one point thought to be his mother.

Lastly, there's the nihilistic narrator, a nun, who is full of vim and verve and a dolt called Gurduloo who exists, but does not know he exists. In short, the Nonexistent Knight is a satiric rendering of a medieval tale that aims to explore, among other things, the existential underpinnings of life. Historical and Aesthetic Content To know something about Italo Calvino is to know something about magic realism and post-modernism.

While both tropes are manifested in the pages of the Nonexistent Knight, perhaps it would be better to understand the book as an extension of a special genre of parody novels, novellas, essays, that are at once both serious and silly. Serious in terms of the philosophical questions they investigate and silly in terms of plot and character.

To find books of this ilk, a reader should examine Voltaire's Candide, Heller's Catch-22, and essay's like Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal." While the Nonexistent Knight opts to avoid the black humor and cynicism of the aforementioned works, it embraces the same trenchant use of satire and allegory to explore the social, political, and philosophical issues that have puzzled man throughout the ages. Calvino's prose and aesthetic sensibility is not on par with the belletristic scribblings of Nabokov or Joyce, but then again it doesn't aim to be.

Instead it is a humorous tale told from the perspective of a nun, in a language brimming with aphorisms and philosophical complexities (Markey 76). Major Themes Motifs And Symbolism What is most compelling (at least to this reader) is the laugh-out-loud humor throughout the novella.

Some of the humor is low-bro, slapstick humor, cheap laughs and fart jokes, "He rubbed the aching part, jumped up, began whistling, broke into a run, flung himself into the bushes, let out a fart, another, then vanished," some of it is wrought from a deep understanding of human relationships, "nothing disfigures a woman's face like the first ray of dawn," and some of it relies on the adroit articulation of Calvino's prose, which holds a fair balance between the action of the scene and the high diction in which it is described, "She was a woman of harmonious moons, tender plumage, and gentle waves.

Raimbaut fell head over heels in love with her on the spot (Calvino 32, 103, 46). With that said, the humor that is most striking is the symbolic humor, or representational humor, fraught throughout its pages. And due to the many layers of the novel, different characters stand for different things at different times. A great example of this would be the nonexistent knight, who is a symbol of chivalric perfection. Thusly, several women in the novel adore him.

Yet, the obvious contradiction is, how can women fall in love with a man who doesn't exist? What does the nonexistent knight symbolize in this situation? The answer to those questions can be found in the following passage, "What she is in search of is a different way of existing, and together they have a competition in archery" (Calvino 64). Well, the answer can be found in the first part of this passage. What the nonexistent knight symbolizes is a woman's ideal man.

He is the paradigm of what a woman wants because, yes, he is noble and chivalrous, but also because he doesn't really exist. Women want what they can't have. And the nonexistent knight is precisely that, something that a woman can only imagine -- the perfect man -- who offers a different way of existing altogether.

Significant Passages with Analysis & Interpretation One passage worthy of analysis and interpretation is scene in which Torrismund is invited to stay among the citizens of Koowalden, "They can all become citizens of Koowalden, replied the inhabitants, and to each will be given according to his worth.

Am I consider myself an equal to this squire of mine, Gurduloo, who doesn't even know if he exists or not? He will learn to… We ourselves did not know we existed… One can also learn to be What is fascinating about this passage is not only the distinction Calvino draws between "existing" and "being," but the allusion to the Marxist slogan "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" (Marx 27).

Calvino was a known communist for some years, so a subtle line to extol virtues of egalitarianism should come as no surprise. Note Torrismund's shock and initial reluctance to equate himself with the doltish squire who exists, but does not know he exists. Calvino is suggesting that living in a society free of hierarchy (and monarchy) is integral to really living, or "being." To sum it up, he is saying, one merely exists under.