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The Italian
From the first moment Vincentio di Vivaldi, a young nobleman, sets eyes on the veiled figure of Ellena, he is captivated by her enigmatic beauty and grace. But his haughty and manipulative mother is against the match and enlists the help of her confessor to come between them. Schedoni, previously a leading figure of the Inquisition, is a demonic, scheming monk with no qualms about the task, whether it entails abduction, torture - or even murder. The Italian secured Ann Radcliffe's position as the leading writer of Gothic romance of the age, for its atmosphere of supernatural and nightmarish horrors, combined with her evocation of sublime landscapes and chilling narrative.
544 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1796
376 people are currently reading
17992 people want to read
About the author
Ann Radcliffe
579 books712 followersAnn Ward Radcliffe of Britain wrote Gothic novels, including
The Mysteries of Udolpho
(1794).
This English author pioneered.
William Radcliffe, her father and a haberdasher, moved the family to Bath to manage a china shop in 1772. Radcliffe occasionally lived with her uncle, Thomas Bentley, in Chelsea in partnership with a fellow Unitarian, Josiah Wedgwood. Although mixing in some distinguished circles, Radcliffe seemingly made little impression in this society, and Wedgwood described her as "Bentley's shy niece."
In 1787, she married William Radcliffe, the Oxford graduate and journalist. He often came home late, and to occupy her time, she began to write and read her work when he returned. They enjoyed a childless but seemingly happy marriage. Radcliffe called him her "nearest relative and friend". The money she earned from her novels later allowed them to travel together, along with their dog, Chance.
She published The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne in 1789. It set the tone for the majority of her work, which tended to involve innocent, but heroic young women who find themselves in gloomy, mysterious castles ruled by even more mysterious barons with dark pasts.
Her works were extremely popular among the upper class and the growing middle class, especially among young women. Her works included A Sicilian Romance (1790), The Romance of the Forest (1791), The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), and The Italian (1796). She published a travelogue, A Journey Through Holland and the Western Frontier of Germany in 1795.
The success of The Romance of the Forest established Radcliffe as the leading exponent of the historical Gothic romance. Her later novels met with even greater attention, and produced many imitators, and famously, Jane Austen's burlesque of The Mysteries of Udolpho in Northanger Abbey, as well as influencing the works of Sir Walter Scott.
Stylistically, Radcliffe was noted for her vivid descriptions of exotic and sinister locales, though in reality the author had rarely or never visited the actual locations. Shy by nature, she did not encourage her fame and abandoned literature as a pursuit.
She died on February 7, 1823 and was buried in Saint George's Church, Hanover Square, London.
This English author pioneered.
William Radcliffe, her father and a haberdasher, moved the family to Bath to manage a china shop in 1772. Radcliffe occasionally lived with her uncle, Thomas Bentley, in Chelsea in partnership with a fellow Unitarian, Josiah Wedgwood. Although mixing in some distinguished circles, Radcliffe seemingly made little impression in this society, and Wedgwood described her as "Bentley's shy niece."
In 1787, she married William Radcliffe, the Oxford graduate and journalist. He often came home late, and to occupy her time, she began to write and read her work when he returned. They enjoyed a childless but seemingly happy marriage. Radcliffe called him her "nearest relative and friend". The money she earned from her novels later allowed them to travel together, along with their dog, Chance.
She published The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne in 1789. It set the tone for the majority of her work, which tended to involve innocent, but heroic young women who find themselves in gloomy, mysterious castles ruled by even more mysterious barons with dark pasts.
Her works were extremely popular among the upper class and the growing middle class, especially among young women. Her works included A Sicilian Romance (1790), The Romance of the Forest (1791), The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), and The Italian (1796). She published a travelogue, A Journey Through Holland and the Western Frontier of Germany in 1795.
The success of The Romance of the Forest established Radcliffe as the leading exponent of the historical Gothic romance. Her later novels met with even greater attention, and produced many imitators, and famously, Jane Austen's burlesque of The Mysteries of Udolpho in Northanger Abbey, as well as influencing the works of Sir Walter Scott.
Stylistically, Radcliffe was noted for her vivid descriptions of exotic and sinister locales, though in reality the author had rarely or never visited the actual locations. Shy by nature, she did not encourage her fame and abandoned literature as a pursuit.
She died on February 7, 1823 and was buried in Saint George's Church, Hanover Square, London.
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January 24, 2021
The Italian appeared in 1797 during peak Ann Radcliffe pandemonium. Fueled by the success of her uber bestsellers The Romance of the Forest (1791) and The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), this new release was destined to be popular, no matter what. Fans were anxious for another Gothic thriller by their favorite author, particularly since the genre had become so fashionable. Matthew Lewis’ The Monk (1796), for example, had recently scandalized readers in all the right ways. When rumor got out that The Italian was Radcliffe’s literary response to Lewis, anticipation whirred like a steam engine.
Certainly the publisher had big expectations. Radcliffe was already the highest paid author in the world after receiving a record-breaking £500 for Udolpho. For the The Italian she was paid £800, or about three times the annual salary of her successful, journalist husband.
As expected, the publication was a hit. Reviews were mostly positive, though many noted it wasn’t as impressive as her prior novels. No review was bad enough to keep fans away, however. Imagine telling Twilight fans that Breaking Dawn wasn’t worth the time. They might believe you, but it wouldn’t stop them from reading it anyway.
Though criticism was not new to Radcliffe, perhaps the negative reactions got to her this time. She did not, at least, publish another novel in her lifetime. As the years went on, much gossip was spread around the bookstalls. It was speculated that she stopped writing after going mad and was locked away in a remote asylum. There were even rumors that she had died from “that species of mental derangement called ‘the horrors.’”
Little biographical information is actually known about Ann Radcliffe, but we do know she neither went insane nor was she locked away like the heroines in her novels. All evidence suggests that, at the ripe age of 32, she simply decided to enjoy a merry life of retirement with her husband and beloved dog. She still wrote here and there, completing the manuscript for an experimental novel called Gaston de Blondeville which was published in 1826, three years after her death. Though I cannot yet comment on Gaston, it doesn’t appear to have resonated with readers at any point in history thus far.
Sadly, even Radcliffe’s four masterworks—A Sicilian Romance, The Romance of the Forest, The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian—are not well-known today. Readers generally discover them, as I did, after being enamored by alternative examples of Gothic literature, or from Jane Austen, who alludes to Radcliffe incessantly.
Of these four novels, The Italian is my third favorite overall. It should be noted, however, that its first two hundred pages showcase the cleanest, most enthralling and disciplined prose of her legacy.
As the story unfolds, we’re quickly introduced to a lovesick boy from a prestigious and wealthy family. The object of his affection is a beautiful girl with a golden voice. In fact, it’s her voice which first attracts him, causing him to follow her home and invent lame excuses for conversation.
Though the girl doesn’t seem to reciprocate his passions, he remains determined. He befriends her aunt in hopes of buttering up some persuasion and serenades outside her balcony at night. We then learn that the girl’s hesitancy is not caused by rejection, but the expectation that she, a poor orphan, would never be accepted into a family of grandeur.
As it turns out, she’s right. The boy’s parents refuse to endorse the match and have the girl kidnapped and imprisoned to prevent a hasty marriage. After the boy helps her escape, his mother—along with an evil monk—escalate to plotting the girl’s murder.
Thematic issues of social class are infused throughout, and the lesson ultimately becomes that character is more important than wealth. Kind of. It takes a roundabout way of getting there, and some twists reduce the effectiveness of this moral, but the final scene does sum up the message nicely.
Most of the narrative is set among moonlit dungeons, crumbling architecture, stunning mountainscapes, lush forests, and other picturesque scenery. The villains are equally visual, with wicked countenances all and vile determinations that are unparalleled. The pacing is taut and combustive from the first page, with clear character motivations, an easy-to-digest premise, and no ambiguity over who’s good and who’s bad. At least until the several dozen twists are revealed.
The novel peaks too soon, however, and nearly grinds to a halt around page 200. This is when Radcliffe unveils many bizarre turns of events and must then devote the remaining 200 pages to explaining those surprises and the prior mysteries from earlier chapters.
Though fantastical coincidences are common within the Radcliffe universe, the bombs she drops here reach far into the outlandish, causing more head-scratching than genuine surprise. Furthermore, each outlandish surprise requires an outlandish explanation, so it all gets into the weeds rather abruptly. Explaining away the bizarre is a common complaint of modern Radcliffe readers, though I find the flaws in this book to be an anomaly. Her reveals in other novels tend to be brief, make sense, and are highlights of the narrative.
All that said, she does jazz up these explanatory chapters by giving us courtroom drama involving the Inquisition. It feels a bit like The Merchant of Venice only there’s no clever lawyers arguing the case and there’s minimal mystery regarding truth and lies. Still, she manages to make these pages turn easily, even if what plays out is too strange to be riveting.
So yes, there are slower moments, as there are in her other masterpieces, and unfortunately those slower moments make up the entire climatic part of the story. But they are not so bad as to prevent the novel from being an enthralling tale of romance and horror. Of all her novels, The Italian would probably make the best film. It’s amazing to know this was written long before motion pictures because so much of the atmosphere and action is written in ways that I can only describe as cinematic.
Overall, I suspect the rush to take advantage of her popularity led to a structure that’s more slapdash than usual. Had she managed to find a way to pace out more adventure and less explanation, the book might have been perfect. As it is, it’s still a superb example of Gothic literature that is relentlessly readable and disturbingly relevant, even these 200+ years later.
More Ann Radcliffe reviews…
A Sicilian Romance
The Romance of the Forest
The Mysteries of Udolpho
Join me on social media…
Blog
Instagram
Twitter
Facebook
Certainly the publisher had big expectations. Radcliffe was already the highest paid author in the world after receiving a record-breaking £500 for Udolpho. For the The Italian she was paid £800, or about three times the annual salary of her successful, journalist husband.
