Lirica

Vivanti, Annie, 1866-1942Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.3

Word count: 67K words
Chapters: 7

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.Lirica by Annie VivantiAuthor: Vivanti, Annie, 1866-1942,Language: Italian, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Jan 4, 2019

Editor's review

This is Lirica, a poetry collection by the Italian woman writer Annie Vivanti, released as an electronic text by Project Gutenberg and part of the lyric poetry tradition in Italian literature. Vivanti lived from the late nineteenth to the first half of the twentieth century; her poetic language is concise and her emotion direct, making this a suitable introductory text for getting a feel for the sound and rhythm of Italian poetry. As a public-domain e-book, its main value lies in the accessibility of the text and the preservation of its original form, not in textual collation or scholarly annotation. Readers can treat it as a sample of short lyric works to dip into in fragmented moments such as commuting or before bed, sensing the rhythm of Italian poetry; they can also read it bilingually against an English or Chinese translation, observing how imagery and syntax shift. Note that the book is in the original Italian and lacks an introduction and notes; the barrier to reading lies not in depth of thought but in the language itself, so it is recommended for readers with some foundation in Italian or those willing to read with reference tools.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers with some foundation in Italian who want to encounter poetry in the original
Literature students studying Italian literature or Vivanti's work
General readers who enjoy short lyric poetry and are willing to read slowly and closely
Translators who need a public-domain Italian text for translation practice

Not a good fit for

Readers with no knowledge of Italian who are unwilling to use reference tools
Researchers seeking detailed annotations and scholarly introductions
Readers who prefer novels or strongly plot-driven narratives

Reading tips

Read through once to feel the rhythm, then go poem by poem looking up words for close reading; there is no need to finish it in one sitting.
Read against an English or Chinese translation and note how imagery and syntax change in translation.
Copy out favorite lines and read them aloud to experience the sound and rhythm of Italian.
Read in light of Vivanti's life and era to understand the emotional direction of the lyric poetry.

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 this book in English or Italian?

The main text is in the original Italian. The Project Gutenberg record lists the language as Italian, in the Italian literature category. If reading Italian is difficult, use a dictionary or a parallel translation.

Without notes or an introduction, can I understand it?

Vivanti's lyric poetry is relatively direct in language, but the lack of notes makes understanding harder. It is best to use a dictionary for unfamiliar words first, then grasp the overall emotional movement of each poem rather than straining over every word.

Is it suitable as Italian learning material?

It can serve as supplementary material, but is not recommended as a main textbook. Poetic language involves omissions and inversions and is not systematic in grammar; it is better used, once you have some foundation, to develop a feel for the language and its rhythm.

What is special about this electronic edition?

It is a public-domain electronic text released by Project Gutenberg, easy to obtain free and search in full, and it preserves the original form of the work, but it has no scholarly annotations or textual collation information.

Comments

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About the author

Vivanti, Annie, 1866-1942 Author

Annie Vivanti (Vivanti, Annie, 1866-1942) was an Italian writer; the library holds eleven of her works, mostly classified under inspirational growth. Her output centres on novels, with representative titles including ...Sorella di Messalina, I divoratori, Vae victis!, Gioia! and Naja tripudians, as well as the play Le bocche inutili and the travel account A Journey to Crete, Costantinople, Naples and Florence. Judging from these titles and genres, her writing engages with social and family ethics, individual destiny and emotional conflict, and she also tried her hand at drama and travel sketches. Public information is limited: biographical details, nationality and exact dates are not documented in the library, so readers may approach her place and influence in Italian literature through the themes and narrative style of these works.