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Useless Memoirs
An abridgement of John Addington Symonds translation of Carlo Gozzi's Memorie inutile della vita di Carlo Gozzi scritte da lui medesimo e pubblicate per umilta, written mainly in 1780, was published in Venice in three volumes in 17097-1798. In spite of the title the brilliant playwright of eighteenth-century Venice recorded a life which was crammed with lively incident and which is a faithful reflection of his place and time.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1797
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About the author
Carlo Gozzi
278 books7 followersCarlo Gozzi (Venezia, 1720 – Venezia, 1806) è stato un drammaturgo e scrittore italiano. Negli anni '60 del Settecento fu protagonista di una polemica sul teatro con il conterraneo Carlo Goldoni: Gozzi difendeva i vecchi artifici della Commedia dell'Arte contro le novità introdotte nel teatro da Goldoni.
Carlo, Count Gozzi (13 December 1720 – April 4, 1806) was an Italian playwright.
Born in Venice, he came from an old Venetian family from the Republic of Ragusa. His father's debts forced him to look for a means of supporting himself, and at the age of sixteen, he joined the army in Dalmatia; three years later he returned to Venice, where he soon made a reputation for himself as the wittiest member of the Granelleschi society, to which the publication of several satirical pieces had gained him admission. This society, nominally devoted to conviviality and wit, had serious literary aims, and was especially zealous to preserve Tuscan literature from foreign influence.
The displacement of the old Italian comedy by the dramas of Pietro Chiari and Carlo Goldoni's works, modelled on French examples, threatened to defeat the society's efforts; in 1757 Gozzi came to the rescue by publishing a satirical poem, La tartana degli influssi per l'anno 1756, and in 1761 by his comedy, The Love of Three Oranges or Analisi riflessiva della fiaba L'amore delle tre melarance, a parody of the manner of the other two poets, founded on a fairy tale. To perform it, he obtained the services of the Sacchi company of players, who, thanks to the popularity of the comedies of Chiari and Goldoni—which offered no scope for the display of their peculiar talents—had been left without employment. Their satirical powers thus sharpened by personal enmity, the play was an extraordinary success.
Struck by the effect produced on the audience by the introduction of the supernatural or mythical element, which he had merely used as a convenient medium for his satirical purposes, Gozzi produced a series of dramatic pieces based on fairy tales, which were briefly popular, but after the breaking up of the Sacchi company were completely disregarded. They were much praised by Goethe, Schlegel, Madame de Staël and Sismondi; and one of them, Turandot or Re Turandote, was translated by Friedrich Schiller.
In his later years Gozzi began to produce tragedies in which the comic element was largely introduced; as this innovation proved unacceptable to the critics he turned to the Spanish drama, from which he obtained models for various pieces; these had minor success.
His brother, Gasparo Gozzi, was also a well-known writer of the time.
His collected works were published under his own superintendence, at Venice, in 1792, in 10 volumes.
A number of twentieth-century stage works were inspired by Gozzi's plays. These include treatments of Turandot by Karl Vollmöller and Bertolt Brecht, operas based on the same story by Busoni and most famously Puccini and Prokofiev's The Love of Three Oranges.
Carlo, Count Gozzi (13 December 1720 – April 4, 1806) was an Italian playwright.
Born in Venice, he came from an old Venetian family from the Republic of Ragusa. His father's debts forced him to look for a means of supporting himself, and at the age of sixteen, he joined the army in Dalmatia; three years later he returned to Venice, where he soon made a reputation for himself as the wittiest member of the Granelleschi society, to which the publication of several satirical pieces had gained him admission. This society, nominally devoted to conviviality and wit, had serious literary aims, and was especially zealous to preserve Tuscan literature from foreign influence.
The displacement of the old Italian comedy by the dramas of Pietro Chiari and Carlo Goldoni's works, modelled on French examples, threatened to defeat the society's efforts; in 1757 Gozzi came to the rescue by publishing a satirical poem, La tartana degli influssi per l'anno 1756, and in 1761 by his comedy, The Love of Three Oranges or Analisi riflessiva della fiaba L'amore delle tre melarance, a parody of the manner of the other two poets, founded on a fairy tale. To perform it, he obtained the services of the Sacchi company of players, who, thanks to the popularity of the comedies of Chiari and Goldoni—which offered no scope for the display of their peculiar talents—had been left without employment. Their satirical powers thus sharpened by personal enmity, the play was an extraordinary success.
