Parvenze e Sembianze

Adolfo AlbertazziProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 208K words
Chapters: 21

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.Parvenze e sembianze by Adolfo AlbertazziAuthor: Albertazzi, Adolfo, 1865-1924,Language: Italian, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Oct 22, 2011

Editor's review

Adolfo Albertazzi was an Italian writer and literary critic of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Parvenze e sembianze collects his short stories; the title can be roughly understood as "Appearances and Likenesses," hinting at the author's ongoing attention to the gap between how things look and what they are within. Albertazzi's narration is light and ironic, adept at catching vanity, misunderstanding, and self-deception in everyday scenes; the pieces are short but neatly resolved, with a distinct fin-de-siècle Italian short-story flavor. Released in the original Italian by Project Gutenberg, the book serves as a sample of the late-nineteenth-century Italian short-story scene and as advanced reading material for learners of Italian. For readers familiar with D'Annunzio, Verga, and other contemporaries, it adds an off-the-beaten-path but engaging line of observation.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Scholars of late-nineteenth-century Italian short fiction and literary taste
Learners with intermediate or higher Italian who want to expand their reading in the original
Literature lovers who enjoy the short form and prefer irony and everyday subjects
Comparative literature readers interested in non-mainstream contemporaries of D'Annunzio

Not a good fit for

General readers with no Italian who need a translation to follow along
Readers who prefer strong plots, grand narratives, or long-form structures
Beginners wholly unfamiliar with the late-nineteenth-century Italian literary context

Reading tips

No need to read straight through; start with the shortest pieces to get a feel for the author's pacing and ironic tone.
Italian learners can retell each story in the original language after finishing it, building a store of literary expression.
Watch for the opposition between "appearance" and "likeness" in the title and see how each story varies the theme.
Read alongside short stories by Verga or D'Annunzio to sense the different directions Italian short fiction took in the same period.

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 title Parvenze e sembianze mean?

Both words relate to "appearance" or "outward show"; together they can be roughly understood as "Appearances and Likenesses," pointing to the difference between how things present themselves and what lies within—a theme that runs through the stories.

What kind of writer was Albertazzi?

He was an Italian writer and literary critic of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, working mainly in short stories and essays. His style is light and restrained, often ironic; he was active in the literary journals of his day but was not among the most mainstream representative authors.

Is this edition suitable for learning Italian?

It suits intermediate learners and above. The text is literary Italian of the late nineteenth century, with sentence structures and vocabulary more complex than modern colloquial speech; read with a dictionary and prefer close reading of individual stories over reading straight through.

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About the author

Adolfo Albertazzi Author · Italian · 1865–1924

Adolfo Albertazzi (1865–1924) was an Italian writer and literary critic, born in Bologna on September 8, 1865, and died in the same city on May 10, 1924. A student, friend and biographer of the poet Giosuè Carducci, he taught successively in Mantua, Foggia and Bologna. His output includes novels, short stories, literary criticism and children's literature. His short stories, influenced by Maupassant, often draw on everyday life and social manners, with an emphasis on dramatic incident and psychological portrayal. His style is notable for precision and concision, and he was a central figure in Bologna's Carducci literary circle. Representative works include Novelle umoristiche, Parvenze e sembianze, Vecchie storie d'amore, Il diavolo nell'ampolla, In faccia al destino and Top; six of his works are held in the collection.