As expected, the publication was a hit. Reviews were mostly positive, though many noted it wasn’t as impressive as her prior novels. No review was bad enough to keep fans away, however. Imagine telling Twilight fans that Breaking Dawn wasn’t worth the time. They might believe you, but it wouldn’t stop them from reading it anyway.
Though criticism was not new to Radcliffe, perhaps the negative reactions got to her this time. She did not, at least, publish another novel in her lifetime. As the years went on, much gossip was spread around the bookstalls. It was speculated that she stopped writing after going mad and was locked away in a remote asylum. There were even rumors that she had died from “that species of mental derangement called ‘the horrors.’”
Little biographical information is actually known about Ann Radcliffe, but we do know she neither went insane nor was she locked away like the heroines in her novels. All evidence suggests that, at the ripe age of 32, she simply decided to enjoy a merry life of retirement with her husband and beloved dog. She still wrote here and there, completing the manuscript for an experimental novel called Gaston de Blondeville which was published in 1826, three years after her death. Though I cannot yet comment on Gaston, it doesn’t appear to have resonated with readers at any point in history thus far.
Sadly, even Radcliffe’s four masterworks—A Sicilian Romance, The Romance of the Forest, The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian—are not well-known today. Readers generally discover them, as I did, after being enamored by alternative examples of Gothic literature, or from Jane Austen, who alludes to Radcliffe incessantly.
Of these four novels, The Italian is my third favorite overall. It should be noted, however, that its first two hundred pages showcase the cleanest, most enthralling and disciplined prose of her legacy.
As the story unfolds, we’re quickly introduced to a lovesick boy from a prestigious and wealthy family. The object of his affection is a beautiful girl with a golden voice. In fact, it’s her voice which first attracts him, causing him to follow her home and invent lame excuses for conversation.
Though the girl doesn’t seem to reciprocate his passions, he remains determined. He befriends her aunt in hopes of buttering up some persuasion and serenades outside her balcony at night. We then learn that the girl’s hesitancy is not caused by rejection, but the expectation that she, a poor orphan, would never be accepted into a family of grandeur.
As it turns out, she’s right. The boy’s parents refuse to endorse the match and have the girl kidnapped and imprisoned to prevent a hasty marriage. After the boy helps her escape, his mother—along with an evil monk—escalate to plotting the girl’s murder.
Thematic issues of social class are infused throughout, and the lesson ultimately becomes that character is more important than wealth. Kind of. It takes a roundabout way of getting there, and some twists reduce the effectiveness of this moral, but the final scene does sum up the message nicely.
Most of the narrative is set among moonlit dungeons, crumbling architecture, stunning mountainscapes, lush forests, and other picturesque scenery. The villains are equally visual, with wicked countenances all and vile determinations that are unparalleled. The pacing is taut and combustive from the first page, with clear character motivations, an easy-to-digest premise, and no ambiguity over who’s good and who’s bad. At least until the several dozen twists are revealed.
The novel peaks too soon, however, and nearly grinds to a halt around page 200. This is when Radcliffe unveils many bizarre turns of events and must then devote the remaining 200 pages to explaining those surprises and the prior mysteries from earlier chapters.
Though fantastical coincidences are common within the Radcliffe universe, the bombs she drops here reach far into the outlandish, causing more head-scratching than genuine surprise. Furthermore, each outlandish surprise requires an outlandish explanation, so it all gets into the weeds rather abruptly. Explaining away the bizarre is a common complaint of modern Radcliffe readers, though I find the flaws in this book to be an anomaly. Her reveals in other novels tend to be brief, make sense, and are highlights of the narrative.
All that said, she does jazz up these explanatory chapters by giving us courtroom drama involving the Inquisition. It feels a bit like The Merchant of Venice only there’s no clever lawyers arguing the case and there’s minimal mystery regarding truth and lies. Still, she manages to make these pages turn easily, even if what plays out is too strange to be riveting.
So yes, there are slower moments, as there are in her other masterpieces, and unfortunately those slower moments make up the entire climatic part of the story. But they are not so bad as to prevent the novel from being an enthralling tale of romance and horror. Of all her novels, The Italian would probably make the best film. It’s amazing to know this was written long before motion pictures because so much of the atmosphere and action is written in ways that I can only describe as cinematic.
Overall, I suspect the rush to take advantage of her popularity led to a structure that’s more slapdash than usual. Had she managed to find a way to pace out more adventure and less explanation, the book might have been perfect. As it is, it’s still a superb example of Gothic literature that is relentlessly readable and disturbingly relevant, even these 200+ years later.
More Ann Radcliffe reviews…
A Sicilian Romance
The Romance of the Forest
The Mysteries of Udolpho
Join me on social media…
Blog
September 8, 2019
Conventional wisdom declares that Radcliffe was both dismayed and inspired by Lewis's The Monk into making The Italian her finest book. I disagree.
The Italian is certainly her best constructed and most tightly plotted novel and the concentrated Italianate atmosphere is extremely effective, particularly in the descriptions of landscapes. I think, though, that Mrs. Radcliffe's horror at Lewis's excesses of taste and immorality caused her to be too cautious toward her own genius, and that in The Italian she produced a novel that is sometimes as plodding and dreary as the work of Clara Reeve, both in its detailed litigiousness (the Inquisition scenes, which one would expect to be exciting, are particularly boring in their concentration on legal procedure) and its scrupulosity in assigning appropriate punishments and rewards.
Udolpho is more unruly but also much more inspired.
September 23, 2015
I had read The Mysteries of Udolpho earlier in the year and was interested enough in Radcliffe to want to read more of her work. My copy of The Italian had an introduction which I wish I had been able to read before starting on Udolpho, as it explains a lot about the Radcliffe style. Here is a short excerpt:
The basic pleasure in Mrs. Radcliffe's romances comes from a suspension of disbelief that leads to an enjoyment of the works of her fiction in and for itself. Cheerfully anachronistic in the tastes and attitudes she bestows upon her heroines, Mrs. Radcliffe is equally inaccurate in her descriptions of monastic life, the historical surroundings,and, we are told by some critics, even in the landscapes she describes. But this annoys us no more than it would in a fairytale or an opera....Historical realism has as little relevance to her manner as would fully rounded characters, whose unpredictable activities would only get in the way of the total effect. Her fiction has other laws.
The Italian is a fast-paced read, with a lot happening in the first few chapters: love at first sight, warnings in the night, a family in turmoil, a kidnapping, a death, and mysterious characters lurking about. Not to mention quick travels through the Italian landscape...and yes, there really are such things as strawberry trees!
I liked Ellena very much. She was a gentle young lady, but she also had more spirit than I remember being shown in Emily, the heroine of Udolpho. When Ellena is confronting a tormentor, she regally declares You are now acquainted with my sentiments and my resolutions; I shall repeat them no more. You go, girl!
Our hero Vivaldi was also likeable, especially after two things happened: he quit seeming more like a stalker than a young lover (at first he was annoying, at least to me), and I finally somehow managed to cure myself of that little echo of music whenever I read his name. (I used to listen to a lot of Vivaldi.)
I even liked the villain Schedoni. He surprised me a time or two, but overall he was a perfectly evil villain, which was just what the story required. None of the characters felt over the top to me, whereas in Udolpho some were just too too. Here all the people seemed quite real and plausible, and all the mysterious events were eventually shown to have reasonable explanations.
I thought I had the whole tangled back story figured out at one point but I was only partly correct, which I was glad about because I would have hated for Schedoni to really be...well, who I thought he was. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and can certainly see myself giving it another reading someday, and looking for other Radcliffe titles to spend time with.
The basic pleasure in Mrs. Radcliffe's romances comes from a suspension of disbelief that leads to an enjoyment of the works of her fiction in and for itself. Cheerfully anachronistic in the tastes and attitudes she bestows upon her heroines, Mrs. Radcliffe is equally inaccurate in her descriptions of monastic life, the historical surroundings,and, we are told by some critics, even in the landscapes she describes. But this annoys us no more than it would in a fairytale or an opera....Historical realism has as little relevance to her manner as would fully rounded characters, whose unpredictable activities would only get in the way of the total effect. Her fiction has other laws.
The Italian is a fast-paced read, with a lot happening in the first few chapters: love at first sight, warnings in the night, a family in turmoil, a kidnapping, a death, and mysterious characters lurking about. Not to mention quick travels through the Italian landscape...and yes, there really are such things as strawberry trees!
I liked Ellena very much. She was a gentle young lady, but she also had more spirit than I remember being shown in Emily, the heroine of Udolpho. When Ellena is confronting a tormentor, she regally declares You are now acquainted with my sentiments and my resolutions; I shall repeat them no more. You go, girl!
Our hero Vivaldi was also likeable, especially after two things happened: he quit seeming more like a stalker than a young lover (at first he was annoying, at least to me), and I finally somehow managed to cure myself of that little echo of music whenever I read his name. (I used to listen to a lot of Vivaldi.)
I even liked the villain Schedoni. He surprised me a time or two, but overall he was a perfectly evil villain, which was just what the story required. None of the characters felt over the top to me, whereas in Udolpho some were just too too. Here all the people seemed quite real and plausible, and all the mysterious events were eventually shown to have reasonable explanations.
I thought I had the whole tangled back story figured out at one point but I was only partly correct, which I was glad about because I would have hated for Schedoni to really be...well, who I thought he was. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and can certainly see myself giving it another reading someday, and looking for other Radcliffe titles to spend time with.
