The Idol

Rovetta, Gerolamo, 1854-1910Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.2

Word count: 546K words
Chapters: 55

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.L'idolo by Gerolamo RovettaAuthor: Rovetta, Gerolamo, 1854-1910,Language: Italian, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Apr 16, 2015

Editor's review

L'idolo is a novel by the Italian writer Gerolamo Rovetta, released as a public-domain eBook by Project Gutenberg. Rovetta was active in Italian literary circles from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century; his work often engages with social realities and human psychology, and belongs to the tradition of Italian verismo. The book is presented in the original Italian, giving readers direct access to the language and narrative rhythm of nineteenth-century Italian fiction. As a public-domain electronic text, it generally comes without a modern introduction or annotations, so readers need to supply their own background on the author and his era. Its value: for enthusiasts of Italian literature, it is a primary text that broadens reading horizons; for learners of Italian, a full-length narrative offers sustained language input in continuous context. It suits extended reading in literary history or advanced language study rather than beginners. Readers are advised to first acquaint themselves with the basic features of verismo before entering the text, so as to better grasp its character portrayal and social description.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Learners with some Italian reading ability who wish to advance to full-length original texts
Readers interested in late nineteenth-century Italian literature and verismo
Literature students researching Rovetta's work or the history of the Italian novel
Literary enthusiasts who enjoy social themes and are willing to take on original-language reading

Not a good fit for

General readers with no Italian who need a Chinese translation
Readers seeking detailed annotations, introductions, or scholarly editions
Readers who prefer light, short, or genre fiction and have limited patience for long realistic narratives

Reading tips

First look up background on Rovetta and Italian verismo to establish a frame of reference
Proceed chapter by chapter; after each, summarize plot and character relations in one sentence to keep the threads clear
Do not get stuck on dialect or period expressions word by word; grasp the main narrative first and revisit details later
Read alongside a Chinese or English history of Italian literature to deepen understanding

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.

FAQ

Is there a Chinese translation of this book?

According to the given information, this is an Italian-language eBook and no Chinese translation is mentioned. For reading in Chinese, you will need to look for a translation separately.

What language level is needed to read this book?

This is a full-length Italian novel; an intermediate or higher reading ability in Italian is recommended, sufficient to handle continuous narrative and some literary expression, otherwise comprehension will be difficult.

Does the Project Gutenberg edition of L'idolo include annotations?

Public-domain eBooks from Project Gutenberg usually present the original text and may not include modern annotations or an introduction; for specific formatting and supplementary content, refer to the actual downloaded file.

Is this book suitable for learning Italian?

It can serve as advanced reading material, but as a nineteenth-century novel its language is distant from modern spoken Italian; beginners are better off starting with short texts and later moving on to works like this.

Comments

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About the author

Rovetta, Gerolamo, 1854-1910 Author

Gerolamo Rovetta (1854–1910) was an Italian author, with fourteen of his works held in this collection. Because public information is limited, the details of his life are difficult to describe at length, yet the surviving titles give a fair picture of his writing: he produced both novels and plays, and his representative works include Mater dolorosa, Casta diva, La baraonda, La moglie di Sua Eccellenza, L'idolo, La Signorina: Romanzo, Sott'acqua: racconto, and the three-act comedy La trilogia di Dorina. These works mostly take social reality and family ethics as their themes, unfolding their plots with care and giving their characters a marked dramatic tension, which shows that he was skilled in both narrative and stage writing. In this collection his works are classified under inspirational growth, suggesting that in the Chinese context they are regarded as reading with an edifying quality.