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ALFIERI, VITTORIO, COUNT (1749-1803)
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See also:ALFIERI, See also:VITTORIO, See also:COUNT (1749-1803) , See also:Italian dramatist, was See also:born on the 17th of See also:January 1749 at See also:Asti in See also:Piedmont. He lost his See also:father in See also:early See also:infancy; but he continued to reside with his See also:mother, who married a second See also:time, till his tenth See also:year, when he was placed at the See also:academy of See also:Turin. After he had passed a twelvemonth at the academy, he went on a See also:short visit to a relation who dwelt at Coni; and during his stay there he made his first poetical See also:attempt in a See also:sonnet chiefly borrowed from lines in See also:Ariosto and See also:Metastasio, the only poets he had at that time read. When thirteen years of See also:age he was induced to begin the study of See also:civil and canonical See also:law; but the attempt only served to disgust him with every See also:species of application and to increase his relish for the perusal of See also:French romances. By the See also:death of his See also:uncle, who had hitherto taken some See also:charge of his See also:education and conduct, he was See also:left, at the age of fourteen, to enjoy without See also:control his vast paternal See also:inheritance, augmented by the See also:recent See also:accession of his uncle's See also:fortune. He now began to attend the See also:riding-school, where he acquired that rage for horses and equestrian exercise which continued to be pne of his strongest passions till the See also:close of his existence.
After some time spent in alternate fits of extravagant dissipation and See also:ill-directed study, he was seized with a See also:desire of travel-See also:ling; and having obtained permission from the See also: While under this depression of See also:spirits he was induced to seek alleviation from See also:works of literature; and the perusal of See also:Plutarch's Lives, which he read with profound emotion, inspired him with an enthusiastic See also:passion for freedom and See also:independence. Under the See also:influence of this rage for See also:liberty he recommenced his travels; and his only gratification, in the See also:absence of freedom among the See also:continental states, appears to have been derived from contemplating the See also:wild and sterile regions of the See also:north of See also:Sweden, where gloomy forests, lakes and precipices conspired to excite those See also:sublime and See also:melancholy ideas which were congenial to his disposition. Every-where his soul See also:felt as if confined by the bonds of society; he panted for something more See also:free in See also:government, more elevated in sentiment, more devoted in love and more perfect in friendship. In See also:search of this ideal See also:world he posted through various countries more with the rapidity of a See also:courier than of one who travels for amusement or instruction. During a See also:journey to See also:London . he engaged in an intrigue with a married lady of high See also:rank; and having been detected, the publicity of a rencounter with the injured husband, and of a See also:divorce which followed, rendered it expedient and desirable for him to quit See also:England. He then visited See also:Spain and See also:Portugal, where he became acquainted with the See also:Abbe Caluso, who remained through See also:life the most attached and estimable friend he ever possessed. In 1772 Alfieri returned to Turin. This time he became enamoured of the Marchesa Turinetti di See also:Prie, whom he loved with his usual ardour, and who seems to have been as undeserving of a sincere attachment as those he had hitherto adored. In the course of a See also:long attendance on his See also:mistress, during a malady with which she was afflicted, he one See also:day wrote a See also:dialogue or See also:scene of a See also:drama, which he left at her See also:house. On a difference taking See also:place between them the piece was returned to him, and being retouched and extended to five acts, it wasTperformed at Turin in 1775, under the See also:title' of See also:Cleopatra. From this moment Alfieri was seized with an insatiable thirst for theatrical fame, and the See also:remainder of his life was devoted to its attainment. His first two tragedies, Filippo and Polinice, were originally written in French See also:prose; and when he came to versify them in Italian, he found that, from his Lombard origin and long intercourse with foreigners, he expressed himself with feebleness and inaccuracy. Accordingly, with the view of improving his Italian See also:style, he went to See also:Tuscany and, during an alternate See also:residence at See also:Florence and See also:Siena, he completed his Filippo and Polinice, and conceived the See also:plan of