June 19, 2014
Repulsed and inspired by Matthew Gregory Lewis’s graphic gothic novel, The Monk, Anne Radcliffe’s The Italian is a complexly plotted Romance (the term was derogatory then, although what they meant by a Romance then is not what we would derogatorily dismiss as a Romance now) about two chaste and naïve teens who fall madly in love with each other at first glance but then have their parade rained on by the boy’s mean-spirited mother and her minion, Schedoni, the conniving and ghoulish monk who chomps apart every scene he skulks through. Radcliffe’s writing is easy to swallow, and what she lacks in finesse she makes up for in her adeptness at ambience. This book is stuffed like a bloated Thanksgiving Turkey with oppressive and Sublime settings: dilapidated castle ruins, labyrinthine monasteries, vast stretches of mountains that can only be crossed via perilous paths, the dark dungeons of the Inquisition, and one spooky shack on a lonely beach that comes equipped with a homicidal recluse. The plot is propelled by overwrought melodrama and heightened emotional states, which can make for clunky reassessments of the tribulations our characters are constantly accosted with, and tautologically excessive expoundings of any given character’s internal strife. Most of the horrors revealed over the course of the plot will seem tame to the modern reader’s more morbid sensibilities, but Radcliffe does a bang-up job of straightening out all her tangled strands of intrigue before knitting it all back together again in a neat bow. A fun and moody escape for any reader wanting to delve into the gothic fiction genre of the late 18th century.
January 5, 2018
I was first introduced to Ann Radcliffe by Jane Austen, herself which some of her stories were mentioned in her Jane's novels. I have read almost all of her novels and the first time I read "The Italian" was about 5 years ago and loved it. While I was reading Charlotte Bronte's Shirley last year, Caroline made a comment about Radcliffe's "The Italian" and having a different opinion of the ending, I had to re read to see if I was wrong in my surmise. Quote from Shirley -' "But Rose," pursued Caroline , "I read a wanderer's life, for me at least, would end like that tale you are reading--in disappointment, vanity, and vexation of spirit." 'Unless she is being facetious, I can not understand her comment but maybe she was talking about the villian. Well, to me it was pure Gothic, romantic perfection! I am an old school romantic, which this story is all about that; feelings and winning over lady love. I especially love good verses evil where there is not such a gray line that is hard to decipher like in today's world. This story has romance, lots of mysteries, dungeons, castles, proud families, a tad of humor in Paulo and the Inquisition which is really a perfect blend in my eyes. The first time I read it I loved it, the second time I loved it more, for I was able to understand her passages of nature better this time around, which makes me want to read Udolpho, again in the future at some point. Thankfully to Goodreads, I keep better track of my reads and my ability of note taking, which I started last year and since the first time I read this I was not in the practice of this, I was able to this time. I read a Delphi collection and not this version, if your interested in any quotes or notes that will not give the story away.
August 26, 2014
There’s a recurring joke in The Italian where one character tries to convey a story to another character, making it much longer than it needs to be. The story often contains some very important information, such as someone’s death. The second character will frequently interrupt them, saying ‘just get on with it!’ but the first one will tell them to calm down and continue to tell their story at a meandering pace. Not only is joke very annoying – and even more-so once it happens for the fourth or fifth time – but to me it also seems like an apt metaphor for the novel it appears in. The Italian, to me, is annoying, repetitious and generally frustrating which is a massive shame seeing as though it was inspired by one of my favourite Gothic novels, The Monk. It just feels like a missed opportunity.
The Italian centres around Vivaldi and Ellena, a pair of youths who fall in love. Vivaldi comes from a very well-esteemed family while Ellena from the opposite, causing Vivaldi’s mother, the Marchesa, to try and put a stop to their relationship with the help of her Confessor – Father Schedoni. Much like The Monk, the most interesting character here is a monk. While I can’t deny Vivaldi’s servant Paulo has some genuinely funny moments, his master seems to be nothing more than a stock 'follow your passion and listen to your heart' do-gooder. Ellena, while showing some glimmer of agency, spends most of the novel being kidnapped and freed… and kidnapped again. In Gothic novels it often seems as though the villains shine the most. There have been many villains better than Schedoni, but Radcliffe at least manages to put a nice spin on him with the twist of Ellena being his daughter (and then not really). Most the characters however, are forgettable. Even Paulo – who stood out as a favourite – is someone that I just wanted to shake and tell to shut up some times. A lot of the story’s emotional weight hinges on me caring about the characters. I just can’t though. The good guys are too goodie-goodie for me to relate to or worry about.
Let’s discuss the major themes of the novel then, shall we? (Sorry fans of The Italian, but it looks like the positives are going to be far and few in this review.) Passion is Vivaldi’s driving force in the novel and instead of making his relationship with Ellena more romantic, it just makes him seem like an idiot. Sure, true love wins in the end and they get to live happily ever after, but I find it hard to believe that he’d want to commit his life to Ellena after only knowing her for a few hours. Ellena tries to sway him off because she knows things are going to go sour, but he ignores her and… Hey, guess what? He gets her aunty killed, her kildnapped by a band of nuns (who try to force her to become a nun), threatened with murder and even more stuff down the line. Gee whizz, Vivaldi, I bet Ellena is glad you followed your heart? The other major theme, I guess, is corruption as shown through the Marchesa and more prominently with the church. This is where the parallels with The Monk are most obvious, with the church being portrayed as the most powerful organisation, having the ability to do away with anyone they want with a snap of their fingers. I enjoyed how their power was rarely addressed directly by the novel, looming in the background, and found it to be one of the more positive aspects of The Italian. (Okay, there’s my one positive.)
Repetition is often one of the things that irritates me in novels the most. If a novel finds itself going over the same plot-points and character moments repeatedly, then it shows that either the writer doesn’t know what to do next or are trying to make their story longer than it should naturally be. This is why Richardson’s Pamela is my least favourite novel. For a novel that’s over 200,000 words long (a fair chunk longer than the last Harry Potter book) there is virtually no plot. Similarly, The Italian seems to spend too much time on the characters simply travelling, as well as them getting kidnapped repeatedly. Maybe if Radcliffe had a good editor I would’ve enjoyed reading her book a bit more. Maybe it wouldn’t have felt like such a chore.
I feel like I may have been overly mean in this review, but I thought I’d just be honest. I’m not a fan of The Italian. Let’s hope the next review I post is at least marginally more positive.
The Italian centres around Vivaldi and Ellena, a pair of youths who fall in love. Vivaldi comes from a very well-esteemed family while Ellena from the opposite, causing Vivaldi’s mother, the Marchesa, to try and put a stop to their relationship with the help of her Confessor – Father Schedoni. Much like The Monk, the most interesting character here is a monk. While I can’t deny Vivaldi’s servant Paulo has some genuinely funny moments, his master seems to be nothing more than a stock 'follow your passion and listen to your heart' do-gooder. Ellena, while showing some glimmer of agency, spends most of the novel being kidnapped and freed… and kidnapped again. In Gothic novels it often seems as though the villains shine the most. There have been many villains better than Schedoni, but Radcliffe at least manages to put a nice spin on him with the twist of Ellena being his daughter (and then not really). Most the characters however, are forgettable. Even Paulo – who stood out as a favourite – is someone that I just wanted to shake and tell to shut up some times. A lot of the story’s emotional weight hinges on me caring about the characters. I just can’t though. The good guys are too goodie-goodie for me to relate to or worry about.
Let’s discuss the major themes of the novel then, shall we? (Sorry fans of The Italian, but it looks like the positives are going to be far and few in this review.) Passion is Vivaldi’s driving force in the novel and instead of making his relationship with Ellena more romantic, it just makes him seem like an idiot. Sure, true love wins in the end and they get to live happily ever after, but I find it hard to believe that he’d want to commit his life to Ellena after only knowing her for a few hours. Ellena tries to sway him off because she knows things are going to go sour, but he ignores her and… Hey, guess what? He gets her aunty killed, her kildnapped by a band of nuns (who try to force her to become a nun), threatened with murder and even more stuff down the line. Gee whizz, Vivaldi, I bet Ellena is glad you followed your heart? The other major theme, I guess, is corruption as shown through the Marchesa and more prominently with the church. This is where the parallels with The Monk are most obvious, with the church being portrayed as the most powerful organisation, having the ability to do away with anyone they want with a snap of their fingers. I enjoyed how their power was rarely addressed directly by the novel, looming in the background, and found it to be one of the more positive aspects of The Italian. (Okay, there’s my one positive.)
Repetition is often one of the things that irritates me in novels the most. If a novel finds itself going over the same plot-points and character moments repeatedly, then it shows that either the writer doesn’t know what to do next or are trying to make their story longer than it should naturally be. This is why Richardson’s Pamela is my least favourite novel. For a novel that’s over 200,000 words long (a fair chunk longer than the last Harry Potter book) there is virtually no plot. Similarly, The Italian seems to spend too much time on the characters simply travelling, as well as them getting kidnapped repeatedly. Maybe if Radcliffe had a good editor I would’ve enjoyed reading her book a bit more. Maybe it wouldn’t have felt like such a chore.
I feel like I may have been overly mean in this review, but I thought I’d just be honest. I’m not a fan of The Italian. Let’s hope the next review I post is at least marginally more positive.
April 29, 2017
Επιτέλους τελος. Αυτο το βιβλιο το είχα
αρχίσει πάνω απο δέκα χρονια πριν , αλλα το είχα εγκαταληψει . Πίστευα πως δεν θα το τελείωνα ποτε τον ποτών . Κι ομως . Τα ξαναπιασα και το τελείωσα αυτη τη φορα . Η Ρατκλφ-οπως και αρκετοί συγγραφείς του 18ου αιώνα -εχει ενα σοβαρό θεμα περνάνε απίστευτες σελίδες ώσπου να μπεις στο ζουμί, στην πλοκή , και στη λύση .
