G. Leopardi, L'Infinito

G. Leopardi,  by A. Ferrazzi, c. 1820

Giacomo Leopardi

1798-1837



Italian poet, essayist, philosopher 
& philologist




             L’Infinito
 

« Sempre caro mi fu quest'ermo colle,
e questa siepe, che da tanta parte
dell'ultimo orizzonte il guardo esclude.
Ma sedendo e mirando, interminati
spazi di là da quella, e sovrumani
silenzi, e profondissima quiete
io nel pensier mi fingo; ove per poco
il cor non si spaura. E come il vento
odo stormir tra queste piante, io quello
infinito silenzio a questa voce
vo comparando: e mi sovvien l'eterno,
e le morte stagioni, e la presente
e viva, e il suon di lei. Così tra questa
immensità s'annega il pensier mio:
e il naufragar m'è dolce in questo mare. »            

           
                          
                                               L’Infinito

This solitary hill has always been dear to me
And this hedge, which prevents me from seeing most of
The endless horizon.
But when I sit and gaze, I imagine, in my thoughts
Endless spaces beyond the hedge,
An all encompassing silence and a deeply profound quiet,
To the point that my heart is almost overwhelmed.
And when I hear the wind rustling through the trees
I compare its voice to the infinite silence.
And eternity occurs to me, and all the ages past,
And the present time, and its sound.
Amidst this immensity my thought drowns:
And to flounder in this sea is sweet to me.                               
                                            Count Giacomo Leopardi

                                             

L’infinito is a poem written by Giacomo Leopardi during his youth at Recanati, a country village in the Italian region called Marche.  It was written between 1818 and 1821, very likely in the central months of 1819. This work belongs to a series of six poems published in 1826 with the title Idilli. Other famous poems in this series are ‘Alla Luna’ and ‘La sera del dì di festa’. Notwistanding the use of a Greek term that usually indicated poetic works characterised by the description of rural life, Leopardi’s goal is not the description of nature here: in these poems, even if starting from nature, the author’s main purpose is the expression of his state of mind and of his deepest feelings.

A. Manzoni, Il Cinque Maggio

       

      Alessandro Manzoni  

      1785 - 1873

       Italian poet and novelist

      (Romantic literary movement)                                

IL CINQUE MAGGIO 
 

(The napoleonic ode)

When the mortal gasp was given,                    
Lay the unremindful spoil
Whence so great a soul was riven;                  
So the Earth, smitten and dazed
At the announcement, stands amazed               Ei fu. Siccome immobile,

dato il mortal sospiro,
stette la spoglia immemore
orba di tanto spiro,
così percossa, attonita 

Silent, pondering on that last                            la terra al nunzio sta,               
Fateful hour; nor, gazing back                         
In fearful wonder o'er the past,
Kens she when with such a track
By mortal foot shall yet be pressed
The dust upon her bloody breast.                     Muta pensando all’ultima

                                               ora dell'uom fatale;

né sa quando una simile
orma di pie' mortale
la sua cruenta polvere

My Genius saw him on a throne                       a calpestar verrà.

In flashing splendor, nothing said;
The blandishments of fortune flown,
He fell, he rose, again was laid;
While thousand voices then awoke,
Mingled with these, no word he spoke;            Lui folgorante in solio

vide il mio genio e tacque;
quando, con vece assidua,
cadde, risorse e giacque,
di mille voci al sònito

Virgin of end-serving praise                             mista la sua non ha:
And the coward's safe outrage,
Shocked by the blot of such a blaze,
He rises now his chance to gage,
Shaking the urn, e'en to untie
A canticle which will not die.                            vergin di servo encomio

e di codardo oltraggio,
sorge or commosso al sùbito
sparir di tanto raggio;
e scioglie all'urna un cantico

From Pyramids to heights alpine                      che forse non morrà.

