A History of Italian Literature by Ernest Hatch Wilkins
Published 1954 · 584 pages · 130,000 words · about 11 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism, History
How hard is A History of Italian Literature to read?
A History of Italian Literature scores 56 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 55 out of 100
- Elegant traditional scholarly prose; accessible and precise.
- Sentence structure: 52 out of 100
- Abstraction: 60 out of 100
- Historical and literary analysis without heavy theoretical apparatus.
- Information density: 72 out of 100
- Covers a long tradition efficiently with strong critical judgment.
- Narrative indirection: 100 out of 100
- Straightforward chronological survey argument.
- Symbolic density: 80 out of 100
- Analytical register.
- Ironic distance: 80 out of 100
- Measured, earnest scholarly tone.
- Resolution withholding: 80 out of 100
- Each section reaches clear literary-historical conclusions.
- Structural complexity: 35 out of 100
- Chronological survey with clear chapter divisions by period.
How A History of Italian Literature is regarded
A History of Italian Literature holds a literary regard score of 74 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.