Είχα δει πριν λιγο καιρο ενα ντοκυμαντέρ για το πως το ρομάντζο έφτιαξε την ιδεα και το στυλ με το οποίο ερωτευόμαστε . " Ο Ιταλός " βεβαια δεν ειναι ρομάντζο αλλα ενα γοτθικό μυθιστόρημα . Παρ'ολα αυτα εχει ολα τα κλισέ ενός ρομαντζου. Κλισέ; για μας ναι . Για την εποχη του ηταν σχεδόν πρωτότυπα .
Η ιστορια ηταν απλή. Με αδρές γραμμές: ενας νεαρός αριστοκράτης ερωτευτεαι μια νεαρή κοπέλα χωρις χρήματα και κατώτερης κοινωνικής ταξης. Η οικογένεια του αρνηται αυτόν τον δεσμό και το επακόλουθο του , τον γάμο . Η μητέρα του με τον εξομολογητή της στήνουν απίστευτες δολοπλοκίες για να τους χωρίσουν . Οι δυο νέοι περνούν του λιναργιου τα πάθη , μέχρι το happy end .
Παντως αυτού του ειδους τα βιβλία έγιναν η πρώτη ύλη για ολα τα επόμενα και για τις λατινοαμερικανικές σαπουνόπερες . Σε κάποια σημεία γίνονται σχεδόν αστεια .
Παντως σε γενικές γραμμές ηταν καλο .
Readathon 2017 15/26 :ενα βιβλιο που είχα παρατήσει
αρχίσει πάνω απο δέκα χρονια πριν , αλλα το είχα εγκαταληψει . Πίστευα πως δεν θα το τελείωνα ποτε τον ποτών . Κι ομως . Τα ξαναπιασα και το τελείωσα αυτη τη φορα . Η Ρατκλφ-οπως και αρκετοί συγγραφείς του 18ου αιώνα -εχει ενα σοβαρό θεμα περνάνε απίστευτες σελίδες ώσπου να μπεις στο ζουμί, στην πλοκή , και στη λύση .
Είχα δει πριν λιγο καιρο ενα ντοκυμαντέρ για το πως το ρομάντζο έφτιαξε την ιδεα και το στυλ με το οποίο ερωτευόμαστε . " Ο Ιταλός " βεβαια δεν ειναι ρομάντζο αλλα ενα γοτθικό μυθιστόρημα . Παρ'ολα αυτα εχει ολα τα κλισέ ενός ρομαντζου. Κλισέ; για μας ναι . Για την εποχη του ηταν σχεδόν πρωτότυπα .
Η ιστορια ηταν απλή. Με αδρές γραμμές: ενας νεαρός αριστοκράτης ερωτευτεαι μια νεαρή κοπέλα χωρις χρήματα και κατώτερης κοινωνικής ταξης. Η οικογένεια του αρνηται αυτόν τον δεσμό και το επακόλουθο του , τον γάμο . Η μητέρα του με τον εξομολογητή της στήνουν απίστευτες δολοπλοκίες για να τους χωρίσουν . Οι δυο νέοι περνούν του λιναργιου τα πάθη , μέχρι το happy end .
Παντως αυτού του ειδους τα βιβλία έγιναν η πρώτη ύλη για ολα τα επόμενα και για τις λατινοαμερικανικές σαπουνόπερες . Σε κάποια σημεία γίνονται σχεδόν αστεια .
Παντως σε γενικές γραμμές ηταν καλο .
Readathon 2017 15/26 :ενα βιβλιο που είχα παρατήσει
December 11, 2011
This is the first time I've read a book that had me force myself through the first half, to then discover something of the most wonderful literature I can remember.
Therefore, it's very hard to grade The Italian. It's a slow, difficult read as much as a wonderful, subtle, psychological piece of work. The naive Vivaldi falls in love at first sight with the lovely, but poor Ellena. His mother, the Marchesa, does everything in her power to stop them seeing each other. She contacts her confessor, the monk Schedoni, who suggests a horrible action towards Ellena, and claims that's the only way to separate them. She has do die. Sounds evil, but his proposition isn't that unintelligible when you get to know more about him. Let's leave that for now.
Then, Ellena is kidnapped and imprisoned in a monastery. Thereafter, there are so many twists and turns when the story unfolds that I can't even remember them all. But every character has his or her place and there's a reason they are created.
Schedoni steals the show, as really masterful villains sometimes do, but only if they are masterful enough. He's the most deceitful, deceiving, cynical, least favorable character, but at the same time the most complex. I had a hard time getting to know him, because I couldn't decide whether he is good deep down or not. Of course, he is a ruthless villain with plenty of evil deeds behind him, but it seems he has a conscience, after all.
Spoilers
For instance, he has some remorse about killing Ellena. He has plenty of opportunities even before he knows who she really is. I won't call him a byronic hero, but I'm aware that he inspired the gothic protagonists in the following centuries such as Rochester, Heathcliff and even Mr de Winter.
He was complicated enough as it were. Then, all of a sudden, a surprise even to himself, he's the father of Ellena!
And as if that wasn't enough, I mean, perhaps there were people who thought his conspiracy with the Marchesa towards the lovely young couple wasn't ruthless enough, Radcliffe had some other surprises up her sleeve, as well.
What about this: He murdered his brother, forced a marriage with his brother's wife and then killed her for not returning his feelings for her, whereupon he left her and at the same time his own, infant daughter. That's what I meant when I stated that Schedoni's suggestion about killing Ellena was logical to him. He, himself, had killed his OWN brother in want of his wife, Olivia. He knows that it's hard to force people in love apart, and people goes to great lengths to achieve the ones they love. He certainly did and it consumed him.
Schedoni turns out to be nothing like a monk at all, but sought himself to that kind of life after his sins, perhaps for redemption. Unfortunately, his vicious ways leads him into muddy circumstances yet again.
And then, to really stir everything up, it turns out that he isn't Ellenas father, after all, but her uncle, something he never becomes aware of. His wife had two daughters in her two marriages. One with the first Count di Bruno and one with Schedoni.
And if anyone anywhere think this isn't enough complicated story lines intertwined, Radcliffe presents us with yet another twist; Ellenas mother, Schedoni's involuntary wife, isn't dead at all, but had taken refugee after the murder attempt to the very monastery where Ellena herself was imprisoned.
A very complicated story, and that's not all. There are constant twists that make you want to know how it's going to affect the characters.
One of many quotations I liked was this:
"It may be worthy of observation, that the virtues of Olivia, exerted in general cause, had thus led her unconsciously to the happiness of saving her daughter; while the vices of Schedoni had as unconsciously urged him nearly to destroy his niece, and had always been preventing, by the means they prompted him to employ, the success of his constant aim."
End of spoilers
Of course, everyone in the book spent their time being confused. I was very confused!
No one in this book is what they seem to be. It was unnerving to never know what secrets the next chapter was going to reveal, but I really like feeling that way when reading a gothic book, or any book at all, for that matter.
I don't know whether to give it three or four stars. I suppose I would like to give it something in between. The construction of the plot is fantastic, but unfortunately it's slow at times. Especially the first half of the book, I found myself question whether I could endure it. Furthermore, the language is that of the muddle, philosophical, long-sentenced nature. Beautiful, but not very easy to digest and it takes some time to really understand everything that's going on, especially between the lines.
But then, it paid off. Such an amazing story with such interesting characters and such thrilling occurrences between persons!
The story is about so much more than complex relationships. It's about moral, disguise on several levels, sin and persecution. It was interesting to read about the religious conventions of the time that affected the population in different ways. The last chapters focus on the trial by the Holy Inquisition, where both Vivaldi and Schedoni are accused.
To people who like gothic fiction, I can recommend this, but it is a difficult read and takes some time.
Therefore, it's very hard to grade The Italian. It's a slow, difficult read as much as a wonderful, subtle, psychological piece of work. The naive Vivaldi falls in love at first sight with the lovely, but poor Ellena. His mother, the Marchesa, does everything in her power to stop them seeing each other. She contacts her confessor, the monk Schedoni, who suggests a horrible action towards Ellena, and claims that's the only way to separate them. She has do die. Sounds evil, but his proposition isn't that unintelligible when you get to know more about him. Let's leave that for now.
Then, Ellena is kidnapped and imprisoned in a monastery. Thereafter, there are so many twists and turns when the story unfolds that I can't even remember them all. But every character has his or her place and there's a reason they are created.
Schedoni steals the show, as really masterful villains sometimes do, but only if they are masterful enough. He's the most deceitful, deceiving, cynical, least favorable character, but at the same time the most complex. I had a hard time getting to know him, because I couldn't decide whether he is good deep down or not. Of course, he is a ruthless villain with plenty of evil deeds behind him, but it seems he has a conscience, after all.
Spoilers
For instance, he has some remorse about killing Ellena. He has plenty of opportunities even before he knows who she really is. I won't call him a byronic hero, but I'm aware that he inspired the gothic protagonists in the following centuries such as Rochester, Heathcliff and even Mr de Winter.
He was complicated enough as it were. Then, all of a sudden, a surprise even to himself, he's the father of Ellena!
And as if that wasn't enough, I mean, perhaps there were people who thought his conspiracy with the Marchesa towards the lovely young couple wasn't ruthless enough, Radcliffe had some other surprises up her sleeve, as well.
What about this: He murdered his brother, forced a marriage with his brother's wife and then killed her for not returning his feelings for her, whereupon he left her and at the same time his own, infant daughter. That's what I meant when I stated that Schedoni's suggestion about killing Ellena was logical to him. He, himself, had killed his OWN brother in want of his wife, Olivia. He knows that it's hard to force people in love apart, and people goes to great lengths to achieve the ones they love. He certainly did and it consumed him.
