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SERAO, MATILDA (1856– )
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See also:SERAO, See also:MATILDA (1856– ) , See also:Italian novelist, was See also:born at See also:Patras in See also:Greece. Her See also:father was an Italian, a See also:political emigrant, and her See also:mother a See also:Greek. She began by becoming a schoolmistress at See also:Naples, and afterwards she described those years of laborious poverty in the See also:preface to a See also:book of See also:short stories called Leggende Napolitane (1881). But See also:attention was first attracted to her name by her Novelle, published in a See also:paper of Rocco de Zerbi's, and later by her first novel, See also:Fantasia (1883), which definitely established her as a writer full of feeling and See also:analytical subtlety. She spent the years between 188o and 1886 in See also:Rome, where she published her next five volumes of short stories and novels, all dealing with See also:ordinary Italian, and especially See also:Roman, See also:life, and distinguished by See also:great accuracy of observation and See also:depth of insight: Cuore Inferno (1881), Fior di Passione (1883), La Conquista di See also:Roma (1885), La Virtis di Checchina (1884), and Piccole See also:Anime (1883). With her See also:husband, Epoardo Scarfoglio, she founded Il Corriere di Roma, the first Italian See also:attempt to See also:model a daily See also:journal on the lines of the Parisian See also:press. The paper was short-lived, and when it was given up Matilda Serao established herself in Naples, where she edited Il Corriere de Napoli, and in 1891 founded Il Mattino, which became the most important and most widely read daily paper of See also:southern See also:Italy. But the stress of a journalistic career in no way limited her See also:literary activity; between 1890 and 1902 she produced Paese di Cuccagna, Ventre di Napoli, Addio Amore, All' Erta Sentinella, Castigo, La Ballerina, Suor Giovanna della Croce, Paese di Gesu, novels in which the See also:character of the See also:people is rendered with See also:minute sensitive See also:power and sympathetic breadth of spirit. Most of these have been translated into See also:English. Matilda Serao's See also:place as a contemporary Italian novelist is one apart: she is a naturalist, but her See also:naturalism should be understood in a much wider sense than that which is generally given to it. She is a naturalist because her books reflect life with the utmost simplicity of means, sometimes with an utter neglect of means, and at the same See also:time she is an idealist through her high sense of the beauty and See also:nobility which humanity can attain, and to which her writings continually aspire. All her See also:work is truly and profoundly Italian; it is the literature of a great See also:mass of individuals, rather than of one peculiarly accentuated individual; the joy and See also:pain of a whole class rather than the perplexities of a unique See also:case or type pulsates through her pages. Matilda Serao's defects are always defects of See also:style; her want of sufficient choice of detail often clogs the See also:movement of her narrative and See also:mars the See also:artistic effect of her always animated pages. Like Fogazzaro's, her speech is too often the popular speech of her particular See also:province, in description as well as in See also:dialogue. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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