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Italian Journeys
Excerpt from Italian Journeys
In the American woods, very likely, whispering some dreamy, credulous youth, telling him charming fables of its locus, and proposing to itself to abandon him as soon as he sets foot upon its native ground. You see, though I cared little about Tasso, and nothing about his prison, I was heavily disappointed in not being able to believe in it, and felt somehow that I had been awakened from a cherished dream.
But I have no right to cast the unbroken shadow of my skepticism upon the reader, and so I tell him a story about Ferrara which I actually believe. He must know that in Ferrara the streets are marvel ous long and straight. On the corners formed by the crossing of two Of the longest and straightest of these streets stand four palaces, in only one of which we have a present interest. This palace my guide took me to see, after our visit to Tasso's prison, and, standing in its shadow, he related to me thi occurrence which has given it a sad celebrity. It was, in the time of the gifted toxicologist, the resi dence of Lucrezia Borgia, who used to make poison ous little suppers there, and ask the best families of Italy to partake of them. It happened on one occasion that Lucrezia Borgia was thrust out Of a ball-room at Venice as a disreputable character, and treated with peculiar indignity. She determined to make the Venetians repent ...
In the American woods, very likely, whispering some dreamy, credulous youth, telling him charming fables of its locus, and proposing to itself to abandon him as soon as he sets foot upon its native ground. You see, though I cared little about Tasso, and nothing about his prison, I was heavily disappointed in not being able to believe in it, and felt somehow that I had been awakened from a cherished dream.
But I have no right to cast the unbroken shadow of my skepticism upon the reader, and so I tell him a story about Ferrara which I actually believe. He must know that in Ferrara the streets are marvel ous long and straight. On the corners formed by the crossing of two Of the longest and straightest of these streets stand four palaces, in only one of which we have a present interest. This palace my guide took me to see, after our visit to Tasso's prison, and, standing in its shadow, he related to me thi occurrence which has given it a sad celebrity. It was, in the time of the gifted toxicologist, the resi dence of Lucrezia Borgia, who used to make poison ous little suppers there, and ask the best families of Italy to partake of them. It happened on one occasion that Lucrezia Borgia was thrust out Of a ball-room at Venice as a disreputable character, and treated with peculiar indignity. She determined to make the Venetians repent ...
- GenresTravelHistoryNonfiction
268 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1867
14 people are currently reading
56 people want to read
About the author
William Dean Howells
1,191 books101 followersWillam Dean Howells (1837-1920) was a novelist, short story writer, magazine editor, and mentor who wrote for various magazines, including the Atlantic Monthly and Harper's Magazine.
In January 1866 James Fields offered him the assistant editor role at the Atlantic Monthly. Howells accepted after successfully negotiating for a higher salary, but was frustrated by Fields's close supervision. Howells was made editor in 1871, remaining in the position until 1881.
In 1869 he first met Mark Twain, which began a longtime friendship. Even more important for the development of his literary style — his advocacy of Realism — was his relationship with the journalist Jonathan Baxter Harrison, who during the 1870s wrote a series of articles for the Atlantic Monthly on the lives of ordinary Americans.
He wrote his first novel, Their Wedding Journey, in 1872, but his literary reputation took off with the realist novel A Modern Instance, published in 1882, which described the decay of a marriage. His 1885 novel The Rise of Silas Lapham is perhaps his best known, describing the rise and fall of an American entrepreneur of the paint business. His social views were also strongly represented in the novels Annie Kilburn (1888), A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890), and An Imperative Duty (1892). He was particularly outraged by the trials resulting from the Haymarket Riot.
His poems were collected during 1873 and 1886, and a volume under the title Stops of Various Quills was published during 1895. He was the initiator of the school of American realists who derived, through the Russians, from Balzac and had little sympathy with any other type of fiction, although he frequently encouraged new writers in whom he discovered new ideas.
Howells also wrote plays, criticism, and essays about contemporary literary figures such as Henrik Ibsen, Émile Zola, Giovanni Verga, Benito Pérez Galdós, and, especially, Leo Tolstoy, which helped establish their reputations in the United States. He also wrote critically in support of American writers Hamlin Garland, Stephen Crane, Emily Dickinson, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Sarah Orne Jewett, Charles W. Chesnutt, Abraham Cahan, Madison Cawein,and Frank Norris. It is perhaps in this role that he had his greatest influence. In his "Editor's Study" column at the Atlantic Monthly and, later, at Harper's, he formulated and disseminated his theories of "realism" in literature.
In 1904 he was one of the first seven people chosen for membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters, of which he became president.
Howells died in Manhattan on May 11, 1920. He was buried in Cambridge Cemetery in Massachusetts.
Noting the "documentary" and truthful value of Howells' work, Henry James wrote: "Stroke by stroke and book by book your work was to become, for this exquisite notation of our whole democratic light and shade and give and take, in the highest degree documentary."
In January 1866 James Fields offered him the assistant editor role at the Atlantic Monthly. Howells accepted after successfully negotiating for a higher salary, but was frustrated by Fields's close supervision. Howells was made editor in 1871, remaining in the position until 1881.
In 1869 he first met Mark Twain, which began a longtime friendship. Even more important for the development of his literary style — his advocacy of Realism — was his relationship with the journalist Jonathan Baxter Harrison, who during the 1870s wrote a series of articles for the Atlantic Monthly on the lives of ordinary Americans.