Schedoni turns out to be nothing like a monk at all, but sought himself to that kind of life after his sins, perhaps for redemption. Unfortunately, his vicious ways leads him into muddy circumstances yet again.
And then, to really stir everything up, it turns out that he isn't Ellenas father, after all, but her uncle, something he never becomes aware of. His wife had two daughters in her two marriages. One with the first Count di Bruno and one with Schedoni.
And if anyone anywhere think this isn't enough complicated story lines intertwined, Radcliffe presents us with yet another twist; Ellenas mother, Schedoni's involuntary wife, isn't dead at all, but had taken refugee after the murder attempt to the very monastery where Ellena herself was imprisoned.
A very complicated story, and that's not all. There are constant twists that make you want to know how it's going to affect the characters.
One of many quotations I liked was this:
"It may be worthy of observation, that the virtues of Olivia, exerted in general cause, had thus led her unconsciously to the happiness of saving her daughter; while the vices of Schedoni had as unconsciously urged him nearly to destroy his niece, and had always been preventing, by the means they prompted him to employ, the success of his constant aim."
End of spoilers
Of course, everyone in the book spent their time being confused. I was very confused!
No one in this book is what they seem to be. It was unnerving to never know what secrets the next chapter was going to reveal, but I really like feeling that way when reading a gothic book, or any book at all, for that matter.
I don't know whether to give it three or four stars. I suppose I would like to give it something in between. The construction of the plot is fantastic, but unfortunately it's slow at times. Especially the first half of the book, I found myself question whether I could endure it. Furthermore, the language is that of the muddle, philosophical, long-sentenced nature. Beautiful, but not very easy to digest and it takes some time to really understand everything that's going on, especially between the lines.
But then, it paid off. Such an amazing story with such interesting characters and such thrilling occurrences between persons!
The story is about so much more than complex relationships. It's about moral, disguise on several levels, sin and persecution. It was interesting to read about the religious conventions of the time that affected the population in different ways. The last chapters focus on the trial by the Holy Inquisition, where both Vivaldi and Schedoni are accused.
To people who like gothic fiction, I can recommend this, but it is a difficult read and takes some time.
October 22, 2020
This is Ann Radcliffe's second best-known work right after The Mysteries of Udolpho. I found this great and very exciting, although I certainly do not reach the level of excitement that The Mysteries of Udolpho reached me. In the well-known style of the author is of course, with the nice melancholy atmosphere, the sentimentality and the amazing descriptions of the landscapes that are often used to describe the psychosynthesis of the heroes. The issue at first glance is very simple: a strong love story with lovers facing many obstacles and many adventures and upheavals against the backdrop of the Italian monasteries of the eighteenth century. But I feel that there are many more things in it. The issue that comes up again and again through its pages is the injustice of the institutions and the reluctance of those who witness it to denounce it or even to correct it. Our heroes are constantly confronted with people who for their own purposes resort to any means to prevent them from doing their will, with religion being one of the main excuses for it. Of course, they resist and raise their stature against this system that seems insurmountable and any attempt against it is doomed. Looks like, I dare to say, this work to be a critique of the political and religious establishment that when this book was being written seemed to be slowly falling apart and with a call to everyone to take their responsibilities. The author manages in a very nice way to connect these two elements, thus creating a fascinating and very moving novel that has the necessary depth. In conclusion, although I find this book a little inferior to The Mysteries of Udolpho, it makes me raise her a little higher in my estimation.
Αυτό εδώ είναι το δεύτερο πιο γνωστό έργο της Ann Radcliffe αμέσως μετά το The Mysteries of Udolpho. Εξαιρετικό το βρήκα και αυτό και ιδιαίτερα συναρπαστικό αν και σίγουρα δεν φτάνω στο επίπεδο ενθουσιασμού που με έφτασε το The Mysteries of Udolpho. Στο γνωστό στυλ της συγγραφέως είναι φυσικά, με την ωραία μελαγχολική ατμόσφαιρα, το συναισθηματισμό και τις εκπληκτικές περιγραφές των τοπίων που χρησιμοποιούνται πολλές φορές για την περιγραφή της ψυχοσύνθεσης των ηρώων. Το θέμα εκ πρώτης όψεως είναι πολύ απλό: μία δυνατή ερωτική ιστορία με τους εραστές να αντιμετωπίζουμε πολλά εμπόδια και πολλές περιπέτειες και ανατροπές με φόντο τα ιταλικά μοναστήρια του δέκατου όγδοου αιώνα. Νιώθω όμως ότι υπάρχουν αρκετά περισσότερα πράγματα μέσα σε αυτό. Το θέμα που επανέρχεται ξανά και ξανά μέσα από τις σελίδες του είναι η αδικία των θεσμών και ο δισταγμός αυτών που γίνονται μάρτυρες της να την καταγγείλουν ή ακόμα και να τη διορθώσουν. Οι ήρωες μας έρχονται συνέχεια αντιμέτωποι με ανθρώπους που για τους δικούς τους σκοπούς καταφεύγουν σε κάθε μέσο για να τους εμποδίσουν να κάνουν το θέλημά τους, με τη θρησκεία να είναι μία από τις βασικές δικαιολογίες για αυτό. Φυσικά αντιστέκονται και υψώνουν το ανάστημά τους απέναντι σε αυτό το σύστημα που μοιάζει ανυπέρβλητο και κάθε προσπάθεια απέναντί του καταδικασμένη. Μοιάζει τολμώ να πω αυτό το έργο με μία κριτική απέναντι στα πολιτικά και θρησκευτικά κατεστημένα που όταν γραφόταν αυτό το βιβλίο φαίνονταν σιγά-σιγά να γκρεμίζονται και με ένα κάλεσμα ίσως στον καθένα να αναλάβει τις ευθύνες του. Η συγγραφέας καταφέρνει με έναν πολύ ωραίο τρόπο να συνδέσει αυτά τα δύο στοιχεία, δημιουργώντας έτσι ένα συναρπαστικό και πολύ συγκινητικό μυθιστόρημα που διαθέτει ένα απαραίτητο βάθος. Εν κατακλείδι αν και βρίσκω λίγο υποδεέστερο αυτό το βιβλίο από το The Mysteries of Udolpho με κάνει να την ανεβάσω λίγο παραπάνω στην εκτίμηση μου.
Αυτό εδώ είναι το δεύτερο πιο γνωστό έργο της Ann Radcliffe αμέσως μετά το The Mysteries of Udolpho. Εξαιρετικό το βρήκα και αυτό και ιδιαίτερα συναρπαστικό αν και σίγουρα δεν φτάνω στο επίπεδο ενθουσιασμού που με έφτασε το The Mysteries of Udolpho. Στο γνωστό στυλ της συγγραφέως είναι φυσικά, με την ωραία μελαγχολική ατμόσφαιρα, το συναισθηματισμό και τις εκπληκτικές περιγραφές των τοπίων που χρησιμοποιούνται πολλές φορές για την περιγραφή της ψυχοσύνθεσης των ηρώων. Το θέμα εκ πρώτης όψεως είναι πολύ απλό: μία δυνατή ερωτική ιστορία με τους εραστές να αντιμετωπίζουμε πολλά εμπόδια και πολλές περιπέτειες και ανατροπές με φόντο τα ιταλικά μοναστήρια του δέκατου όγδοου αιώνα. Νιώθω όμως ότι υπάρχουν αρκετά περισσότερα πράγματα μέσα σε αυτό. Το θέμα που επανέρχεται ξανά και ξανά μέσα από τις σελίδες του είναι η αδικία των θεσμών και ο δισταγμός αυτών που γίνονται μάρτυρες της να την καταγγείλουν ή ακόμα και να τη διορθώσουν. Οι ήρωες μας έρχονται συνέχεια αντιμέτωποι με ανθρώπους που για τους δικούς τους σκοπούς καταφεύγουν σε κάθε μέσο για να τους εμποδίσουν να κάνουν το θέλημά τους, με τη θρησκεία να είναι μία από τις βασικές δικαιολογίες για αυτό. Φυσικά αντιστέκονται και υψώνουν το ανάστημά τους απέναντι σε αυτό το σύστημα που μοιάζει ανυπέρβλητο και κάθε προσπάθεια απέναντί του καταδικασμένη. Μοιάζει τολμώ να πω αυτό το έργο με μία κριτική απέναντι στα πολιτικά και θρησκευτικά κατεστημένα που όταν γραφόταν αυτό το βιβλίο φαίνονταν σιγά-σιγά να γκρεμίζονται και με ένα κάλεσμα ίσως στον καθένα να αναλάβει τις ευθύνες του. Η συγγραφέας καταφέρνει με έναν πολύ ωραίο τρόπο να συνδέσει αυτά τα δύο στοιχεία, δημιουργώντας έτσι ένα συναρπαστικό και πολύ συγκινητικό μυθιστόρημα που διαθέτει ένα απαραίτητο βάθος. Εν κατακλείδι αν και βρίσκω λίγο υποδεέστερο αυτό το βιβλίο από το The Mysteries of Udolpho με κάνει να την ανεβάσω λίγο παραπάνω στην εκτίμηση μου.
March 13, 2025
Um. . .
September 23, 2015
4.8
"Volvía la mirada hacía el pasado y esperaba el futuro con una especie de desalentada desesperación"
Ann Radcliffe ostenta el título de ser la “Madre de la Literatura Gótica” , y no de forma inmerecida. Todo comienza cuando la joven Radcliffe, un año después de contraer matrimonio, escribe su primera novela a por pura pasión, sin darse cuenta de la magnitud de lo que estaba creando. Al principio las ventas fueron escasas, pero poco a poco surgieron admiradores de su prosa (sobre todo gente con dinero/cuna) y al final de su vida gozaba de una gran reputación como escritora.
