Elémire Zolla

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Elémire Zolla
Turin, Italy
DiedMay 29, 2002(2002-05-29) (aged 75)
Montepulciano, Italy
NationalityItalian

Elémire Zolla (9 July 1926 – 29 May 2002) was an Italian

esoteric doctrines and a scholar of Eastern and Western mysticism
.

Biography

Zolla was born in

cosmopolitan family. His father was the painter Venanzio Zolla (1880–1961), born in England of Lombard father and an Alsatian mother. His mother was Blanche Smith (1885–1951) a British musician, originally of Kent. Zolla spent his childhood between Paris, London, and Turin, speaking English, French, and Italian, while studying German and Spanish
.

At age 22, he became ill with

conformism
.

In 1958, after ten years of engagement, he married the poet Maria Luisa Spaziani, but the marriage cracked almost immediately. From 1959, he was tied to the writer Cristina Campo (born Victoria Guerrini), with whom he lived until her death in 1977. In 1980, he married Grazia Marchianò, an orientalist and student of aesthetics.

In 1960, through the intervention of Mario Praz, he obtained a post in Language and Anglo-American Literature at the University of Rome. His lectures were attended by, among others, the young Roberto Calasso. From 1967, he taught as a Professor at University of Catania, then to Genoa (where he also taught Germanic Philology) and, from 1974, back to Rome.

From 1966 to 1968, he was secretary general of the Istituto Accademico di Roma and, from 1970 to 1973, was director of Istituto Ticinese di Alti Studi in Lugano.

In 1968, after a trip to the

Shaman]. In later years he devoted himself to travel in India, Indonesia, China, Korea, and especially in Iran
, which gave ample information in the book Aure.

In January 1969, he founded the magazine Conoscenza Religiosa [Religious Knowledge] (published by

Hossein Nasr, Leo Schaya, Eugenio Montale, Giuseppe Dale, and Rosario Assunto. There were also published essays by Marcel Griaule
.

In 1970, he wrote a controversial introduction to the first edition of

Pavel Alexandrovich Florensky
.

As a preface author and critic, Zolla wrote about

Kafka, James Joyce, Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville (and oversaw a translation part of the poem Clarel), Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margery Kempe, F. Scott Fitzgerald
, and other twentieth-century American writers.

In 1987, he won an International Prize from the city of Ascoli Piceno. Organized by the Medieval Studies Cecco d'Ascoli, a literary prize is awarded to a person in the field of medieval studies for international distinction in the creation of intellectual works that contribute to historical and value of historical research.

In 1991, he left university education, moved to Montepulciano (Siena), where he died 29 May 2002.

Works

Eighty percent of Zolla's writings are in Italian; it is estimated that approximately ten percent are in English. The remaining works are in Spanish, French, and German.[1]

References

  • This article began as a translation of its Italian equivalent.
  1. ^ "Elémire Zolla - Works". Archived from the original on 2012-05-09. Retrieved 2013-02-02.
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