This book investigates Basile's contribution to the establishment of fairytales as a literary genre; the focus is on his masterpiece Lo cunto de li Cunti. The volume examines Basile's work's debt to tradition and its influence on posterity, while also studying the author's unique use of metaphors in the rich Neapolitan dialect. As this study reveals, metaphors in Lo cunto de li cunti are not used simply as a mean of embellishment; rather they are employed as a way to inform the reader of the rich folkloric tradition of Naples during the baroque times, as well as of Basile's discontent with...