El problema de Radcliffe es que el tiempo la ha tratado mal, nadie (a no ser que ahonde bastante este género) conoce a esta autora. Mucha gente conoce a Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe o a la mismísima Jane Austen, pero lo que no sabe el mundo es que detrás de aquellos grandiosos relatos y novelas se esconde la indiscutible influencia de Ann Ward Radcliffe.
Decidí que, al tratarse una figura tan interesante en la literatura en general, debía leerla. Y cuál es mi sorpresa al toparme con una escritora tan intimista y sensible que sabe y plasma la esencia del paisaje con una maestría tal vez nunca antes alcanzada.
El Italiano narra la historia de amor ocurrida en 1758, poco tiempo antes de que un grupo de ingleses viajeros, en 1764, visiten el antiguo convento de la orden de los penitentes negros. Allí, ven una figura muy extraña arrebujada en una capa negra que el fraile del lugar asegura que es un asesino pero que se ha cogido a lo sagrado y la justicia no puede hacer nada. Les exhorta a todo este grupito de guiris a que lean cierto documento para descubrir el porqué de que ese hombre vague por aquellos pasillos esperando la muerte por cobardía a enfrentarse a su verdadero destino.
En aquel documento narra los amores de Ellena Di Rosalba y el hijo del marqués Di Vivaldi, Vicentio. Ella, no es pobre pero tampoco de noble familia, huérfana de padres además. Él, noble, joven, cae rendido nada más ver a Ellena, cubierta levemente con un velo, en los oficios matutinos de la iglesia de San Lorenzo de Nápoles. Pero su unión no es vista con buenos ojos por los padres de él, y ella su orgullo le impide colarse en una familia que no la quiere. Ambos sufren penurias juntos y separados por la familia de Vicentio y acaban descubriendo ciertas verdades sobre el pasado de sus parientes.
La novela tiene las características típicas de la novela gótica; atmósfera de misterio, ruinas (o lugares muy lóbregos tipo catacumbas), elementos sobrenaturales, personajes atormentados por la culpa o con principios morales casi nulos, protagonista atípica…
La atmósfera de misterio reina durante toda la lectura, pero en algunos puntos la autora la intensifica más, sobre todo cuando se hallan bajo tierra o en lugares en decadencia. Siempre aparece un elemento sobrenatural, ya sea una persona que tiene complejo de fantasma, como un asesino al que se quiere desenmascarar pero que de nuevo tiene complejo de fantasma… Una delicia para los sentidos.
Elementos sobrenaturales. Demasiados. Además, la autora a través de los sentimientos de los protagonistas plasma el paisaje. Cuando Ellena sufre, el mundo se torna gris ceniciento, tormentoso, con el mar embravecido…
Personajes atormentados por la culpa. El ejemplo perfecto es Schedoni, un religioso que conspira contra la pareja pero que más adelante todo aquello que ha difamado se le volverá contra él. Un monstruo, vamos.
Protagonista atípica. Ellena Di Rosalba es un personaje fascinante. Nunca pensé que un libro escrito en el siglo XVIII pudiese contener tal tesoro. Ellena siempre antepone su orgullo a todo lo demás. Y podréis pensar que ser tan egoísta está mal pero el respeto por una misma prevalece antes que cualquier cosa. Gracias Ellena por ilustrarme a mí, y a muchas antes que yo.
"Mi dignidad, mi dignidad ofendida, tiene derecho a dictar mi conducta, y debo plegarme a ella; y quizá ha llegado el momento, si quiero respetarme a mí misma, de tener que renunciar a ti"
(Aprovecho para hacer un breve inciso y decir que los libros de Ann Radcliffe influyeron notoriamente a Mary Wollstonecraft , madre de Mary Shelley (Frankenstein), feminista de la primera ola.)
Los personajes no tienen una evolución visible, porque no es un libro donde transcurra un largo periodo de tiempo. Esto no quiere decir que no estén debidamente profundizados y trabajados, para nada, aviso.
Como podréis suponer la ambientación es una parte esencial de la obra. Aunque priman los sentimientos de los personajes, esta no queda en segundo plano. Como ya dije antes a través de la ambientación los personajes exteriorizan sus sentimientos en muchas ocasiones (no por regla general, ojo pero a veces).
Lo único “malo” que podría decir de la obra es que tal vez se hace un poco pesada a veces, sobre todo cuando llegas al final. Cuando ya quieres saberlo todo, la autora va a su ritmo y a mí, reconozco, me ha exasperado un poco. Nada que no se pueda arreglar con un poco de paciencia por mi parte, vaya.
Por último voy a pasar al estilo y todas esas cosas por las que algunas personas dejan de leer libros que merecen la pena como este. El estilo es florido, con muchos adjetivos y adverbios y frases largas. Le da bastantes vueltas a lo que quiere expresar. ¿Es conciso? Sí y no, porque a pesar de que le da bastantes vueltas a lo mismo siempre te va soltando información hasta que compones un collage con todo. El ritmo de lectura es desigual, hay partes que se pueden hacer pesadas, y otras no tanto. Hay algo de acción pero es casi nula. Por supuesto, tiene una calidad literaria indiscutible. Donde más destaca Radcliffe es como va tejiendo lentamente los sentimientos de los personajes, sentimientos complicados de expresar, ella consigue con maestría hacerlo. Y bueno, lo que es la novela gótica de la primera ola se lo debemos casi todo a ella. Si eso no es calidad literaria, no sé qué puede ser.
El italiano es una obra que aunque desconocida para la mayor parte de lectores no puede esconder su grandiosa calidad literaria y su forma de llegar al lector, tan oscura y diferente. Una novela que no ha dejado de sorprenderme ni con el final.
July 10, 2021
4🌟 Nos situamos en Nápoles en 1758, un joven de buena familia, Vicente Vivaldi, se enamora perdidamente de una jovencita, Elena Rosalba, procedente de familia algo ilustre en el pasado pero venida a menos. Elena también lo ama, pero es consciente de que la familia de él no la va a aceptar y no se equivoca. Los marqueses no quieren que su hijo se case con ella, considerándolo una ofensa a su apellido y familia. Vivaldi se mantiene firme y su madre se niega rotundamente a que esta jovenzuela atrape a su hijo. Su confesor, un monje ambicioso y altivo que podría tener lengua viperina, se alía con ella y la ayuda a realizar sus malas artes para así evitar este casamiento tan inconveniente. Elena será raptada y encerrada en un monasterio en manos de una cruel abadesa. Vivaldi no descansará hasta recuperar a su amada. A lo largo de la historia también conoceremos el contenido de una confesión, y al autor de la misma, que se hizo en el pasado en el confesionario de los Penitentes Negros y que dejó altamente turbado al sacerdote que la escuchó debido a su malignidad.
Monasterios sombríos, castillos derruidos, subterráneos oscuros con pasadizos interminables y celdas siniestras. Tormentas que presagian un futuro incierto, asesinatos, cadáveres, aislamiento, intentos de huida y persecuciones, encierro y crueldad. Secretos oscuros e historias del pasado que contienen actos perversos salen a la luz.
Una atmósfera y unos escenarios muy bien retratados. El ritmo y el estilo de narrar me han gustado, no se me ha hecho lento ni tedioso, al contrario. La trama y su desarrollo me han convencido. Alguna cosa me ha resultado predecible pero tiene giros que me han sorprendido y considero que la autora consigue hilar todo muy bien al final. El personaje que más me tenía interesada era el monje Schedoni, el confesor de la madre de Vivaldi.
Lo recomiendo para todo aquel que guste del género gótico y de cierto apasionamiento romántico.
Monasterios sombríos, castillos derruidos, subterráneos oscuros con pasadizos interminables y celdas siniestras. Tormentas que presagian un futuro incierto, asesinatos, cadáveres, aislamiento, intentos de huida y persecuciones, encierro y crueldad. Secretos oscuros e historias del pasado que contienen actos perversos salen a la luz.
Una atmósfera y unos escenarios muy bien retratados. El ritmo y el estilo de narrar me han gustado, no se me ha hecho lento ni tedioso, al contrario. La trama y su desarrollo me han convencido. Alguna cosa me ha resultado predecible pero tiene giros que me han sorprendido y considero que la autora consigue hilar todo muy bien al final. El personaje que más me tenía interesada era el monje Schedoni, el confesor de la madre de Vivaldi.
Lo recomiendo para todo aquel que guste del género gótico y de cierto apasionamiento romántico.
January 26, 2021
3.5 stars, to be accurate.
I think my 3-star ratings might sometimes lead people to think that I didn't enjoy the book or that it's just average, when it's not, and in this case I enjoyed it tremendously. But there's some significant tropes/repetitions common to genre fiction, in this case Gothic literature, that don't quite elevate it to a 4-star rating, which makes me a bit of a snob, but so be it.
However this has made me reconsider my rating for The Mysteries of Udolpho and maybe bump that up to 4 stars, because it's a bit of a wild and uncontained book, and though technically The Italian is the more contained, mature effort, Udolpho might be the more interesting book.
I think my 3-star ratings might sometimes lead people to think that I didn't enjoy the book or that it's just average, when it's not, and in this case I enjoyed it tremendously. But there's some significant tropes/repetitions common to genre fiction, in this case Gothic literature, that don't quite elevate it to a 4-star rating, which makes me a bit of a snob, but so be it.
However this has made me reconsider my rating for The Mysteries of Udolpho and maybe bump that up to 4 stars, because it's a bit of a wild and uncontained book, and though technically The Italian is the more contained, mature effort, Udolpho might be the more interesting book.
Read
July 15, 2024DNF
Okay about 50 pages in and I give up... I guess I just can't handle a gothic 18th century melodrama no matter how hard I try... the version I picked up is packaged with Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen... time to skip to the reason I picked up the book in the first place... Austen.
