You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
None
Alessandro Manzoni (Milan, March 7, 1785 — Milan, May 22, 1873) was an Italian writer and poet, one of the most important figures in the literature of his country. Manzoni composed his masterpiece, "I Promessi Sposi" (" The Betrothed"), between 1821 and 1840. The work "The Betrothed" tells the story of two young peasants who intend to marry but are "hindered" by a local lord, Don Rodrigo, who has a network of agents at his disposal. "The Betrothed" is a historical novel that cannot be met with indifference.
Italy’s greatest novel and a masterpiece of world literature, The Betrothed chronicles the unforgettable romance of Renzo and Lucia, who endure tyranny, war, famine, and plague to be together. Published in 1827 but set two centuries earlier, against the tumultuous backdrop of seventeenth-century Lombardy during the Thirty Years’ War, The Betrothed is the story of two peasant lovers who want nothing more than to marry. Their region of northern Italy is under Spanish occupation, and when the vicious Spaniard Don Rodrigo blocks their union in an attempt to take Lucia for himself, the couple must struggle to persevere against his plots—which include false charges against Renzo and the kidn...
Alessandro Manzoni's "The Betrothed" (Italian: "I Promessi Sposi") is a seminal work in Italian literature, intricately woven with themes of love, faith, and social justice against the backdrop of 17th-century Lombardy. Employing a rich narrative style that blends realism with romantic elements, Manzoni delves into the lives of two lovers, Renzo and Lucia, whose betrothal is thwarted by a tyrannical nobleman. The historical context is meticulously painted, illustrating the social upheavals and the moral dilemmas faced by characters that reflect broader human struggles. Manzoni's use of vernacular Italian revolutionized the language, and his profound moral and philosophical introspections res...
«I would have gone down on my knee before him if we were allowed to worship men.» With these words Giuseppe Verdi described his first impulse upon meeting Alessandro Manzoni in Milan in June 1868. Many readers are familiar with Manzoni's great novel, The Betrothed (I Promessi Sposi), the work that elicited Verdi's extravagant reverence for its author. Before turning to write a novel, however, Manzoni composed two plays, The Count of Carmagnola (1820) and Adelchi (1822). Both plays broke free of the constraints of the neo-classical stage, and embraced the spirit of the new Romantic drama. Alessandro Manzoni, Two Plays makes these tragedies available in a fresh English translation.
The story is set in the seventeenth century, in the Duchy of Milan, then a Spanish possession in northern Italy; however, the plot is merely a pretext for the author to weave a timeless and universal tale that touches on every human feeling, passion, and behavior. In compelling fashion, love, hate, prejudice, vengeance, forgiveness, fear, courage, crime, punishment, redemption, treachery, loyalty, religion, superstition, love of country, devotion to duty, generosity, greed, art, science, politics, economics, and emigration come together in this book, making it, unquestionably, one of the giants of foreign literature. The book opens as two of Don Rodrigos toughs order the local parish priest,...
None
"Now, translator Federica Brunori Deigan presents lyrical English-language versions of these two tragedies which, taken together, dramatize the first two epochs in Manzoni's "history of Italy." (The Betrothed completes the triptych, illustrating the period of Spanish domination.) Long unavailable in English, The Count of Carmagnola and Adelchis are distinguished by their dramatic power and thematic gravity. Manzoni considers the interactions of Christian morals and Machiavellian politics through deft psychological portraiture, ultimately revealing the course of history as a fabric woven by individuals free will according to a logical pattern of actions and reactions, within the vaster providential plan, that human eyes can only dimly perceive."--BOOK JACKET.
Alessandro Manzoni was a giant of nineteenth-century European literature whose I promessi sposi (The Betrothed, 1928) is ranked with War and Peace as marking the summit of the historical novel. Manzoni wrote “Del romanzo storico” (“On the Historical Novel”) during the twenty years he spent revising I promessi sposi. This first English translation of On the Historical Novel reflects the insights of a great craftsman and the misgivings of a profound thinker. It brings up to the nineteenth century the long war between poetry and history, tracing the idea of the historical novel from its origins in classical antiquity. It declares the historical novel—and presumably I promessi sposi itself—dead as a genre. Or perhaps it justifies I promessi sposi as the climax of a genre and the end of a stage of human consciousness. Its importance lies both in its prospective and in its retrospective contributions to literary debate.