Facetious Events: Collected by an Anonymous Sicilian of the 18th Century

Pitrè, Giuseppe, 1841-1916Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.6
Word count
156K words
Chapters
16

Tags

Foreign Language Books Folk Literature Local NarrativeHumorous SatireFolk HumorFolktalesAnecdote CollectionEighteenth CenturyExotic CultureSicilian Flavor

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Avvenimenti faceti: Raccolti da un Anonimo Siciliano del secolo XVIII by PitrèAuthor: Pitrè, Giuseppe, 1841-1916,Language: Italian, Class: GR: Geography, Anthropology, Recreation: Folklore, Release Date: May 5, 2013

Editor's review

This book is a collection of funny tales compiled by an anonymous eighteenth-century Sicilian, edited by the Italian folklorist Giuseppe Pitrè, and belongs to folklore and local-document studies. Its value lies not in narrative coherence or polished style but in preserving the oral texture and humor of premodern Sicilian folk narrative, offering first-hand material for the study of southern Italian folklore, joke types, and dialect expression. Readers can see what ordinary people cared about, how they joked, and how they told absurd stories—material often absent from official history. Because the original is in Italian and dates from the eighteenth century, the language bears the marks of its time and region; reading requires some Italian and an interest in folklore. It suits folklore researchers as reference material or as a casual anthology for those curious about Sicilian folk culture, but readers should not expect a modern short-story collection. Use it with annotations and background material, as a historical source rather than light entertainment.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the preface or editor's note first to understand Pitrè's editorial principles and sources, then proceed to the text.
  2. It need not be read in order; select pieces by theme or joke type and take notes by category.
  3. Mark dialect or archaic expressions and look them up in a dictionary or reference translation.
  4. Read alongside folk-story collections from other Italian regions to observe narrative differences.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

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FAQ

Is this book written in Italian, and what language level is needed? The original is in Italian with eighteenth-century Sicilian regional features. Intermediate or higher Italian reading ability is recommended, along with willingness to use dictionaries and notes. If you only want an outline of the contents, consult related research literature.
Are the funny tales suitable to tell children directly? Not directly. Eighteenth-century folk jokes often involve adult satire and crude expression, and the language is archaic, so selection and rewriting are needed. They are better suited to adult readers or researchers as source material.
What is the folklore value of this book? It preserves the original character of oral folk narrative and can be used to study joke types, dialect expression, and social mentality. As material edited by Pitrè, it also helps illuminate nineteenth-century folklorists' collecting methods and scholarly context.

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About the author

Pitrè, Giuseppe, 1841-1916 Author

Giuseppe Pitrè (1841–1916) was an important figure in the study of Italian folklore and local history, with a scholarly interest centred on Sicily's oral traditions and memories of urban life. Three of his works are held here: Avvenimenti faceti: Raccolti da un Anonimo Siciliano del secolo XVIII and the two-volume La vita in Palermo cento e più anni fa. The first gathers amusing tales recorded by an anonymous eighteenth-century Sicilian author; the second focuses on the appearance and daily life of Palermo more than a century ago, with a clear emphasis on preserving historical sources and local history. These works show a sustained attention to popular narrative, social customs and historical detail, written in plain language and grounded in concrete material, offering useful texts for the study of Sicilian local culture. Public information about his life and nationality is limited, so no inferences are made here.