SOURCE: Mignone, Mario B. “De Filippo's Inspiration and Creative Process.” In Eduardo De Filippo, pp. 20-36. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1984.

In the following excerpt, Mignone examines the role of the city of Naples in shaping de Filippo's art.

Naples: De Filippo's Major Inspiration

Eric Bentley has put well the need for examining De Filippo's art in the context of his city: “It is sometimes debated how far we need to know an author's background in order to judge his work. I should think we need to know it whenever we would otherwise be in danger of taking something as his personal contribution when it is a representative product of his time and place. Thus some of Eduardo's attitudes … may seem forced when we take them as an assertion of his will, whereas as an expression of a social tradition we might let them pass”¹. To the mind of a...