Obituary Dario Fo

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Obituary Dario Fo | Italy's Jester; Dario Fo, playwright, actor artist and all-round provocateur, died on October 13th, aged 90. Economist, Oct 22, 2016.
http://www.economist.com/news/ob ... ctober-13th-aged-90


Note:
(a) "THE stone lions that guard the Romanesque cathedral at Modena, in northern Italy, were doubly dear to Dario Fo. As a lover of medieval architecture, he studied and revered the old beasts as art. But after roughly 2,000 years of roaring their noses were worn away, their teeth gappy and their expressions dimly surprised. These symbols of the combined might of church and state had been taken over by the people—usually small people, who rode on them laughing and kicked their curled manes with vicious little feet."
(i) Dario is Italian variant of Darius (given name)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darius_(given_name)
(ii)
(A) Po (river)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po_(river)
(whose first map shows the watershed of Po and City of Modena)
(B) "The longest river in Italy is the Po."  Encyclopaedia Britannica
(C) Po: "large river in northern Italy, from Latin Padus, a name of Celtic origin"
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/po-river
(D) Venice
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venice
(between the mouths of the Po and the Piave Rivers)
(iii) Modena Cathedral
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modena_Cathedral
(building of this cathedral by 1099)
(iv) There are at least two pairs of stone lions, each pair at one gates. In fact there are many lions throughout this cathedral.
(A) Duomo di Modena (Modena Cathedral). Modena City Guide, undated
www.laguidadimodena.it/en/guide/ ... age/duomo-of-modena
("lion" appears ten times in this article)

Italian-English dictionary:
* duomo (noun masculine; from Latin [noun feminine] domus [house, home])
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/duomo
(B) The two pairs of stone lions, of similar age and of nose mishap: one pair is made of pink marble (almost toothless) guarding the main gates Portia Regia (meaning in English: royal gates); the other (pair) is of white marble.
* Modena. UNESCO, undated
www.unesco.modena.it/en
(children inserting hands into mouth of a pink lion)
* Tricia Anne Mitchell, Delving into the Details at the Modena Cathedral, Italy. July 8, 2014
https://triciaannemitchell.com/2 ... na-cathedral-italy/
(pink and white lions)
* Carlo Bergonzoni, Modena, Cathedral: lion statue at the main entrance. Getty Images, undated (Creative #: 136846155).
http://www.gettyimages.com/detai ... ree-image/136846155
(a close-up, frontal view of the white lion).

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(b) "All Mr Fo's life in theatre and politics (the one infusing the other all the time) was dedicated to the idea of il popolo contro i potenti, the people against the powerful. He put himself squarely in the tradition of the giullari, the mocking, singing jesters of medieval Italy, who kept on the move because they were liable to be hanged if they stayed still. The work that made his name and notoriety, 'Mistero Buffo' ('Comedy-Mystery'), was a one-man show in which, his long limbs feline in a black jumper and grey trousers, he told, mimed, sang and shouted New Testament stories like an idiot. His Jesus got drunk at the marriage at Cana, climbed on a table and exhorted everyone to forget the afterlife for the here and now; his raising of Lazarus was recounted by a furious pickpocket victim in the crowd. The line to the medieval mystery plays was direct. When Mr Fo won the Nobel prize in 1997 he received it on behalf of all mummers, tumblers and clowns."
(i) Italian-English dictionary:
* popolo (noun masculine; from Latin [noun masculine] populus [people]): "people"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/popolo
* contro (preposition; from Latin [preposition] contrā [against]): "against"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/contro
* potente (noun masculine; from Latin potens, potente; plural potenti)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/potente
* giullare (noun masculine; plural giullari):
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/giullare
* mistero (noun masculine): "mystery"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mistero
* buffo (adjective masculine; never a noun): "funny, comical, amusing"
(ii) Italian grammar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_grammar
(section 1 Articles: The standard definite article for masculine singular Italian nouns is il --i  for the plural)
(iii) Cana
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cana
(iv) English dictionary:
* feline (adj): "2 resembling a cat: as a :  sleekly graceful"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feline
* tumbler (n): "one who performs tumbling feats [Oxford: somersaults]: ACROBAT"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tumbler
(v) Press release: The Nobel Prize in Literature 1997 Dario Fo.
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_ ... tes/1997/press.html

So Bob Dylan is not the first aberration of Literature laureates.
(vi) mummers play
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummers_play

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(c) "His most famous play, 'The Accidental Death of an Anarchist' (1970), concerned the true, mysterious defenestration of an activist while in the hands of the police."
(i) The Accidental Death of an Anarchist
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_Death_of_an_Anarchist
(ii) defenestration (n; Did You Know?)
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/defenestration

