Giovanni Verga

Giovanni Verga

Giovanni Verga (born September 2, 1840 in Catania ( Sicily ), † January 27, 1922 ibid) was an Italian writer and one of the main exponents of verism , Italian naturalism .

Life

Giovanni Verga was the eldest son of Giovanni Battista Verga and his wife Caterina di Mauro and came from a wealthy family in Sicily. At the age of eleven, Verga was accepted by his relative Antonio Abate , a writer and revolutionary of the Risorgimento . His patriotism as a former Carbonaro , but also his cousin Domenico Catorina , influenced him a lot.

Verga began to study law at the University of Catania , but he was able to successfully debut with his first novel Amore e patria during this study . This caused him to drop out of his studies and only work as a writer. After extensive preparatory work, the historical novel I Carbonari della montagna was written in 1861 and the Roman Sulle lagune in 1863 .

In 1920 he was appointed Senator of the Kingdom of Italy . He was also Commendatore (Komtur) of the Knightly Order of St. Mauritius and Lazarus and Ufficiale (officer) of the Order of the Crown of Italy .

plant

Verga's literary work follows an unadulterated representation of what is perceived and gave this style the name verism (“vero” - “true”). Together with Luigi Capuana , Verga was one of the most important representatives.

In contrast to naturalism in French literature (for example Émile Zola's Rougon-Macquart cycle), verism is characterized by a pessimistic anthropology and a worldview without mythologization.

His debut “Amore e patria” as well as his second novel “I carbonari della montagna” deal with the struggle of the Carbonari against the rule of Napoléon and his local representative, the Marshal of France , Joachim Murat .

The novel Sulle lagune deals with the sentimental entanglements of an Austrian occupation officer and a young Venetian woman. Besides, the beginning of the independence of Italy is expected in a dramatic way.

In novels like Nedda , rural Sicily moves into the focus of the novellas and novels of the Catanesian writer. Verga made his literary breakthrough with his collections of novels, Vita dei campi (1880) and Novelle rusticane (1883), which he wrote in the 1880s . His novella Cavalleria rusticana was a great success with the audience in Pietro Mascagni's opera adaptation .

With I vinti (“The vanquished”), Verga began an epically broad, five-part cycle of novels, of which only the first two volumes, “I Malavoglia” and “Mastro-Don Gesualdo”, were published. Only a first chapter of the follow-up novel La duchessa di Leyra exists, L'onorevole Scipione and L'uomo di lusso have remained entirely a project.

His naturalistic approach is also evident in the depictions of diseases in novellas such as Malaria (1883) and Quelli del coléra (1884) and in the novel Mastro-Don Gesualdo .

Works

• Amore e patria
• I carbonari della montagna
• Sulle lagoon
• Nedda
• I Malavoglia (1881), novel
• Vagabondaggio (1887), collection of short stories
• Mastro-Don Gesualdo (1889), novel
• Don Candeloro e C. (1895), collection of short stories
• Impassibilità (dt. Equanimity)
• Vita dei campi ( Sicilian Novellas , 1880), 1st collection of novels
• Per le vie ( In the streets , 1883), 2nd collection of novels
• Novelle rusticane (German village novellas , 1883), 3rd collection of novels

Works in German translation

• On the streets
• The last day. stories
• The Malavoglia family. Sicilian fishermen , Dresden 1940
• The Malavoglia
• Don Gesualdo
• Eros , 1898
• First mine, then yours , Leipzig 1907 and 1945
• Cruel Sicily. Novellas , Leipzig 1975
• Her husband , 1885
• King Tiger , 1897
• Sicilian short stories
• Dry bread. Sicilian stories , 1954

Film adaptations

• 1948 - The earth quakes ( La terra trema ) - Director: Luchino Visconti - based on the novel "I Malavoglia"
• 1953 - The she-wolf of Calabria ( La lupa ) - directed by Alberto Lattuada - based on the novel of the same name
• 1953 - Sicilian Passion ( Cavalleria rusticana ) - Director: Carmine Gallone - based on the opera of the same name
• 1993 - Zeffirelli's Spatz ( Storia di una capinera ) - directed by Franco Zeffirelli - based on the novel of the same name
• 1969 - L'amante di Gramigna - Director: Carlo Lizzani - based on the novel of the same name

additional

The Casa Museo Giovanni Verga in Catania is a literary museum in the house where Giovanni Verga was born. It is located in the building where Verga spent his childhood and later lived with his family. Verga's extensive private library is located in the library room. Copies of Verga's manuscripts can be seen in showcases, the originals are kept in the University Library of Catania.

literature

• Nino Borsellino: Storia di Verga . Laterza, Rome 1982.
• Giacomo Debenedetti: Verga e il naturalismo . Garzanti, Milan 1993, ISBN 88-11-67427-1 .
• Rosa Ferraris: Giovanni Verga's feeling for nature . Edition Heitz, Zurich 1929 (also dissertation, University of Zurich).
• Wido Hempel: Vergas "I Malavoglia" and repetition as a narrative art medium . Böhlau, Cologne 1959 (also dissertation, University of Cologne 1959).
• Joachim Küpper: Verga's answer to Zola. "Mastro-don Gesualdo" as the 'completion' of the naturalistic project . In: Ders .: On the Italian novel of the 19th century. Foscolo, Manzoni, Verga, D'Annunzio . Steiner, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-515-08104-6 , pp. 85-113.
• Romano Luperini: Verga moderno . Laterza, Rome 2005, ISBN 88-420-7520-5 .
• Henning Mehnert (Ed. And transl.): Cavalleria Rusticana, opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni. Stuttgart (Reclam) 2009
• Helmut Meter: Figure and narrative conception in the veristic novel. Studies of Verga, de Roberto and Capuana against the background of the French realists and naturalists . Klostermann, Frankfurt / M. 1986, ISBN 3-465-01716-1 (plus habilitation, University of Klagenfurt 1984).
• Francesco Nicolosi: Verga tra De Sanctis e Zola . Patron, Bologna 1986.
• Luigi Russo: Giovanni Verga . Laterza, Rome 1986, ISBN 88-420-2702-2 (repr. Of the Naples edition 1920).
• Vittorio Spinazzola: Verismo e positivismo . Arcipelago, Milan 1993, ISBN 88-7695-109-1 .
• Hildegard Streich: Verism as regionalism in Giovanni Verga . Postberg Verlag Bottrop 1940 (also dissertation, University of Greifswald 1941).

Web links

• Literature by and about Giovanni Verga in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Giovanni Verga  in the German Digital Library
• Standard entry in the Opac of the Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale
• Entry in the Archivio Storico of the Italian Senate
• Collection of works : text, concordances, word lists and statistics (in Italian)
• I Malavoglia Free E-Book (Italian)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Encyclopedia Britannica: Giovanni Verga .
2. ↑ The exact place of Giovanni Verga's birth is not certain. On his monument in Vizzini , this city claims him to be a son who was born here. It is likely that he saw the light of day during a usual summer stay of his family in Catania at a country house in Licodia Eubea near Vizzini. His baptism or issuance of the baptismal certificate, which took place later in Catania, is generally regarded as legal proof of his place of birth Catania.
3. ↑ VERGA, Giovanni. di Attilio Momigliano - Enciclopedia Italiana (1937). Retrieved August 20, 2018 (Italian). 
4. ↑ Michael Quick: 'Le parole sono pietre' Medical aspects of Italian literature of the 20th century. In: Würzburger medical history reports 7, 1989, pp. 5–34; here: p. 12