Flashed that god's swift lightning-stroke;
From Manzares to the Rhine
Rapid, crashing thunders broke,
Rolling on from Scylla's sea
Shaking farthest Muscovy.                               Dall'Alpi alle Piramidi,

dal Manzanarre al Reno,
di quel securo il fulmine
tenea dietro al baleno;
scoppiò da Scilla al Tanai,

Was this, glory just and true?                           dall'uno all'altro mar.
Sentence waits posterity.
Bow we to the Highest's view,
Willing us in him to see
Stamped a trace more vast and grand
Of His own resistless hand.                              Fu vera gloria? Ai posteri

l'ardua sentenza: nui
chiniam la fronte al Massimo
Fattor, che volle in lui
del creator suo spirito

With hurricanes of anxious joy,                        più vasta orma stampar.

Earthquake exploits of wild renown,
A heart in unsubdued annoy
In slavery gloats upon the crown;
And gains the goal and grasps a prize
'T was madness there to set his eyes.               La procellosa e trepida

gioia d'un gran disegno,
l'ansia d'un cor che indocile
serve, pensando al regno;
e il giunge, e tiene un premio

All he tasted; glory growing                             ch'era follia sperar;

Greater after great embroil;
Flight; and victory bestowing
Palace; and the sad exile;
Twice in the dust a victim razed,
Twice on the altar victim blazed.                      tutto ei provò: la gloria

maggior dopo il periglio,
la fuga e la vittoria,
la reggia e il tristo esiglio;
due volte nella polvere,

He made a name, two centuries, set                 due volte sull'altar.

Armed against each other and
To him turned as for their fate,
Waited a signal of his hand.
He sat between them, hushed them still,
Made arbiter his iron will;                                Ei si nomò: due secoli,

l'un contro l'altro armato,
sommessi a lui si volsero,
come aspettando il fato;
ei fe' silenzio, ed arbitro

And disappeared; his empty days                    s'assise in mezzo a lor.

Mured within that narrow bound,
Mark for envy's fiercest rays,
Pity's sympathy profound,
Inextinguishable hate,
And love unsubdued by fate.                           E sparve, e i dì nell'ozio

chiuse in sì breve sponda,
segno d'immensa invidia
e di pietà profonda,
d'inestinguibil odio

As on the shipwrecked sailor's head                e d'indomato amor.

The wave is wrapped and weighs him down,
The wave upon whose lofty spread
His strained sight was lately thrown,
Scanning to discern once more
The distant and evading shore;                         Come sul capo al naufrago

l'onda s'avvolve e pesa,
l'onda su cui del misero,
alta pur dianzi e tesa,
scorrea la vista a scernere

Such on that soul the massy weight                   prode remote invan;

Of memories descended, when --
How many times! -- he would narrate
What he has been to coming men;
And on the eternal page remained
Fallen the palsied, nerveless hand!                   tal su quell'alma il cumulo

delle memorie scese.
Oh quante volte ai posteri
narrar se stesso imprese,
e sull'eterne pagine

How oft while day without emprise                  cadde la stanca man!

Sank into sepulchral rest,
Bent to earth his flashing eyes,
Arms enlaced upon his breast,
He stood; from days of other years
Received the assaults of souvenirs;                 Oh quante volte, al tacito

morir d'un giorno inerte,
chinati i rai fulminei,
le braccia al sen conserte,
stette, e dei dì che furono

Reviewed the moving tents of war                    l'assalse il sovvenir!

And vanquished ramparts of the foe
And flashing columns gleam afar
And wavy squadrons charging go
And swift commands impetuous made
And swift obedience displayed.                       E ripensò le mobili

tende, e i percossi valli,
e il lampo de' manipoli,
e l'onda dei cavalli,
e il concitato imperio

Ah, now, methinks, in such a strait                   e il celere ubbidir.

The spirit fell, breathless and riven
By keen despair; but strong and great
Came a pitying hand from heaven
And into more inspiring air
The desperate transported there;                     Ahi! forse a tanto strazio

cadde lo spirto anelo,
e disperò; ma valida
venne una man dal cielo,
e in più spirabil aere

Led through the flowery paths of Hope             pietosa il trasportò;

To the eternal plains -- the meed
Where guerdons bright, supernal ope,
That loftiest wishes far exceed.
Past glory's trump and brightest glare
Are silence and deep darkness there.               e l'avvïò, pei floridi

sentier della speranza,
ai campi eterni, al premio
che i desideri avanza,
dov'è silenzio e tenebre

O thou, fair Immortal! beneficent Faith             la gloria che passò.

