Italian Stories
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Pasta in Japan as good as Italy? You bet.
You can now find pasta pretty much anywhere you go. Part of the fun is discovering how people around the world have re-invented it. (In some places, the results, it has to be said, are better than others). Japanese pasta culture is at the sublime end. Japan has, of course, great cuisine of it own. However its megacities are a foodie dream, which include western and other options as good as you would find in their countries of origin. Pasta is no exception. Even an airport cafe in Japan will do a very respectable pasta al dente with an authentic fresh tomato sauce. In Kyoto, baguettes at the many boulangeries…
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An Ode to the Stone Pine
It is that which is between the palaces, that gives Italy its true beauty. If you took away every change that human hands have wrought on Italy’s landscape, it would a still be paradise. One tree, the Stone Pine, gives a distinct beauty the Italian landscape, yet we rarely hear it mentioned. Did human hands shape it to tower above and spread like a protective canopy? Or was it the ancient gods of Italy’s streams and mountains, who created it in its gracious form? Although I have seen it many times (and it impresses itself on any traveller arriving in Italy) only recently did I seek out its story. You…
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Matteo Bandello’s Forgotten Tale of the Tragic Lovers Romeo and Juliet
Sometimes, you just can’t believe what you turn up in history. If I told you a rather odd (and almost forgotten) bishop was the one who started the story of Romeo and Juliet ‘going global’, you would raise your eyebrows. But that’s what happened. His name was Matteo Bandello, and he wrote Romeo and Juliet before Shakespeare. In fact, he wrote hundreds of stories. And translated into French, English and Spanish, his stories made their way around Europe in his own lifetime. In England and Spain, his stories were adapted for the stage. Shakespeare loved Matteo Bandello’s stories so much, that he made four of them into plays. How did…
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It’s funny, but Shakespeare is teaching me Italian stories
It’s curious to find the heart of Italy in the soul of England, but so it is. For Shakespeare put it there. For years now, I’ve been hunting down Italian stories, and the last thing I expected was that Shakespeare would give me the breakthrough I was looking for. The most desperate loves, the vilest deceptions, the most delightful cross-dressing dalliances and the bitterest revenge. Shakespeare found them in Italian novellas and adapted them to the London stage. I have to admit, although the journey has been fun, it’s not so easy to plunge into the ocean of Italian literature, not knowing where it might take you or in which…
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Dante under the Southern Cross: Australian Reflections on the 700th Anniversary of the Passing of Dante Alighieri
Does Dante Alighieri, an Italian poet who died more than 700 years ago, really have anything to do with gum trees and koala bears? It’s that kind of question that drew together Australian Dante Alighieri Societies to talk about Dante, in a series of presentations around Australia which stretched from Perth to Brisbane. Despite the fact that Dante never knew of Australia’s existence, he did think about us in a way. He wondered what the stars might look like under southern skies, and he put four stars he imagined above our heads. Did he know about the Southern Cross? Some think, maybe he somehow he found out about it. Maybe…
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Dante Alighieri in a Wide Brown Land*
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Shakespeare in Love: A Case of Cultural Appropriation?
Shakespeare didn’t write Romeo and Juliet. No! Wait, what? Shakespeare didn’t write Romeo and Juliet!?? That’s right. If the fact Shakespeare set the play in fair Verona didn’t give it away, Shakespeare didn’t create the story of Romeo and Juliet. So no, Shakespeare’s first draft of Romeo and Juliet didn’t read “Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter” as Shakespeare in Love portrays it. And, plot spoiler, no true-life English love of Shakespeare’s inspired the character Juliet. Nor was the war of the two houses of Verona “both alike in dignity” inspired by two playhouses duking it out for writers and audiences in London. Don’t get me wrong. I loved the…
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The Dragon the Witch and the Daughters by Luigi Capuana (English Edition)
From a master of Italian verismo comes a classic short story of the genre, but with a twist. As characters come into conflict with each other, and “the Dragon” with himself, Capuana weaves together the grimness of real life with threads of subtle fairytale. For the first time translated into English by Michael Curtotti, The Dragon the Witch and the Daughters, transports us into the life of a nineteenth century village. Don Paolo Drago, “dragon by name, dragon by nature,” appears to dominate this world, yet he barely controls his own thoughts and feelings. Despite himself, he is drawn into the destiny of two orphans. Yet tragedy stalks the life of Don Paolo.…
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When Malaria in Italy was a National Disease
At the end of the 19th century, up to 20,000 Italians died every year from malaria and millions were infected. Even the word is Italian: “la mal’aria” – the bad air – a phrase to describe the mysterious and then unknown causes of the disease, which was attributed to the “bad air” of swampy ground. Malaria arrived in Italy in ages past, and was there when the ancient Greeks began to build their cities on Italy’s shores. The story of the effects of malaria is recorded in the collapse of the once flourishing city of Posaedonia (today Paestum). Founded about 600BC, its ancient Greek temples still draw tourists from around…
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Caruso: Dalla’s Song of Love, Pain and Death
The song Caruso has genius in its verses, and it is one of the most popular songs Italy has given the world. The verses of Caruso came to singer songwriter Lucio Dalla in a burst of inspiration. “Ti voglio bene assai”: I love you very much. Such words (in any language) are among the most meaningful human beings share with each other.They are words which, with “Tanto tanto bene sai” – So much, so much, you know, resonate in the chorus of the song. Yet these words are not where the song begins. Rather we are on a Terrazza, overlooking the “Golfo di Sorriento“. It is one of Italy’s most…