Struck by the effect produced on the audience by the introduction of the supernatural or mythical element, which he had merely used as a convenient medium for his satirical purposes, Gozzi produced a series of dramatic pieces based on fairy tales, which were briefly popular, but after the breaking up of the Sacchi company were completely disregarded. They were much praised by Goethe, Schlegel, Madame de Staël and Sismondi; and one of them, Turandot or Re Turandote, was translated by Friedrich Schiller.
In his later years Gozzi began to produce tragedies in which the comic element was largely introduced; as this innovation proved unacceptable to the critics he turned to the Spanish drama, from which he obtained models for various pieces; these had minor success.
His brother, Gasparo Gozzi, was also a well-known writer of the time.
His collected works were published under his own superintendence, at Venice, in 1792, in 10 volumes.
A number of twentieth-century stage works were inspired by Gozzi's plays. These include treatments of Turandot by Karl Vollmöller and Bertolt Brecht, operas based on the same story by Busoni and most famously Puccini and Prokofiev's The Love of Three Oranges.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
dnf
March 2, 2018I'm setting this aside after roughly two thirds. I try not to rate or review books I don't finish but I am making an exception in this case. First some background. Carlo Gozzi was a Venetian aristocrat in the late days of the Venetian Republic. He wrote his memoirs in 1780 and Napoleon dissolved the republic a few decades later. He came from a family whose expenses seemed to exceed their income from rents. Although he was a relatively successful playwright he did not take income from his plays. I think he would have thought it beneath his station.
What I found as I read it was that Gozzi attributed all his problems to the greed, malice and perfidiousness of others. His life seemed to have been a constant cycle of new betrayals: by lovers, by family, by others in the arts. He continually congratulates himself on his sang-froid in the face of these. At the same time he seemed to have a shockingly lack of sympathy for others especially to the lower orders who he thought ought to be duly subordinate.
Sometimes I have the experience of meeting someone, say at a party, and at first finding them engaging but as conversaion proceeds and their personality becomes more apparent the desire to end the conversation and get away grows and grows until finally I have to make a break. That's where I am with Carlo Gozzi today. His sense of snide superiority reminds me of Vladmir Nabokov, la Rochefoucauld and the students of Slitherin in the Harry Potter books. I'm glad to put him behind me.
I did learn a bit about the attitudes of the ruling classes just before the fall of the ancien regime. The Roccoco is a period I find personally very interesting. It produced some of the most graceful art to come out of Western Civilization - I'll just mention Mozart as an example. But it collapsed through an appalling lack of legitimacy. If we take La Nozze di Figaro as an example of humanity and decency in that period, Gozzi seems to me to be on the other side, the one that brought it down.
What I found as I read it was that Gozzi attributed all his problems to the greed, malice and perfidiousness of others. His life seemed to have been a constant cycle of new betrayals: by lovers, by family, by others in the arts. He continually congratulates himself on his sang-froid in the face of these. At the same time he seemed to have a shockingly lack of sympathy for others especially to the lower orders who he thought ought to be duly subordinate.
Sometimes I have the experience of meeting someone, say at a party, and at first finding them engaging but as conversaion proceeds and their personality becomes more apparent the desire to end the conversation and get away grows and grows until finally I have to make a break. That's where I am with Carlo Gozzi today. His sense of snide superiority reminds me of Vladmir Nabokov, la Rochefoucauld and the students of Slitherin in the Harry Potter books. I'm glad to put him behind me.
I did learn a bit about the attitudes of the ruling classes just before the fall of the ancien regime. The Roccoco is a period I find personally very interesting. It produced some of the most graceful art to come out of Western Civilization - I'll just mention Mozart as an example. But it collapsed through an appalling lack of legitimacy. If we take La Nozze di Figaro as an example of humanity and decency in that period, Gozzi seems to me to be on the other side, the one that brought it down.
Displaying 1 of 1 review