Accustomed to triumphs, conqueror of death!
This, also, among thy triumphings write;
Since no prouder greatness, no loftier height
Of earth-born glory that mortals can know
Has come to the shame of Golgotha to bow.    Bella Immortal! Benefica

Fede ai trïonfi avvezza!
Scrivi ancor questo, allegrati;
ché più superba altezza
al disonor del Gòlgota

From these weary ashes, thou                          giammai non si chinò.

Words condemning ban;
God, who fells and lashes now
Lifts and soothes again,
On that lonely dying bed
Soft His heavenly presence shed.                     Tu dalle stanche ceneri

sperdi ogni ria parola:
il Dio che atterra e suscita,
che affanna e che consola,
sulla deserta coltrice
accanto a lui posò.

The napoleonic ode ‘Il Cinque Maggio’ was written in only three or four days by Alessandro Manzoni who had been deeply moved by Napoleon’s christian conversion on his death-bed  (the news of Napoleon’s death was given on 16th July 1821 and was published in the ‘Gazzetta di Milano’ paper).

Despite the Austrian censorship, this napoleonic ode had a high European circulation  thanks to Goethe who had it published on the German magazine "Ueber Kunst und Alterthum".

The first edition, published by Marinetti, appeared in Turin in 1823.

Ugo Foscolo, Alla Sera, Nightfall



Ugo Foscolo                                                    
(born Niccolò Foscolo)


(1778 – 1827)


Italian writer, revolutionary and poet
(Neoclassicism, Pre-Romanticism literary movements)


                                                           
                        Alla Sera

Forse perché della fatal quïete
Tu sei l'imago a me sì cara vieni
O sera! E quando ti corteggian liete
Le nubi estive e i zeffiri sereni,

E quando dal nevoso aere inquïete
Tenebre e lunghe all'universo meni
Sempre scendi invocata, e le secrete
Vie del mio cor soavemente tieni.

Vagar mi fai co' miei pensier su l'orme
che vanno al nulla eterno; e intanto fugge
questo reo tempo, e van con lui le torme

Delle cure onde meco egli si strugge;
e mentre io guardo la tua pace, dorme
Quello spirto guerrier ch'entro mi rugge.

          Nightfall

Perhaps because you are the image

of the silence of the grave, I cherish when you come to me

o evening! Whether summer clouds

and warm winds hold you in soft embrace,

or you send restless and long shadows

from frost-filled air to the universe,

you always fall, desired by me, and the secret

pathways of my heart you gently hold.

You make me wander with my thoughts on paths

that lead to the eternal void, and all the while,

this evil time fleets by, and with it masses

of care depart, and it dissipates along with me

and while I contemplate your peace,

the warrior spirit that roars within me sleeps.

Alla sera is one of the 12 sonnets of the definitive edition of Foscolo's 'Poems'.
The sonnet conveys the strong feeling concerning the difficult human and political moment that the author was going through.

Paraphrase

Perhaps because you are the image of death, I am thankful when you come to me; when serene winds accompany you, or when you bring long and stormy nights upon the earth, and enter the secret pathways of my soul, quieting it softly, you push me to think of the eternal void, and meanwhile this guilty age passes away, and my worries pass away, and I dissipate also, and the warrior spirit which roars within me sleeps.

M. Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman




Mary Wollstonecraft
1759 - 1797
eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher
and advocate of women's rights 
(by John Opie, c. 1797)    
                                                                                                                             

                                                                                                                                         



A Vindication

of the Rights of Woman

1792

'It would be an endless task to trace the variety of meannesses,

cares, and sorrows, into which women are plunged by the prevailing opinion,

that they were created rather to feel than reason, and that all the power they obtain,

must be obtained

by their charms and weakness'

                                                                                    Mary Wollstonecraft



CONTENTS

CHAPTER  I         The rights and involved duties of mankind considered

CHAPTER  II        The prevailing opinion of a sexual character discussed

CHAPTER  III       The same subject continued

CHAPTER  IV       Observations on the state of degradation to which woman

                                   is reduced by various causes

CHAPTER  V        Animadversions on some of the writers who have rendered

                                   women objects of pity, bordering on contempt

CHAPTER  VI       The effect which an early association of ideas has upon the

                                   character

CHAPTER  VII      Modesty.—Comprehensively considered, and not as a sexual

                                   virtue

CHAPTER  VIII     Morality undermined by sexual notions of the importance of a

                                   good reputation

CHAPTER  IX       Of the pernicious effects which arise from the unnatural

                                   distinctions established in society

CHAPTER  X        Parental affection

CHAPTER  XI       Duty to parents

CHAPTER  XII      On national education

CHAPTER  XIII     Some instances of the folly which the ignorance of women

                                    generates; with concluding reflections on the moral

                                    improvement that a revolution in female

                                    manners may naturally be expected to produce

C.M.Skinner, life

Charles Montgomery Skinner

1852 – 1907

American writer

Charles Montgomery Skinner, journalist and writer, was born in New York in 1852.  

During his lifetime, C.M. Skinner published some collections of myths, legends and folklore found inside the United States and across the world. Then, in 1896 he authored the complete nine volume set of Myths and Legends of Our Own Land. 

Skinner hoped that America’s progress would transform the nation’s few legends into great ones. He hoped to combine folklore conventions with New England transcendentalism to keep alive traditions endangered by the industrial age.

Skinner’s writings were wide ranging. He was a playwright, too, authoring the play Villon, the Vagabond.

C. M. Skinner’s other interests included the seasons, especially as they changed inside of industrializing cities. In order to improve the urban environment, he authored a guide to gardening and urban beautification.

He also commented on turn-of-the-century America’s turbulent economy in Workers and the Trusts and American Communes.

His other contributions to American literature included works of natural history such as With Feet to the Earth and Do-Nothing Days.

His career in journalism included editorship of the paper ‘Brooklyn Eagle’.

The Brooklyn Eagle, also called The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, was a daily newspaper  published in Brooklyn, New York, New York for 114 years, from 1841 to 1955. Walt Whitman was its editor for two years (from 1846 to 1848). The original paper ceased publication in 1955 due to a prolonged strike, before being briefly revived between 1960 and 1963.

Nowadays there is also a successor daily newspaper by the same name. As a matter of fact, in 1996 the name was revived once again for a new daily newspaper, which as of 2010 was still in operation.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, life

     Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
  
      1859-1930


       English physician and writer
       the man who created Sherlock Holmes

Arthur Conan Doyle, physician and writer, was born on 22 May 1859 in Edinburgh, and was the creator of two of the most famous and best loved characters in literature: Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson.

His father, Charles, was a Victorian artist born in England of Irish origin. Unfortunately he was not as successful a painter as he wished and, probably because of this, he suffered depression and alcoholism. His paintings, which were generally of fairies or similar fantasy scenes, reflected his condition and became more macabre with time. When Arthur was still a young man, his father  had to go and stay in a nursing home specialized in alcoholism. While there, his depression grew worse, and he began suffering epileptic fits. Because of this he was then sent to live in a mental hospital where he, however, continued to paint. He died in 1893, when Arthur was 34.

Arthur’s mother, born Mary Foley, was Irish, too. She married Charles in Edinburgh in 1855, where they were both living at that time.

Mary was a very strong woman who came from a distinguished military family. She filled Arthur with ideas of honour and chivalry. Her influence was very important and can be seen in Arthur’s  writings and actions.

In 1876 Arthur Conan Doyle began his medical studies at Edinburgh University. Because he had very little money, he worked as a clerk for a doctor called Joseph Bell. This doctor had an amazing quality: he could guess the jobs and lifestyle of his patients by simply observing them carefully. Joseph Bell was Conan Doyle’s principal model for Sherlock Holmes.

