Giovanni Berchet
Giovanni Berchet (born December 23, 1783 in Milan , † December 23, 1851 in Turin ) was an Italian poet and writer and one of the most important representatives of Italian Romanticism .
Life
As the eldest of eight sons of a cloth merchant with Swiss roots, Berchet dealt with Italian and European literature from an early age. He translated Thomas Gray's Ode The Bard and Oliver Goldsmith's novel The Vicar of Wakefield . In 1816 he wrote the most important manifesto of Italian Romanticism, the Lettera semiseria (the full title reads: Sul "Cacciatore feroce" e sulla "Eleonora" di GA Citizens. Lettera semiseria di Grisostomo al suo figlio ). In 1818 he was involved in founding the magazine Il Conciliatore , which was an important mouthpiece for the Italian Romantics. As a result, he became more politically active, which led to his participation in the Carbonari uprising in 1821. After the crackdown, he was arrested and had to flee Italy.
Berchet spent most of his exile in Belgium , where he wrote most of his poetic works: I profughi di Parga (1821), the Romance (1822-1824) and Le fantasie (1829). In 1845 he was able to return to Italy and continued to campaign for the political unification of Italy . He died a few years later, in 1851, and was buried on the Cimiterio monumentale in Turin.
The lettera semiseria
The fictional author of the letter, Grisostomo (Greek: "Goldmund"), explains to the equally fictitious recipient, his son, the advantages of romantic literature over classicist literature using two poems by Gottfried August Bürger as an example . One of his central points is that literature must increasingly turn to the “people”, a class that is mediocre in the best sense of the word, which distinguishes itself from the elite “Parisians” and the uncultivated “Hottentots”. In the last third of the letter, Berchet inserts an ironic break from what has been said before: Grisostomo declares the plea for romanticism to be a joke and now wants to show his son the advantages of classicist literature, which, however, is easily recognizable as irony due to strong exaggeration .
bibliography
- Giuliano Innamorati: Berchet, Giovanni. In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI).
- G. Berchet, Opere edite e inedite , ed. v. L. Cusani, Milan, 1863.
- A. Cadioli, Introduzione a Berchet , Bari, 1991.
- M. Fubini, Romanticismo italiano , Bari, 1953.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Berchet, Giovanni |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian romantic |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 23, 1783 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Milan |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 23, 1851 |
| Place of death | Turin |