Roman Elegies

D‘Annunzio, Gabriele, 1863-1938Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.8

Word count: 44K words
Chapters: 5

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.Elegìe Romane by Gabriele D'AnnunzioAuthor: D'Annunzio, Gabriele, 1863-1938,Language: Italian, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Jan 7, 2019

Editor's review

Elegìe Romane is a poetry collection by the Italian poet Gabriele D'Annunzio, released as an Italian-language e-book by Project Gutenberg. D'Annunzio is a representative figure of Italian aestheticism and decadent literature, and his poetry is known for sensory detail, ornate diction, and strong musicality. This collection centers on the image of Rome, interweaving classical ruins and the city's light with personal emotion, embodying the author's devotion to beauty and desire. For Chinese readers its value lies first in the language experience: even through a translation one can sense the rhythmic craft of Italian poetry, and those able to read the original can appreciate the density of its sound and rhetoric. It is a good sample for understanding the transition of modern Italian poetry and the aestheticist style; read it slowly and selectively rather than trying to finish it at once, and do not treat it as a source on Roman history or social reality.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in Italian literature and aestheticist and decadent poetry
Learners with Italian who want to feel poetic rhythm through the original
Literature specialists studying D'Annunzio's work or late-nineteenth-century European poetry
Poetry lovers who enjoy ornate diction and dense sensory imagery

Not a good fit for

Beginners with no Italian and no access to a bilingual edition
Readers who prefer spare, restrained, colloquial modern poetry
Readers hoping to gain Roman history or realistic social content from the book

Reading tips

Read through the table of contents first, then choose two or three short poems for close reading to get a feel for the rhythm and diction.
If a Chinese translation is available, read it against the original paragraph by paragraph, noting how rhythm and rhetoric correspond.
Break the reading into small sessions, one or two poems at a time, to avoid fatigue from the ornate diction.
Briefly learn about D'Annunzio's era and literary movement beforehand to better grasp his stylistic orientation.

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?

Project Gutenberg provides the Italian original e-book; the material does not indicate an accompanying Chinese translation. Chinese readers will need to find a translation themselves or have some ability to read Italian.

Is Elegìe Romane about Roman history?

No. It is a work of poetry that draws on the imagery of Rome, classical ruins, and personal emotion, focusing on aesthetic expression and lyricism rather than narrating Roman history; readers should not expect a history book.

What are the characteristics of D'Annunzio's poetry?

D'Annunzio is a major figure of Italian aestheticism and decadent literature; his poems are noted for ornate diction, sensory imagery, and musicality, with intense emotion. This collection shows these traits, and readers can attend to its rhetorical density and command of sound.

How can I read this book without knowing Italian?

Start with a reliable Chinese translation to understand the content and style; if you want to experience the original further, use a bilingual edition and dictionary to read slowly poem by poem, focusing on rhythm rather than word-by-word parsing.

Comments

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About the author

D‘Annunzio, Gabriele, 1863-1938 Author

Gabriele D‘Annunzio (1863–1938) was an Italian writer. Thirteen of his works are held in this collection, including The Child of Pleasure, Le Novelle della Pescara, L‘Innocente, La Gioconda, Cabiria: Visione storica del terzo secolo A. C., Le vergini delle rocce, San Pantaleone and Forse che sì forse che no. Public information is limited, but these works show that his writing spans novels, short stories and drama, often dealing with desire, guilt, aristocratic life and historical imagination. His style is known for sensuous description and elaborate rhetoric, with aesthetic and decadent overtones. His works had a certain influence on early twentieth-century Italian literature and popular culture.