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ANNUNZIO, GABRIELE
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See also:ANNUNZIO, GABRIELE D' (1863 ), See also:Italian novelist and poet, of Dalmatian extraction, was See also:born at See also:Pescara (Abruzzi) in 1863. The first years of his youth were spent in the freedom of the open See also:fields; at sixteen he was sent to school in See also:Tuscany. While still at school he published a small See also:volume of verses called Primo See also:Vere (1879), in which, See also:side by side with some almost brutal imitations of Lorenzo Stecchetti, the then fashionable poet of Postuma, were some See also:translations from the Latin, distinguished by such agile See also:grace that Giuseppe Chiarini on See also:reading them brought the unknown youth before the public in an enthusi! astic See also:article. The See also:young poet then went to See also:Rome, where he was received as one of their own by the Cronaca Bizantina See also:group (see CARDLTCC1). Here he published See also:Canto Nuovo (1882), Terra Vergine .(1882), L' Intermezzo di Rime (1883), Il Libro delle Vergini (1884), and the greater See also:part of the See also:short stories that were afterwards collected under the See also:general See also:title of See also:San Pantaleone (1886). In Canto Nuova we have admirable poems full of pulsating youth and the ptoutise of See also:power, some descriptive of the See also:sea and some of the Abruzzi landscape, commented on and completed in See also:prose by Terra Vergine, the latter a collection of short stories dealing in radiant See also:language with the See also:peasant See also:life of the author's native See also:province. With the Intermezzo di Rime we have the beginning of d'Annunzio's second and characteristic manner. His conception of See also:style was new, and he See also:chose to See also:express all the most subtle vibrations of voluptuous life. Both style and contents began to startle his critics; some who had greeted him as an enfant prodige—Chiarini amongst others—rejected him as a perverter of public morals, whilst others hailed him as one bringing a current of fresh See also:air and the impulse of a new vitality into the somewhat See also:prim, lifeless See also:work hitherto produced. Meanwhile the See also:Review of Angelo Sommaruga perished in the midst of See also:scandal, and his group of young authors found itself dispersed. Some entered the teaching career and were lost to literature, others threw themselves into journalism. Gabriele d'Annunzio took this latter course, and joined the See also:staff of the Tribuna. For this See also:paper, under the See also:pseudonym of " Duca Minimo," he did some of his most brilliant work, and the articles he wrote during that See also:period of originality and exuberance would well repay being collected. To this period of greater maturity and deeper culture belongs II Libro d' Isotta (1886), a love poem, in which for the first See also:time he See also:drew See also:inspiration adapted to See also:modern sentiments and passions from the See also:rich See also:colours of the See also:Renaissance. Il Libro d' Isotta is interesting also, because in it we find most of the germs of his future work, just as in Intermezzo melico and in certain See also:ballads and sonnets we find descriptions and emotions which later went to See also:form the aesthetic contents of Il Piacere, Il Trionfo della Morte, and Elegie Romane (1892). D' Annunzio's first novel Il Piacere (1889)—translated into See also:English as The See also:Child of Pleasure—was followed in 1891 by L' Innocente (The Intruder), and in 1892 by Giovanni Episcopo. These three novels created a profound See also:imp.ession. L' Innocente, admirably translated into See also:French by Georges Herelle, brought its author the See also:notice and See also:applause of See also:foreign critics. His next work, II Trionfo della Morte (The See also:Triumph of See also:Death) (1894), was followed at a short distance by Le Vergini Bella Roccio (1896) and Il Fuoco (1900), which in its descriptions of See also:Venice is perhaps the most ardent glorification of a See also:city existing in any language. D' Annunzio's poetic work of this period, in most respects his finest, is represented by Il Poema Paradisiaco (1893), the Odi Navali (1893), a superb See also:attempt at civic See also:poetry, and Lazuli (1900). A later phase of d' Annunzio's work is his dramatic See also:production, represented by Il Sogno di un mattino di Primavera (1897), a lyrical See also:fantasia in one See also:act; his Citta Morta (1898), written for Sarah See also:Bernhardt, which is certainly among the most daring and See also:original of modern tragedies, and the only one which by its unity, persistent purpose, and sense of See also:fate seems to continue in a measure the traditions of the See also:Greek See also:theatre. In 1598 he wrote his Sogno di un Pomeriggio d' Autunno and La Gioconda; in the succeeding See also:year La Gloria, an attempt at contemporary See also:political tragedy which met with no success, probably through the audacity of the See also:personal and political allusions in some of its scenes; and then Francesca da See also:Rimini (1901), a perfect reconstruction of See also:medieval See also:atmosphere and emotion, magnificent in style, and declared by one of the most authoritative Italian critics—Edoardo Boutet-to be the first real although not perfect tragedy which has ever been given to the Italian theatre. The work of d' Annunzio, although by many of the younger See also:generation injudiciously and extravagantly admired, is almost the most important See also:literary work given to See also:Italy since the days when the See also:great See also:classics welded her varying dialects into a fixed language. The psychological inspiration of his novels has come to him from many sources—French, See also:Russian, Scandinavian, German—and in much of his earlier work there is little fundamental originality. His creative power is intense and searching, but narrow and personal; his heroes and heroines are tittle more than one same type monotonously facing a differentproblem at a different phase of life. But the faultlessness of his style and the See also:wealth of his language have been approached by none of his contemporaries, whom his See also:genius has somewhat paralysed. In his later work, when he begins See also:drawing his inspiration from the traditions of bygone Italy in her glorious centuries, a current of real life seems to run through the See also:veins of his personages. And the lasting merit of d' Annunzio, his real value to the literature of his See also:country, consists precisely in that he opened up the closed mine of its former life as a source of inspiration for the See also:present and of See also:hope for the future, and created a language, neither pompous nor vulgar, See also:drawn from every source and See also:district suited to the requirements of modern thought, yet absolutely classical, borrowed from none, and, independently of the thought it may be used to express, a thing of See also:intrinsic beauty. As his sight became clearer and his purpose strengthened, as exaggerations, affectations, and moods dropped away from his conceptions, his work became more and more typical Latin work, upheld by the ideal of an Italian Renaissance. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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