Sicilian short stories

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Giovanni Verga

Sicilian Novellas (Italian: Vita dei campi ) is a collection of short stories by the Italian writer Giovanni Verga , which was first published in book form in 1880.

History of origin

Coming from a wealthy family, Giovanni Verga (1840–1922) is considered to be one of the most important representatives of Verism in Italy. He was born and raised in Sicily and moved to Milan in 1872 , where he also wrote the Sicilian Novellas . They first appeared in magazines and collected in book form in 1880 under the title Vita dei campi .

Almost at the same time he wrote the related novel Die Malavoglia ( I Malavoglia ) - started in 1878 and published in 1881. In the second volume of novellas on the streets ( Per le vie , 1883), Verga moved to Milan.

content

In eight short stories Verga describes with "almost bleak pessimism": the life of the common people in his homeland: the dangerous work of the fishermen, whose skin is harder "than the bread they eat when they have some to eat", the loneliness of one Shepherd boys, “one of those who don't belong anywhere”, murders out of jealousy and the tortures “for no reason and without mercy” in a Sicilian quarry.

  • Träumerei (Fantasticheria) first published in 1879
  • The Shepherd Jeli (Jeli il pastore) , first published in February 1880
  • The red fox (Rosso Malpelo) , 1878
  • Village honor (Cavalleria rusticana) , March 1880
  • The she-wolf (La Lupa) , February 1880
  • Gramigna's Lover (L'Amante di Gramigna) , February 1880
  • War of the Saints (Guerra di Santi) , May 1880
  • Rocking Pot (Pentolaccia) , July 1880

reception

  • A stage version of the novella Cavalleria rusticana was premiered in Turin in 1884 with Eleonora Duse in the role of Santa .
  • Pietro Mascagni processed the material for the one-act opera Cavalleria rusticana , which premiered in Rome in 1890.
  • The French novelist and naturalist Émile Zola met Giovanni Verga in Rome in 1894 and said afterwards: "I have heard that he is a very important writer [...] but he has no very clear theories."

expenditure

  • Giovanni Verga: Sicilian Novellas . Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-15-002014-X .

Web links

  • [1] provides a brief summary of the plot in The Malavoglia

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Giovanni Verga: On the streets . 2000.
  2. ↑ Giovanni Verga: The Malavoglia . 2001, p. 314 .
  3. ↑ Rene König formulates in the epilogue to the novel Die Malavoglia with reference to the end: "Almost desolate pessimism that [...] takes your breath away that you almost can't stand it anymore."
  4. ^ Giovanni Verga: Sicilian Novellas . 1992, p. 7 .
  5. ^ Giovanni Verga: Sicilian Novellas . 1992, p. 17 .
  6. ^ Giovanni Verga: Sicilian Novellas . 1992, p. 65 .
  7. ^ Giovanni Verga: Sicilian Novellas . 1992, p. 135 .
  8. ^ Giovanni Verga: Sicilian Novellas . 1992, p. 137 .