Italian Literature
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Giosuè Carducci and Miramar Castle
Mexico gifted Italy the tomato. Italy sent back an Emperor. It wasn’t a fair exchange. And it wasn’t welcomed. The story begins in Miramar Castle and Giosuè Carducci is our story teller and his poem Miramar can be read below. Carducci came to the castle when it was already a place where ghosts whisper of the past. However the journey that took him to the castle passes through one of the most turbulent eras of Italy’s history. Carducci was born in 1835 and lived to see the birth of the new country of Italy. However he was not just a passive spectator. He was a passionate advocate of the Risorgimento.…
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Dante Alighieri in a Wide Brown Land*
On the hill beyond Canberra’s lake we do not find ourselves in Dante’s dark wood. Instead, the hundred carefully nurtured forests of the National Arboretum surround us. Some of its trees are from Australia, but many are from far beyond. As we appreciate their beauty, we see that these forests can symbolise Italians in Australia,[1] for we are part of the diverse heritage of this continent. Yet as our eyes turn to the ridge near the Himalayan Pines, we see a rusted monument rise from the land before us.[2] It is timeless, as it proclaims Dorothea Mackellar’s words “Wide Brown Land”. She wrote them about Australia in 1907; a young…
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Matilde Serao and the Life of Cristina
Matilde Serao was unusual. In 19th century Naples, she was a successful journalist, writer and newspaper proprietor. Her fiction was widely published and quite a few of her works were translated into English in her own lifetime. Cristina is the main character of Matilde Serao’s short story of the same name. But Cristina lives in another world. The story’s opening words begin to sketch its nature. While Cristina leant over to gather a fragrant clump of basil with which to flavour her tomato sauce boiling in the kitchen, she heard a brief and sweet whistle. Mentre Cristina si chinava a cogliere un ramoscello di basilico odoroso, da mettere come aroma…
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Alessandro Manzoni and the Betrothed (I Promessi Sposi)
Alessandro Manzoni is a talented story teller and a perceptive observer of character. His novel, the Betrothed (I Promessi Sposi) has been celebrated as a gem of Italian literature ever since its publication. It is readily available as a physical, ebook or audiobook (see below) and several movie and serial versions have been made. The novel’s main characters, Renzo and Lucia are in love and they are to be married. Yet achieving this happy and unexceptional outcome turns out to be far from easy in Lombardy of the 1600s in which the historical novel is set. Manzoni wrote his book in the early 1800s, two hundred years later, so we see a more…
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Italy’s Rapunzel, Cinderella and other Italian Fairy Tales
The first European collection of Fairy Tales, the Tale of Tales was written in Naples in 1630. It tells such well-known stories as Rapunzel (Petrosinella – or Little Parsley) and Cinderella (La Gatta Cenerentola). Giambattista Basile wrote the Tale of Tales (also known as the Pentamerone) in Neapolitan rather than standard Italian. It was the first book of children’s fairy stories published in Europe and arguably gave birth to the written genre that we know today, although the spoken tradition is much older. Basile’s book is a who’s who of fairy tale characters we know today. As well as Rapunzel and Cinderella (La Gatta Cenerentola) the story of Snow White,…
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Isabella’s Castle Prison and Her Poetic Escape
Isabella di Morra looked out from a height. Below, in a deep chasm, flowed a river. Her river, the Sinni. Isabella turned her eyes to the sea, searching the horizon for a ship. It was the ship that would carry her free from her prison, her own family’s castle. D'un alto monte, onde si scorge il mare,miro sovente io, tua figlia Isabella,s'alcun legno spalmato in quello appare,che di te, padre, e mi doni novella, ...From a high mountain, where sea is seen,Often I gaze, Isabella, your daughter,For the gleam of any glistening beam,Which of you, father, brings news across water ...Ch’io non veggo nel mar remo né vela (così deserto…
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Lingering in Limbo: Dante’s Inferno
Limbo, it turns out, isn’t so bad, even if is found in the first level of Dante Alighieri’s hell. As Dante’s allegory of the journey of the soul continues, it will take him to a beautiful castle inhabited by the good and the great. Far from suffering the tortures of hell, although they can never leave, they are surrounded by meadows and hang out in erudite splendour. But before Dante gets there he has more adventures. Beatrice sends Virgil to the Rescue The ghost of Virgil, a long dead Roman poet, has shown up just in time to take on the job as Dante’s guide. But what’s in it for…
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The Divine Comedy begins: Lost and on the Road to Hell
The Dante Alighieri of the Divine Comedy is lost. He needs help and is afraid. He doubts himself and often weeps at the human suffering or folly he will see on his journey. Will he be able to reach the end? He doesn’t know. It’s this kind of frail humanity of Dante’s poetry that still speaks to us across hundreds of years. Dante writes in the first person, and that’s part of his magic. We see the world through his eyes, as if we ourselves were sharing the journey. Indeed Dante says we are. Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita, the poem begins: In the middle of the journey…
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Laura Terracina: For Who is Enemy to Woman
“How dare you raise hand, against so young and beautiful a vision?” With such words does Laura Terracina (1519 – 1577) defend her sex. Born in Naples, she was the most published poet of Italy’s sixteenth century and a feminist before the word “femminista” existed. She was part of a movement of italian Renaissance women writers whose existence is often overlooked in the historical record. So much were women absent from tellings of the Renaissance and so mixed their lived experience, that it caused Joan Kelly to famously ask “Did women have a Renaissance?” While the answer is complex, the Renaissance saw for the first time in Europe, substantial publication…