When he finished his medical studies, Arthur started working as a doctor in the south of England (1882). Initially the practice was not very successful as he had very few patients. So, while waiting for them, he began writing stories. One of the books he wrote at that time was a novel called A Study in Scarlet. This was the first Sherlock Holmes story and appeared in the magazine ‘Beeton’s Christmas Annual’ in 1887.

Future short stories featuring Sherlock Holmes were then published in the English Strand Magazine. As a matter of fact, one day Conan Doyle decided to send a short story about Holmes to that popular monthly magazine just to make some money. And, as a result, Sherlock Holmes soon became a big success. The Strand immediately asked Conan Doyle for more stories about Sherlock Holmes.

It is interesting to point out that, from the very beginning, Conan Doyle had a strange relationship with his famous creation: he did not think his stories about Holmes were very serious and artistic enough. He wanted to write serious historical novels. So, from the first stories, Conan Doyle planned the death of Sherlock Holmes. When he told his mother about his plans to eliminate his character forever she wrote to him: “You won’t! You can’t! You mustn’t!”. But in 1893 Conan Doyle wrote a story called “The Final Problem”, in which Holmes dies.

The reaction of the readers was immediate. The Strand lost 20,000 readers, and people wrote thousands of letters to Conan Doyle asking him to bring Holmes back to life. Many people even insulted him. One woman wrote these eloquent words to him: “You Brute”.

Finally, in 1901 Conan Doyle wrote a serialised Sherlock Holmes novel called “The Hounds of the Baskerville”; the Strand’s circulation increased by thirty thousand copies. From then on Holmes appeared in the Strand until 1927, just three years before Conan Doyle’s death.

But Conan Doyle’s life was not just Sherlock Holmes. He was very active in public affairs. He spoke in favour of a Channel Tunnel, steel helmets for soldiers and inflatable life jackets for sailors. He also used his own analytic skills to solve crimes and to defend people who were unjustly accused of crimes.

He was knighted in 1902 for his writing on the Boer War in Africa (some said for his novel “The Hound of the Baskerville”).

Following the death of his first wife in 1906, the death of his son Kingsley just before the end of World War I, and soon after that the deaths of a good number of other close relatives, Conan Doyle sank into depression and became very interested in spiritualism.

He also believed in the existence of fairies, and he said that the series of five photographs of a little girl with fairies taken in 1917 by two young cousins who lived in Cottingley (near Bradford, in England) were real. (The series is called ‘The Cottingley Fairies’).  He even wrote a book in 1922 entitled ‘The coming of the Fairies’.

Of course, Conan Doyle, the creator of the most logical man in the world, Sherlock Holmes, was greatly ridiculed for these beliefs, but he did not seem to care about it.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died of a heart attack, at age 71, on 7 July 1930 in Sussex.

Charles Montgomery Skinner, Isabel and the pot of basil

From:

'Myths and Legends of Flowers,
Trees, Fruits, and Plants'
(c. 1911, by J.B. Lippincott Company)

by

C. M. Skinner

In his lifetime C. M. Skinner published some collections of myths, legends and folklore found inside the United States and across the world.

Here below there is a summary of  the story of Isabel and her pot of basil, which you can find in Skinner's collection: "Legends of Flowers'Myths and, Trees, Fruits, and Plants" (1911).  This story  is very old, it has been told even by Boccaccio in his "Decameron" (IV, 5).  But other writers and poets  have dealt with it more recently, too. John Keats wrote a narrative poem adapted from Boccaccio's story entitled "Isabel, or the pot of basil", and O. Wilde mentioned Isabel and her pot of basil in the last line of his ode 'The Grave of Keats' (dedicated to Keats, the youngest of the English Romantic poets).  The story became popular with Pre-Raffaelite painters, too, such as W. H. Hunt and Millais, who illustrated several episodes from it.