(Reviewed 5/2/09)
Okay about 50 pages in and I give up... I guess I just can't handle a gothic 18th century melodrama no matter how hard I try... the version I picked up is packaged with Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen... time to skip to the reason I picked up the book in the first place... Austen.
(Reviewed 5/2/09)
February 19, 2025
Super dramatic and fun, with twists and turns I didn’t see coming. I loved to hate the villains, thought Paulo was a fun sidekick to Vivaldi (the Sancho to his Quixote) and really enjoyed Ellena as a female lead. I found Vivaldi to be over the top (as per the usual for this time period) and didn’t enjoy him as much as Ellena.
June 4, 2021
Let me say first that this is not a book for everyone. (What book is?) Specifically, this came from a time when people binged reading instead of TV (but they would've binged TV if they'd had it, right?) and also couldn't really go anywhere (waitaminute) due to the time and expense of traveling. There's a lot of words, is what I'm saying, here. And many of the words are travelogue material, which makes the fact that Mrs. Radcliffe never went to Italy all the more delightful.
It really is an exotic land, isn't it?
You can tell because the title of the book is "The Italian". But the book takes place in Italy (Naples and Rome, primarily) so...isn't EVERYONE an Italian? Shhhh. The purpose of the title is to signal to English readers in 1797 that this is a wondrous tale of a fantastical land where mysterious religious rituals (Roman Catholicism) and a barbarous Inquisition give rise to unholy supernatural events.
Well, not really supernatural. In fact, not at ALL, supernatural as H.P. Lovecraft pointed out with some asperity. Speaking of "asperity", Mrs. Radcliffe has written the greatest sentence using forms of said word, which ends:
...the most unfeeling must have yielded for once to indignation against the asperser, and pity of the aspersed.
Take that, Chris Claremont!
OK, ok, so. This is the story of a rich prince who falls in love with a poor girl and whose mother sets out to destroy said girl with the aid of an Evil Monk. Perhaps even...The Italian Monk! The prince then sets out to save the future princess (because, come on, you know how this is going to end) at his own peril and ends them both up in even hotter water.
I was rather embarrassed by one of the twists, which I saw coming as soon as I got the premise of the book, because I'd read it so many times, as lately as...mm....The Son of Tarzan...so 1920ish—but I'd actually forgotten by the time I got there, so I was genuinely surprised. Mrs. Radcliffe may have pioneered the trope, I don't know, but she certainly established it.
She established a lot of tropes, in fact, that would cling to the popular culture until the advent of the 1969 SatAM series "Scooby Doo", which may have killed a lot of them once and for all, though they survived Bob Hope and Abbot and Costello and so on.
I thought HPL was being a bit crusty complaining about the "Mr. Withers!" type reveal at the end where all the supernatural elements are explained away as figments of superstitious (Italian!) minds, but I ended up agreeing with him. The "rational" explanation is something of a let-down, and the best moments of the book are when something spooky is going on.
Look, this is 170K words of glorious 18th century pulp—about twice the length of a modern genre novel—and you're not going to like it, unless you are. And you probably know if you are. If not, read The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne and imagine it being FOUR TIMES AS LONG. If that excites you, go ahead on this one.
There is one trope that got to me: Mrs. Radcliffe introduces a character who has all kinds of relevant information but will only reveal it after much unnecessary context. This character is sort of amusing when he's tormenting The Monk, though the joke goes too far. But then she introduces a SECOND character of a similar nature AT THE CLIMAX OF THE BOOK. Now you're just tormenting the readers. (Who did Ann Radcliffe think she was? Seth MacFarlane?)
Anyway, I liked it, and looking forward to reading Udolpho next time around.
It really is an exotic land, isn't it?
You can tell because the title of the book is "The Italian". But the book takes place in Italy (Naples and Rome, primarily) so...isn't EVERYONE an Italian? Shhhh. The purpose of the title is to signal to English readers in 1797 that this is a wondrous tale of a fantastical land where mysterious religious rituals (Roman Catholicism) and a barbarous Inquisition give rise to unholy supernatural events.
Well, not really supernatural. In fact, not at ALL, supernatural as H.P. Lovecraft pointed out with some asperity. Speaking of "asperity", Mrs. Radcliffe has written the greatest sentence using forms of said word, which ends:
...the most unfeeling must have yielded for once to indignation against the asperser, and pity of the aspersed.
Take that, Chris Claremont!
OK, ok, so. This is the story of a rich prince who falls in love with a poor girl and whose mother sets out to destroy said girl with the aid of an Evil Monk. Perhaps even...The Italian Monk! The prince then sets out to save the future princess (because, come on, you know how this is going to end) at his own peril and ends them both up in even hotter water.
I was rather embarrassed by one of the twists, which I saw coming as soon as I got the premise of the book, because I'd read it so many times, as lately as...mm....The Son of Tarzan...so 1920ish—but I'd actually forgotten by the time I got there, so I was genuinely surprised. Mrs. Radcliffe may have pioneered the trope, I don't know, but she certainly established it.
She established a lot of tropes, in fact, that would cling to the popular culture until the advent of the 1969 SatAM series "Scooby Doo", which may have killed a lot of them once and for all, though they survived Bob Hope and Abbot and Costello and so on.
I thought HPL was being a bit crusty complaining about the "Mr. Withers!" type reveal at the end where all the supernatural elements are explained away as figments of superstitious (Italian!) minds, but I ended up agreeing with him. The "rational" explanation is something of a let-down, and the best moments of the book are when something spooky is going on.
Look, this is 170K words of glorious 18th century pulp—about twice the length of a modern genre novel—and you're not going to like it, unless you are. And you probably know if you are. If not, read The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne and imagine it being FOUR TIMES AS LONG. If that excites you, go ahead on this one.
There is one trope that got to me: Mrs. Radcliffe introduces a character who has all kinds of relevant information but will only reveal it after much unnecessary context. This character is sort of amusing when he's tormenting The Monk, though the joke goes too far. But then she introduces a SECOND character of a similar nature AT THE CLIMAX OF THE BOOK. Now you're just tormenting the readers. (Who did Ann Radcliffe think she was? Seth MacFarlane?)
Anyway, I liked it, and looking forward to reading Udolpho next time around.
December 14, 2021
I got to 50 % of this and it is a really long book and could not finish it. I was reading with my local book club but had to let it go and just let the discussion relate the ending for me. Long and boring. I never wanna see it again. I listened to over half of it, until I could not take it anymore. The narrator is very, very good. I have heard other audiobooks with her narration and that that was a plus when I saw it on audible. I would have liked to have finished it to at least just say that I did. I am sure it is very good and many ppl enjoyed it in my book club. Not my favorite time period for literature and I did not like a single character. DNF on this one. Too many other books.
October 18, 2020
Ann Radcliffe wrote The Italian as an act of protest and self-vindication after reading Matthew Gregory Lewis’s 1796 novel The Monk (which, according to Lewis, was itself inspired by Radcliffe’s earlier novel The Mysteries of Udolpho). Radcliffe was following in the tradition established by Horace Walpole’s highly successful Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto. Lewis, on the other hand, was introducing a more sensational style of Gothic romance from Germany, which exploited horror and violence. Notwithstanding, there are many similarities between the The Italian and The Monk: both feature an evil monk as the main antagonist, a young lover imprisoned in a convent headed by a wicked prioress and a trial before the Inquisition.
The Italian is a strange novel. It contains probably the most tense episode I have ever encountered in a novel. In the opening chapter of Volume II, Radcliffe ratchets up the tension over the course of about twenty pages until it reaches a point almost beyond endurance. I was literally on the edge of my seat. At this point, I thought it could be the best book I had ever read. Regrettably, there was no release from this tension: thereafter, things go from bad to worse for the characters. As a result, the tension so masterfully created seems slowly to dissipate over the novel’s remaining 250 or so pages. It felt to me as if the novel had peaked too soon.
An engraving from 1824 showing some of the Gothic atmosphere of Radcliffe's novel
The Italian contained much that I like about Gothic fiction: ruins, underground passages, subterranean chambers and priories headed by malevolent cloisterers. But the novel is mostly praised for its depiction of the villainous monk Schedoni. The blurb of my edition explains that in her depiction of Schedoni, Radcliffe ‘transcends the limits of the Gothic paraphernalia and betrays her ambivalent admiration for a complex and fascinating figure of evil.’ He is an impressive villain, there’s no doubt. But to be honest, I don’t turn to Gothic fiction to read about ‘complex and fascinating’ figures of evil.
Sadly, this novel lacked the aspect of Gothic fiction that I love most: the supernatural. Whereas Lewis’s more sensational (and more influential) novel contains a satisfying amount of the supernatural, Radcliffe’s stays very much in the rational world of the Enlightenment. I was impressed at how this grounding in reason made the tension and the atmosphere of fear more intense: it is people who are evil and cause other characters’ suffering, not beings and spirits from another world. But I can’t help preferring the unexplainable and irrational happenings that the supernatural brings to other Gothic novels like The Monk.
Overall, then, I am sad to say that The Italian hasn’t made me eager to read more Radcliffe. Perhaps I should reserve judgement and attempt her earlier novel The Mysteries of Udolpho.
The Italian is a strange novel. It contains probably the most tense episode I have ever encountered in a novel. In the opening chapter of Volume II, Radcliffe ratchets up the tension over the course of about twenty pages until it reaches a point almost beyond endurance. I was literally on the edge of my seat. At this point, I thought it could be the best book I had ever read. Regrettably, there was no release from this tension: thereafter, things go from bad to worse for the characters. As a result, the tension so masterfully created seems slowly to dissipate over the novel’s remaining 250 or so pages. It felt to me as if the novel had peaked too soon.