various other dramas. While thus employed he became acquainted with the countess of See also:Albany, who then resided with her husband at Florence. For her he formed an attachment which, if less violent than his former loves, appears to have been more permanent. With this See also:motive to remain at Florence, he could not endure the chains by which his vast possessions See also:bound him to Piedmont. He therefore resigned his whole See also:property to his See also:sister, the countess Cumiana, reserving an See also:annuity which scarcely amounted to a See also:half of his See also:original revenues. At this See also:period the countess of Albany, urged by the ill-treatment she received from her husband, sought See also:refuge in See also:Rome, where she at length received permission from the See also:pope to live apart from her tormentor. Alfieri followed the countess to that See also:capital, *here he completed fourteen tragedies, four of which were now for the first time printed at Sienna. At length, however, it was thought proper that, by leaving Rome, he should remove the aspersions which had been thrown on the See also:object of his affections. During the year 1783 he therefore travelled through different states of Italy, and published six additional tragedies. The interests of his love and See also:literary See also:glory had not diminished his rage for horses, which seems to have been at least the third passion of his soul. He came to England solely for the purpose of purchasing a number of these animals, which he carried with him to Italy. On his return he learned that the countess of Albany had gone to See also:Colmar in See also:Alsace, where he joined her, and resided with her under the same roof during the See also:rest of his life. They chiefly passed their time between Alsace and Paris, but at length took up their See also:abode entirely in that See also:metropolis. While here, Alfieri made arrangements with See also:Didot for an edition of his tragedies, but was soon after forced to quit Paris by the storms of the Revolution. He recrossed the See also:Alps with the countess, and finally settled at Florence. The last ten years of his life, which he spent in that See also:city, seem to have been the happiest of his existence. During that long period his tranquillity was only interrupted by the entrance of the Revolutionary armies into Florence in 1799. Though an enemy of See also:kings, the aristocratic feeling of Alfieri rendered him also a decided foe to the principles and leaders of the French Revolution; and he rejected with the utmost See also:con-tempt those advances which were made with a view to bring him over to their cause. The concluding years of his life were laudably employed in the study of the See also:Greek literature and in perfecting a See also:series of comedies. His assiduous labour on this subject, which he pursued with his characteristic impetuosity, exhausted his strength, and brought on a malady for which he would not adopt the prescriptions of his physicians, but obstinately persisted in employing remedies of his own. His disorder rapidly increased, and he died on the 8th of See also:October 1803. The See also:character of Alfieri may be best appreciated from the portrait which he has See also:drawn of himself in his own See also:Memoirs of his Life. He was evidently of an irritable, impetuous and almost ungovernable See also:temper. See also:Pride, which seems to have been a ruling sentiment, may See also:account for many apparent . nconsistencies of his character. But his less amiable qualities were greatly softened by the cultivation of literature. His application to study gradually tranquillized his temper and softened his See also:manners, leaving him at the same time in perfect See also:possession of those See also:good qualities which he had inherited from nature—a warm and disinterested attachment to his See also:family and See also:friends, See also:united to a generosity, vigour and See also:elevation of character, which rendered him not unworthy to embody in his dramas the actions and sentiments of Grecian heroes. It is to his dramas that Alfieri is chiefly indebted for the high reputation he has attained. Before his time the Italian See also:language, so harmonious in the Sonnets of See also:Petrarch and so energetic in the Commedia of See also:Dante, had been invariably languid and prosaic in dramatic dialogue. The pedantic and inanimate tragedies of the 16th See also:century were followed, during the See also:iron age of Italian literature, by dramas of which extravagance in the sentiments and improbability in the See also:action were the See also:chief characteristics. The prodigious success of the See also:Merope of See also:Maffei, which appeared in the commencement of the 18th century, may be attributed more to a comparison with such productions than to See also:intrinsic merit. In this degradation of tragic See also:taste the See