Antonio Fogazzaro

Antonio Fogazzaro
Born	(1842-03-25)25 March 1842 Vicenza
Died	7 March 1911(1911-03-07) (aged 68) Vicenza
Occupation	Poet, novelist
Nationality	Italian
Genre	Novel
Notable works	The Little World of the Past (1895), The Saint (1905)
Signature

Antonio Fogazzaro (Italian pronunciation: [anˈtɔːnjo foɡatˈtsaːro]; 25 March 1842 – 7 March 1911) was an Italian novelist and proponent of Liberal Catholicism. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times.

Biography

Fogazzaro was born in Vicenza to a wealthy family. In 1864 he obtained a law degree in Turin. He then moved to Milan where he followed the scapigliatura movement. In 1869 he was back in Vicenza to work as lawyer, but he left this line of work very soon to be a full-time novelist.

He began his literary career with Miranda, a poetical romance (1874), followed in 1876 by Valsolda, which, republished in 1886 with considerable additions, constitutes perhaps his principal claim as a poet. His novels, Malombra (1882), Daniele Cortis (1887), Misterio del Poeta (1888), obtained considerable literary success upon their first publication, but did not gain universal popularity until they were discovered and taken up by French critics in 1896.

In Fogazzaro's work there is a constant conflict between sense of duty and passions, faith and reason. In some cases this brings the tormented soul of characters into mystic experiences. His most popular novel, Piccolo Mondo Antico (variously titled in English as The Patriot or The Little World of the Past). The novel is set in the 1850s in Valsolda, a small community on the shores of Lake Lugano where he spent most of his life. Piccolo Mondo Antico has delightful evocations of the landscape, and strong characterizations which reveal the inner psychological turmoil of the characters.

Fogazzaro toured Italy proposing to reconcile Darwin's theory of evolution with Christianity. He found new interpretations in positivist and evolutionist theories. The Roman Catholic Church banned his novels Il Santo (1905) in April 1906 and Leila (1910) in May 1911. He died in 1911 in his birthplace, Vicenza.

Works

Piccolo mondo antico (13th edition, 1896)

L'origine dell'uomo e il sentimento religioso (1893)

Monument to Fogazzaro in Vicenza

Novels

• Malombra (1881)
• Daniele Cortis (1885)
• Il mistero del poeta (The Mystery of the Poet, 1888)
• Piccolo mondo antico (The Little World of the Past, 1895)
• Piccolo mondo moderno (The Man of the World, 1901)
• The Poet's Mystery: A Novel (1903)
• Il Santo (The Saint, 1905)
• The Woman (1907)
• The Politician (1908)
• Leila (1910)

Other works

• Miranda (1874, verse romance)
• Valsolda (1876, lyrics collection)
• Fedele (1887, short story collection)
• Per un recente raffronto delle teorie di S. Agostino e di Darwin circa la creazione (in Italian). Milano: Galli. 1892.
• L'origine dell'uomo e il sentimento religioso (1893, speech)
• Discorsi (1898, essays)
• Scienza e dolore (Science and Suffering, 1898, essay)
• Il dolore nell'arte (Suffering in Art, 1901, essay)
• Scene (1903, plays).
• The Trilogy of Rome (1907)
• Tales from the Italian and Spanish (1920)

Further reading

• Corrigan, Beatrice (1961). "Antonio Fogazzaro and Wilkie Collins," Comparative Literature, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 39–51.
• Crawford, Virginia M. (1899). "Antonio Fogazzaro." In: Studies in Foreign Literature. Boston: L.C. Page & Company, pp. 219–247.
• Egerton, Ruth (1911). "Fogazzaro's Last Romance: 'Leila'," The North American Review, Vol. 193, No. 665, pp. 508–514.
• Hall, Robert A. (1965). "Fogazzaro's Maironi Tetralogy," Italica, Vol. 42, No. 2, pp. 248–259.
• Hall, Robert A. (1978). Antonio Fogazzaro. Boston: Twayne Publishers.
• Kennard, Joseph Spencer (1906). "Antonio Fogazzaro." In: Italian Romance Writers. New York: Brentano's, pp. 215–248.
• King, Bolton & Thomas Okey (1913). "Literature." In: Italy Today. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, pp. 322–352.
• Kuhns, Oscar (1904). "The Nineteenth Century." In: The Great Poets of Italy. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Company, pp. 284–342.
• Laphan, L.E. (1906–07). "Fogazzaro and his Trilogy," Part II, Part III, The Catholic World, Vol. 84, pp. 240–250, 381–387, 462–476.
• MacMahon, Anita (1911). "Antonio Fogazzaro: The Man and his Work, 1842–1911," The Catholic World, Vol. 93, pp. 516–527.
• Portier, Lucienne (1937). Antonio Fogazzaro. Paris: Boivin et Cie.
• Reid, Harriet (1906). "Antonio Fogazzaro," The Living Age, Vol. 251, pp. 139–145.
• Rose, William J. (1912). "Antonio Fogazzaro," The University Magazine, Vol. XI, pp. 92–103.
• Rumor, Sebastiano (1896). Antonio Fogazzaro. Milano: Casa Editrice Galli.
• Sharp, William (1912). "Italian Poets of Today." In: Studies and Appreciations. New York: Duffield & Company, pp. 337–393.
• Thayer, William Roscoe (1908). "Fogazzaro and his Masterpiece." In: Italica: Studies in Italian Life and Letters. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Company, pp. 1–27.

External links

• Works by Antonio Fogazzaro at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Antonio Fogazzaro at the Internet Archive
• Works by Antonio Fogazzaro, at Hathi Trust
• Works by Antonio Fogazzaro: text with concordances and frequency list
• Concordances and Frequency Lists of "Malombra"