'Isabella', by John Everett Millais,  1849

*******

Isabella was a maid of Messina who, left to her own resources by her rich brothers (always too absorbed in their business) found happiness in the company of Lorenzo, a manager working in their enterprises. The brothers soon were aware of the couple’s  meetings, but, wishing to avoid a scandal, they pretended not to know about them.  One day however, they invited Lorenzo to a festival outside of the city, and there they slew him. Then, they told their sister that Lorenzo had left for a long journey. But after days, weeks, even months, had passed, Isabel could no longer restrain her uneasiness, and asked when he would return. "What do you mean?" demanded one of the brothers. "What have you in common with such as Lorenzo?" His tone was rather threatening. Being very sad and disappointed, Isabella retired to her chamber full of fears and doubts and spent all the day there. But there, in her solitude, she called on her lover and made piteous moans asking him to return. And he did so; for when she had fallen asleep, Lorenzo's ghost appeared, pale and  with spots of blood on him. And he addressed her: "Isabella, I can never return to you, for on the day we saw each other last your brothers slew me." After telling where she might find his body, the ghost melted into air, and she awoke at once. Unable to shake off the impression of her dream, she fled to the scene of the tragedy, and there, in a space of ground recently disturbed, she came upon Lorenzo, lying as in sleep. At first she intended to move the corpse to holy ground, but on second thought – as this could show her discovery - she removed Lorenzo’s head with a knife, and, borrowing "a great and goodly pot," laid it therein, folded in a fair linen cloth, and covered it with earth. Then she decided to plant some basil of Salerno in it. Day after day, it was her great comfort to watch the growing plant sprung from her lover's flesh, and water it with essences and orange water, but oftener with tears. And so with love and care, the plant grew strong and filled the room with sweetness. Her persistent home-staying and the pallor of weeping led the brothers to wonder, and, thinking to cure her of a mental malady, they took away the plant of basil. As a result Isabel started to cry unceasingly for its return, and the men, still puzzled about that strange situation, spilt the flower from its tub to find if she had hidden anything beneath its root. And in truth she had, as there they found the poor head which, by its fair and curling hair, they recognized to be Lorenzo's. Realizing that the murder had been discovered, they buried the relic anew, and immediately fled to Naples. Isabella died of heart-emptiness, still  lamenting her pot of basil. 

Isabel and the pot of basil, William Holman Hunt, 1868

O. Wilde, The Grave of Keats

  

    Oscar Wilde

    (1854-1900)                            

     English writer & poet

The Grave of Keats

(from Poems, 1881)

Rid of the world's injustice, and his pain,
He rests at last beneath God's veil of blue:
Taken from life when life and love were new
The youngest of the martyrs here is lain,
Fair as Sebastian, and as early slain.
No cypress shades his grave, no funeral yew,
But gentle violets weeping with the dew
Weave on his bones an ever-blossoming chain.
O proudest heart that broke for misery!
O sweetest lips since those of Mitylene!
O poet-painter of our English Land!
Thy name was writ in water--it shall stand:
And tears like mine will keep thy memory green,
As Isabella did her Basil-tree.

                                              Rome.

John Keats died in Rome at 11 pm on 23rd February 1821. He was buried in the Non-Catholic Cemetery in that town. At that time this cemetery was an open field and it contained only about thirty graves. One of the oldest in Europe, the Non-Catholic Cemetery is still active and is a popular tourist destination. It is placed just inside the Aurelian walls and it is overlooked by a pyramid, the ancient Roman monument dedicated to Caius Cestius. Nowadays, while most of its monuments commemorate citizens of Protestant countries, people of Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Jewish, Islamic, Catholics and other faiths are also buried here. 
Shortly before his death, Keats asked Severn to go to see this cemetery because he wished to have a description of it. And so his friend Severn went there and after Keats's death he wrote: "He expressed pleasure at my description... about the grass and the many flowers, particularly the innumerable violets... Violets were his favourite flowers, and he  joyed to hear how they overspread the graves. He assured me that he already seemed to feel the flowers growing on him".
Oscar Wilde visited the Non-Catholic Cemetery in April 1877 and prostated himself on the grass in front of John Keats's grave, declaring it to be 'the holiest place in Rome'. Soon after his visit, he wrote the beautiful sonnet "The Grave of Keats' to commemorate the occasion.