The Paternal Vengeance

Guerrazzi, Francesco Domenico, 1804-1873Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.3

Word count: 270K words
Chapters: 28

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.La vendetta paterna by Francesco Domenico GuerrazziAuthor: Guerrazzi, Francesco Domenico, 1804-1873,Language: Italian, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Jan 15, 2015

Editor's review

La vendetta paterna is a narrative work by the Italian writer Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi; the title translates literally as "The Father's Revenge," and the title alone signals subject matter charged with ethical conflict and dramatic tension. Guerrazzi lived during the nineteenth-century Italian Risorgimento, and his writing often interweaves national sentiment, family ethics, and historical narrative. This book continues that concern: taking family relations as its axis, it pushes revenge, duty, and emotional entanglement into extreme situations, in a language marked by the rhetorical colouring and emotional intensity characteristic of nineteenth-century Italian literature. For Chinese readers its value lies more in its documentary and generic significance—it allows observation of how Italian popular narrative handles the revenge motif, and serves as a sample for understanding the linguistic style of nineteenth-century Italian literature. Because the original is in Italian, the threshold for reading is relatively high; it is better suited to readers with some Italian or an interest in Italian literary history, and should be read slowly with notes and background materials.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers with Italian who wish to practise reading in the original
Scholars studying nineteenth-century Italian literature and the revenge motif
Literary readers interested in family ethics and dramatic narrative
History enthusiasts interested in the cultural background of the Italian Risorgimento

Not a good fit for

Readers with no Italian who do not intend to use a translation
Readers who prefer light entertainment and dislike heavy ethical conflict
Readers expecting the pace and concision of modern fiction

Reading tips

First learn the features of nineteenth-century Italian literary language, then enter the text.
Trace character motives along the main line of family relations, noting how the idea of revenge advances layer by layer.
When reading in Italian, take vocabulary notes paragraph by paragraph, focusing on emotional and ethical words.
After reading, look up the author's historical background to understand the work's relation to its historical context.

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

What does the book's title mean?

The title La vendetta paterna is Italian and means "The Father's Revenge." From the title one can infer that the work centres on family ethics and the theme of revenge; the specific plot must be based on the original text, and while reading one should note how the motive for revenge is driven forward across generational relations.

Can I read this book without knowing Italian?

The original is in Italian, and reading it directly without Italian is considerably difficult. It is advisable first to find a reliable translation or a detailed synopsis to understand the plot, then decide whether to attempt the original with a bilingual text and dictionary; otherwise it is easy to lose the pleasure of reading because of the language barrier.

For research on what themes is this book suitable as a reference?

It can be used to examine the revenge motif in nineteenth-century Italian literature, family-ethical narrative, and Guerrazzi's style, and also as a textual sample of literary language and emotional expression from the Risorgimento period, suitable for comparative analysis with works of the same era.

Comments

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About the author

Guerrazzi, Francesco Domenico, 1804-1873 Author

Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi (1804–1873) was a nineteenth-century Italian writer, of whom twenty-seven works are held in this collection. Public information is limited, and the details of his life are difficult to establish with certainty, yet the titles available show a considerable range. He wrote works drawn from historical figures and family fortunes, such as Beatrice Cenci: A History of the Sixteenth Century, Veronica Cybo, and Isabella Orsini, Duchess of Bracciano, as well as novels including The New Tartuffes, Destiny: A Novel, and The Dying Century, and biographical writing such as The Life of Francesco Burlamacchi. His subjects generally centre on historical events, social ethics, and human fate, and his narrative bears the mark of the nineteenth-century Italian historical novel, often using the past to reflect on morality and the changes of the world. In this collection his works are grouped under inspirational and personal growth; they are not widely known in Chinese, and these titles offer readers a glimpse of his writing.