Tragedies of the Soul

Roberto BraccoProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.3

Word count: 110K words
Chapters: 12

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.Tragedie dell'anima by Roberto BraccoAuthor: Bracco, Roberto, 1861-1943,Language: Italian, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Dec 3, 2011

Editor's review

This edition of Tragedie dell'anima is a work by the Italian author Roberto Bracco, released free in electronic form by Project Gutenberg as a public-domain literary resource. Bracco was active from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century, and his plays and novels often focus on inner conflict and emotional predicaments. The title translates literally as "Tragedies of the Soul," and the naming alone shows its inward-looking tendency. For Chinese readers, this is both a chance to encounter a marginal text of Italian literature and a sample of Project Gutenberg's multilingual holdings. Note that the book is in the original Italian; the barrier to reading lies mainly in the language rather than the length, making it suitable for readers with some Italian or those willing to work through it passage by passage with a dictionary and translation tools. As a public-domain e-book, it has no modern introduction or notes, so readers must fill in the historical context themselves. Overall, this is a work suited to slow reading and close textual study rather than a popular book for those seeking plot thrills.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Learners with basic Italian reading ability who want to practice reading in the original
Literary researchers interested in late-nineteenth-century Italian literature and drama
People who need public-domain foreign-language texts for translation practice or corpus work
Readers accustomed to e-books who accept unannotated original texts and read independently

Not a good fit for

General readers with no Italian who hope to read a Chinese translation
Beginners who need a modern introduction, notes, and background analysis
Casual readers who prefer strong plots and fast-paced narrative

Reading tips

First read through the title and table of contents to judge the theme of each piece, then decide whether to read closely or selectively.
When you meet unfamiliar words, mark them first without looking them up; finish a passage before dealing with them, so as to keep your sense of the language连贯.
You may use an Italian dictionary or a bilingual comparison tool, and read one or two pages closely at a fixed time each day.
After finishing, write a hundred-character summary in Chinese to check whether you have grasped the core conflict.

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 Chinese or Italian?

The book is in the original Italian, published by Project Gutenberg, with no Chinese translation attached. Chinese readers need some foundation in Italian, or must read with a dictionary and translation tools.

Why are Project Gutenberg books free?

Project Gutenberg collects works that have entered the public domain, whose copyright restrictions have expired, so electronic editions can be provided free of charge. This book is such a public-domain resource and can be legally obtained free.

Will I fail to understand it without notes?

The book indeed has no notes or introduction added by a modern editor. Readers are advised to look up the author's life and the historical background themselves, or to read a relevant literary-history overview first before entering the text, which can noticeably reduce the difficulty of understanding.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Roberto Bracco Author · Italy · 1861–1943

Roberto Bracco (1861–1943) was an Italian playwright, screenwriter and journalist, born in Naples and died in Sorrento; the library holds 25 of his works. His plays are mostly realist, including Sperduti nel buio, Una donna, Maternità, La piccola fonte, Tragedie dell'anima and Il piccolo santo. He often focused on the situation of women and portrayed ordinary people struggling under social pressure. Bracco was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature six times and was persecuted for his anti-fascist stance. Public information on his early education and biographical details is limited, but his plays hold a place in the tradition of Italian realist drama.