also:appearance of the tragedies of Alfieri was perhaps the most important literary event that had occurred in Italy during the 18th century. On these tragedies it is difficult to pronounce a See also:judgment, as the taste and See also:system of the author underwent considerable See also:change and modification during the intervals which elapsed between the three periods of their publication. An excessive harshness of style, an asperity of sentiment and See also:total want of poetical See also:ornament are the characteristics of his first four tragedies, Filippo, Polinice, See also:Antigone and See also:Virginia. These faults were in some measure corrected in the six tragedies which he gave to the world some years after, and in those which he published along with See also:Saul, the drama which enjoyed the greatest success of all his productions—a popularity which may be partly attributed to the severe and unadorned manner of Alfieri being well adapted to the patriarchal simplicity of the age in which the scene of the tragedy is placed. But though there be a considerable difference in hisdramas, there are certain observations applicable to them all. None of the plots are of his own invention. They are founded either on mythological See also:fable or See also:history; most of them had been previously treated by the Greek dramatists or by See also:Seneca. Rosmunda, the only one which could be supposed of his own contrivance, and which is certainly the least happy effusion of his See also:genius, is partly founded on the eighteenth novel of the third See also:part of See also:Bandello and partly on See also:Prevost's Memoires d'un homme de qualite. But whatever subject he chooses, his dramas are always formed on the Grecian See also:model and breathe a freedom and independence worthy of an Athenian poet. Indeed, his Agide and Bruto may rather be considered oratorical declamations and dialogues on liberty than tragedies. The unities of time and place are not so scrupulously observed in his as in the See also:ancient dramas; but he has rigidly adhered to a unity of action and See also:interest. He occupies his scene with one See also:great action and one ruling passion, and removes from it every See also:accessory event or feeling. In this excessive zeal for the observance of unity he seems to have forgotten that its See also:charm consists in producing a See also:common relation between multiplied feelings, and not in the See also:bare See also:exhibition of one, divested of those various accompaniments which give See also:harmony to the whole. Consistently with that austere and See also:simple manner which he considered the chief excellence of dramatic -See also:composition, he excluded from his scene all coups de thedtre, all philosophical reflexions, and that highly ornamented versification which had been so assiduously cultivated by his predecessors. In his anxiety, however, to avoid all superfluous ornament, he has stripped his dramas of the embellishments of See also:imagination; and for the harmony and flow of poetical language he has substituted, even in his best perfor.mances, a style which, though correct and pure, is generally harsh, elaborate and abrupt; often strained into unnatural See also:energy or condensed into factitious conciseness. The chief excellence of Alfieri consists in powerful delineation of dramatic character. In his Filippo he has represented, almost with the masterly touches of See also:Tacitus, the sombre character, the dark mysterious counsels, the suspensa See also:semper et obscura verba, of the See also:modern Tiberius. In Polinice, the characters of the See also:rival See also:brothers are beautifully contrasted; in Maria Stuarda, that unfortunate See also:queen is represented unsuspicious, impatient of See also:contradiction and violent in her attachments. In Mirra, the character of Ciniro is perfect as a father and king, and Cecri is a model of a wife and mother. In the See also:representation of that species of See also:mental See also:alienation where the judgment has perished but traces of character still remain, he is peculiarly happy. The See also:insanity of Saul is skilfully managed; and the horrid joy of See also:Orestes in killing See also:Aegisthus rises finely and naturally to madness in finding that, at the same time, he had inadvertently slain his mother.
Whatever may be the merits or defects of Alfieri, he may be considered as the founder of a new school in the Italian drama. His country hailed him as her See also:sole tragic poet; and his successors in the same path of literature have regarded his bold, austere and rapid manner as the genuine model of tragic composition.
Besides his tragedies, Alfieri published during his life many sonnets, five odes on See also:American independence and the poem of See also:Etruria, founded on the assassination of See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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