Latin-English dictionary:
* fenestra (noun feminine): "window"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fenestra
(iii) Defenestrations of Prague
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defenestrations_of_Prague
(section 2 Second Defenestrations of Prague)

To comprehend this section, you will have to learn history of Bohemia around that time.
(A) The Ferdinand in this section is Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor (1619-1637; as well as King of Bohemia (1617–1619, 1620–1637 -- the gap was due to his being overthrown) ).
(B) Kingdom of Bohemia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Bohemia
(1198–1918; The modern Czech Republic is the legal successor of the Crown of Bohemia, as stated in the preamble to its Constitution [through Czechoslovakia (1918–1992)] )
(C) Estates?
* Carol Summerfield and Mary Elizabeth Devine (eds), International Dictionary of University Histories. 3rd ed. Routledge, 2013, at page 76
https://books.google.com/books?i ... tionary&f=false
("The Estates (Nobles) of Bohemia and and Moravia")
* estate (n; etymology): "a social or political class; specifically : one of the great classes (as the nobility, the clergy, and the commons) formerly vested with distinct political powers"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/estate
(D) history of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown (1526–1648)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi ... the_Bohemian_Crown_(1526–1648)
* The present-day (as opposed to historic) Bohemia (as well as Moravia) are shown in first sentences and map of Bohemia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemia
* The Ferdinand in this Wiki page is Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor (1503 – 1564; king of Bohemia and Hungary 1526-1564; Holy Roman Emperor 1558-1564). Of Habsburg, he became King of Bohemia and Hungary, after his brother-in-law Louis II (King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia) died in a battle against Ottomans.

The historical term "three estates " came from this definition.

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(d) "He wrote as people spoke, with plenty of swearing, obscenity, Lombardy dialect, tall tales from smugglers and fishermen and the invented language, 'grammelot,' he picked up from foreign workers in a glass factory near Lake Maggiore, where he [was born and] grew up as a [Italian state railway] stationmaster's son. His favourite local story [Fo heard it; he did not invent it] mocked docile villagers on the Rock of Caldé [a fable, not real] who, even as the village and its church bells were sinking underwater ('Dong…ding…dop…plock…'), insisted they weren't drowning."
(i) "Lombardy dialect"

"In 1940 [age 14], Fo moved to Milan to study at the Brera Academy." Wikipedia

He stayed there, died there. Milan is capital of the Lombardy region of Italy.
(ii)
(A) grammelot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammelot
(B) Erith Jaffe-Berg, Forays into Grammelot The Language of Nonsense. Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, 15 (2): 3-15 (2001).
https://journals.ku.edu/index.php/jdtc/article/viewFile/3364/3293
(in Fo's own words)
(iii) Lake Maggiore
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Maggiore

(e) "Early on he played regular theatres, but these were too cosily [sic; but there is no such word in English] bourgeois. He sought 'solidarity with the humble' in union halls, prisons, factories or park pavilions, places with bad acoustics but great for debate. La Comune, his theatre group, threw out the 'fourth wall,' letting the audience mill onstage with their own interventi about rotten mayors, magistrates, bosses and the criminal state. They had plenty. * * * He was banned for 14 years from RAI, the state broadcaster, for proposing in 1962 a play in which factory bosses refused to shut down production after a visitor had fallen into the meat-grinder, preferring to turn out instead another 150 tins of mince."
(i) The "comune" in Italian can be a noun masculine or a noun feminine -- only the latter is defined as "commune." ("La Comune" signifies a noun feminine.)

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/comune#Italian
http://en.bab.la/dictionary/italian-english/comune
(ii) Italian-English dictionary:
* intervento (noun masculine; plural interventi): "1. inerventuion; * * * 4. remark"
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/intervento
(iii) RAI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAI
(known [from 1944] until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane)

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(f) "when he ran for mayor of Milan in 2005, [he] seemed unsure which party he was in [he RAN in 2005 but the election was held in early 2006; unsuccessful; finishing second in the mayoral election]. * * * On a typically mad day in his flat pin Milan], with the phone ringing off the hook and people rushing in and out, farce-like, he (and she) could still perfect the moves for his latest piece over Franca's sublime risotto milanese."
(i) risotto
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risotto
(section 3 Italian regional variations: Risotto alla milanese)
(ii) alla
(A) Italian grammar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_grammar
(section 8 Prepositions: Preposition + article)
(B) alla (Contraction of a + la (feminine singular definite article) ): "at the, to the"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/alla