He wrote his first novel, Their Wedding Journey, in 1872, but his literary reputation took off with the realist novel A Modern Instance, published in 1882, which described the decay of a marriage. His 1885 novel The Rise of Silas Lapham is perhaps his best known, describing the rise and fall of an American entrepreneur of the paint business. His social views were also strongly represented in the novels Annie Kilburn (1888), A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890), and An Imperative Duty (1892). He was particularly outraged by the trials resulting from the Haymarket Riot.
His poems were collected during 1873 and 1886, and a volume under the title Stops of Various Quills was published during 1895. He was the initiator of the school of American realists who derived, through the Russians, from Balzac and had little sympathy with any other type of fiction, although he frequently encouraged new writers in whom he discovered new ideas.
Howells also wrote plays, criticism, and essays about contemporary literary figures such as Henrik Ibsen, Émile Zola, Giovanni Verga, Benito Pérez Galdós, and, especially, Leo Tolstoy, which helped establish their reputations in the United States. He also wrote critically in support of American writers Hamlin Garland, Stephen Crane, Emily Dickinson, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Sarah Orne Jewett, Charles W. Chesnutt, Abraham Cahan, Madison Cawein,and Frank Norris. It is perhaps in this role that he had his greatest influence. In his "Editor's Study" column at the Atlantic Monthly and, later, at Harper's, he formulated and disseminated his theories of "realism" in literature.
In 1904 he was one of the first seven people chosen for membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters, of which he became president.
Howells died in Manhattan on May 11, 1920. He was buried in Cambridge Cemetery in Massachusetts.
Noting the "documentary" and truthful value of Howells' work, Henry James wrote: "Stroke by stroke and book by book your work was to become, for this exquisite notation of our whole democratic light and shade and give and take, in the highest degree documentary."
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 24, 2013
In his day, William Dean Howells was one of the best-known and most respected of American writers. Today he is all but forgotten. Indeed, I’ve always had trouble telling him and Charles Dudley Warner apart.
Howells served as Consul to Venice under Abraham Lincoln, and “Italian Journeys” is the second travel book Howells wrote after completing that assignment. It provides sketches and vignettes of his visits to Ferrara, Bologna, Genoa, Naples, Pompeii, Herculaneum, Capri, Rome, Padua, Arquà, a Cimbrian village in the Alps, Pisa, Trieste, Bassano, Possagno, Lake Como, Vincenza, Verona, Parma, and Mantua.
Howells visits the prison cell of Tasso and the home of Petrarch, both poets well-known to Nineteenth-Century readers, but whose names would draw blank stares from most readers of today. His touristic interests are mostly literary, historic, artistic, and scenic, in that order, and he got to view important sites in the leisurely 1860s, long before the modern tourism infrastructure was erected.
By the standards of Nineteenth-Century prose, his writing is largely easy to follow, though he doesn’t translate foreign expressions, and assumes his readers to be as culturally literate as he is. (Note: Howells was almost exclusively self-educated.) He writes for an audience of his contemporaries, and rightly expects them to be familiar with the then-recent events of the Risorgimento—something else about which modern readers will likely have no knowledge.
The more old travel books I read the more convinced I am that it was a tradition of English-language travel writers to devote goodly portions of their books on Italian travel to denouncing the locals as ignorant and backward barbarians, as well as lying, thieving, dishonest opportunists, who were biologically programmed to attempt to defraud tourists at every turn. Howells is no exception to this tradition, but he seems to regard the Italians more as simple-minded, yet mischievous, children, rather than as a race of criminals.
The charms of this book are many. Howells does a remarkable job of describing sights without having a collection of photographs to support him. He makes the reader want to see the places he visited, and indeed, 150 years later, most of those places—even the caffès!—are still around. The lengthy final chapter on the bloody and colorful history of the rulers of Mantua is worth the price of the book alone.
Howells served as Consul to Venice under Abraham Lincoln, and “Italian Journeys” is the second travel book Howells wrote after completing that assignment. It provides sketches and vignettes of his visits to Ferrara, Bologna, Genoa, Naples, Pompeii, Herculaneum, Capri, Rome, Padua, Arquà, a Cimbrian village in the Alps, Pisa, Trieste, Bassano, Possagno, Lake Como, Vincenza, Verona, Parma, and Mantua.
Howells visits the prison cell of Tasso and the home of Petrarch, both poets well-known to Nineteenth-Century readers, but whose names would draw blank stares from most readers of today. His touristic interests are mostly literary, historic, artistic, and scenic, in that order, and he got to view important sites in the leisurely 1860s, long before the modern tourism infrastructure was erected.
By the standards of Nineteenth-Century prose, his writing is largely easy to follow, though he doesn’t translate foreign expressions, and assumes his readers to be as culturally literate as he is. (Note: Howells was almost exclusively self-educated.) He writes for an audience of his contemporaries, and rightly expects them to be familiar with the then-recent events of the Risorgimento—something else about which modern readers will likely have no knowledge.
The more old travel books I read the more convinced I am that it was a tradition of English-language travel writers to devote goodly portions of their books on Italian travel to denouncing the locals as ignorant and backward barbarians, as well as lying, thieving, dishonest opportunists, who were biologically programmed to attempt to defraud tourists at every turn. Howells is no exception to this tradition, but he seems to regard the Italians more as simple-minded, yet mischievous, children, rather than as a race of criminals.
The charms of this book are many. Howells does a remarkable job of describing sights without having a collection of photographs to support him. He makes the reader want to see the places he visited, and indeed, 150 years later, most of those places—even the caffès!—are still around. The lengthy final chapter on the bloody and colorful history of the rulers of Mantua is worth the price of the book alone.
Displaying 1 of 1 review