An engraving from 1824 showing some of the Gothic atmosphere of Radcliffe's novel
The Italian contained much that I like about Gothic fiction: ruins, underground passages, subterranean chambers and priories headed by malevolent cloisterers. But the novel is mostly praised for its depiction of the villainous monk Schedoni. The blurb of my edition explains that in her depiction of Schedoni, Radcliffe ‘transcends the limits of the Gothic paraphernalia and betrays her ambivalent admiration for a complex and fascinating figure of evil.’ He is an impressive villain, there’s no doubt. But to be honest, I don’t turn to Gothic fiction to read about ‘complex and fascinating’ figures of evil.
Sadly, this novel lacked the aspect of Gothic fiction that I love most: the supernatural. Whereas Lewis’s more sensational (and more influential) novel contains a satisfying amount of the supernatural, Radcliffe’s stays very much in the rational world of the Enlightenment. I was impressed at how this grounding in reason made the tension and the atmosphere of fear more intense: it is people who are evil and cause other characters’ suffering, not beings and spirits from another world. But I can’t help preferring the unexplainable and irrational happenings that the supernatural brings to other Gothic novels like The Monk.
Overall, then, I am sad to say that The Italian hasn’t made me eager to read more Radcliffe. Perhaps I should reserve judgement and attempt her earlier novel The Mysteries of Udolpho.
January 25, 2010
Oh, man. What's happening to me? I really enjoyed this book.
It's essentially the story of two young people who conceive a deep and abiding love for each other on the strength of a very brief acquaintance, largely consisting of longing for each other from afar after a brief initial meeting and subsequently spending a few boating trips together, chaperoned by suitably respectable relatives. The boy is from a noble and proud family; the girl, apparently, is from far more humble stock. His parents, hearing scandalous rumours about goings-on between the two, forbid the union. The boy's mother goes a step further and, prompted by her Confessor, an ambitious and sinister monk, has the girl kidnapped and sent to a convent. The boy tracks his girlfriend down and they escape,only to be captured again. He's sent to the prisons of the Inquisition, she's sent to a desolate sea-side spot to be killed. How will they ever break free of their tormentors and be reunited? Who is the girl's real father? What secrets lie in the evil monk's mysterious past?
A series of events no less absurd than complex eventually bring things to a happy resolution. Along the way, we learn a few more Gothic truths of life:
A well-bred girl, while travelling, will only stay in the local convent and not in a common inn, even though convents are dens of infamy that exist for the purpose of entrapping such girls into lives of gloom and celibacy.
Just because someone is today a monk or nun does not preclude them from having had a rich and varied career beforehand, including the begetting of assorted progeny and the commission of various sins.
The Inquisition takes a really long time to get to the point.
Mrs. Radcliffe was a writer of ridiculously convoluted and completely gripping novels.
It's essentially the story of two young people who conceive a deep and abiding love for each other on the strength of a very brief acquaintance, largely consisting of longing for each other from afar after a brief initial meeting and subsequently spending a few boating trips together, chaperoned by suitably respectable relatives. The boy is from a noble and proud family; the girl, apparently, is from far more humble stock. His parents, hearing scandalous rumours about goings-on between the two, forbid the union. The boy's mother goes a step further and, prompted by her Confessor, an ambitious and sinister monk, has the girl kidnapped and sent to a convent. The boy tracks his girlfriend down and they escape,only to be captured again. He's sent to the prisons of the Inquisition, she's sent to a desolate sea-side spot to be killed. How will they ever break free of their tormentors and be reunited? Who is the girl's real father? What secrets lie in the evil monk's mysterious past?
A series of events no less absurd than complex eventually bring things to a happy resolution. Along the way, we learn a few more Gothic truths of life:
A well-bred girl, while travelling, will only stay in the local convent and not in a common inn, even though convents are dens of infamy that exist for the purpose of entrapping such girls into lives of gloom and celibacy.
Just because someone is today a monk or nun does not preclude them from having had a rich and varied career beforehand, including the begetting of assorted progeny and the commission of various sins.
The Inquisition takes a really long time to get to the point.
Mrs. Radcliffe was a writer of ridiculously convoluted and completely gripping novels.
June 14, 2017
Θα μπορούσα να γκρινιάζω ασταμάτητα για την πλοκή κι αυτούς τους συγκλονιστικούς έρωτες που ξεκινάνε επειδή σήκωσε ο αέρας το πέπλο και είδε ο νεαρός το μισό υπέροχο πρόσωπό της, 300 σελίδες μετά μπορεί να πεθάνει γι' αυτή κι ας μην της έχει πιάσει καν το χέρι, αλλά λογοτεχνία του 1700 ήθελα, καλά να πάθω. Α Τ Ε Λ Ε Ι Ω Τ Ε Σ, βαρετές περιγραφές χαλάνε τον όποιον ρυθμό, διάλογοι που σε φέρνουν στα πρόθυρα της απόγνωσης (ήρθα να σου πω πως κάποιος πέθανε, αλλά κάτσε να τα πάρω με τη σειρά 7 παργράφους μετά θα σου πω και το όνομα). Κάπου 150 σελίδες πριν το τέλος παίρνει λίγο φόρα κι αποκτά πραγματικό ενδιαφέρον, αν και καθόλου ρεαλιστικές οι σκηνές με την Ιερά Εξέταση φτιάχνουν -επιτέλους!- ατμόσφαιρα, μετά ξανακυλάει στα ίδια. Τουίστ στο τουίστ, κομμάτια του παζλ πετιούνται στο κάλαθο των αχρήστων μετά από μια βολική αναφορά, και μοναδικό redeeming quality ο μοναχός Σκεντόνι, ο κακός και δολοπλόκος αρχιμάστορας όλων των συμφορών των πρωταγωνιστών, η μοναδική μου χαρά κάθε που εμφανιζόταν. Απορρώ γιατί το συγκρίνουν με το The Monk.
October 9, 2025
Ann Radcliffe's The Italian is alternately fascinating and, at times, curiously hamfisted. The tale is about the love between Vivaldi, a Neapolitan of a noble family, and Ellena, an orphan. At the outset, a mysterious monk appears warning Vivaldi to stay away from Ellena, and then disappears. Vivaldi's parents, the Marchese and Marchesa Vivaldi, are dead set against against their son's taking up with a young woman of dubious ancestry; and the Marchesa consults with the casuist Dominican monk Schedoni and has Ellena locked up in an unpleasant convent. At length, Vivaldi locates her, frees her, and plans to marry her in a small Italian town. Before the ceremony could begin, some hired goons haul Ellena off to a mysterious house on the shores of the Adriatic, while Vivaldi is imprisoned by the Inquisition for making off with a nun (she really wasn't one). Schedoni shows up to see that Ellena is murdered, no longer to be a threat to the Vivaldi family's honor.
It is almost a truism that, when one of the main characters in an 18th-19th century is an orphan, we will find that one or both parents are still alive. In any case, Vivaldi is freed from the clutches of the Inquisition, and it is Schedoni who ultimately must pay the piper.
There are some wonderful atmospheric scenes in the novel, particularly in the prisons of the Inquisition and the house on the Adriatic. For hundreds of pages, everything conspires to separate Vivaldi and Ellena, until the end.
The book is slow reading, but interesting enough to hold the reader's attention, even if its flags from time to time.
It is almost a truism that, when one of the main characters in an 18th-19th century is an orphan, we will find that one or both parents are still alive. In any case, Vivaldi is freed from the clutches of the Inquisition, and it is Schedoni who ultimately must pay the piper.
There are some wonderful atmospheric scenes in the novel, particularly in the prisons of the Inquisition and the house on the Adriatic. For hundreds of pages, everything conspires to separate Vivaldi and Ellena, until the end.
The book is slow reading, but interesting enough to hold the reader's attention, even if its flags from time to time.
November 20, 2025
The author sets the stage for quite the Gothic tale and although it does have some up and downs if one does not give up on the story because the pace isn't fast enough, they are sure to read some nail biting moments. I was shocked a number of times at what was unveiled. As with another book I read by the author she did include some characters that add a bit of humor to the read. Several of the characters had quite the story to tell and kept our main protagonists exasperated at the long drawn out tale.
I do recommend reading Radcliffe and if possible to keep with the story as they are sure to enjoy it.
I do recommend reading Radcliffe and if possible to keep with the story as they are sure to enjoy it.
January 23, 2020
The young ladies and gentlemen of Jane Austen’s time read gothic horror novels on the sly, instead of the religious tracts and sermons that were supposed to edify them. Their favorite author was Ann Radcliffe, and The Italian was one of her best novels. Published in 1797, it has all the elements of the early gothic novels: ghosts, sword fights, castles, ruins, monasteries with their evil monks (and abbesses,) poisonings–it’s all there. In fact, some of our modern cliches originated back then. In one scene, a sinister monk is sending a hired assassin off to do his dirty work, and he says something along the lines of: “Here’s a cloak to throw over that dagger you’re carrying.” Now we call these types of stories “cloak and dagger” mysteries. Overall, the book is very exciting, although the language is overly flowery, and takes some untangling. But it’s well worth the effort.
April 14, 2020
La grande letteratura emerge solo a tratti
Vi sono libri che, sia pure scritti in epoche e magari nell'ambito di culture molto diverse dalle nostre, mantengono intatta la loro forza emozionale e comunicativa. Sono quelli che definiamo classici, perché sanno parlarci ancora oggi, sanno descriverci situazioni e sentimenti che ancora riusciamo a decifrare, in una parola sanno ancora dirci qualcosa che ci aiuta a capire meglio la realtà, personale e sociale, in cui siamo immersi ogni giorno.
Questa è la mia definizione, forse un po' confusa e parziale, di un classico, ed in questo senso credo di poter dire che L'Italiano di Ann Radcliffe non si possa considerare un classico, a dispetto del fatto che l'editore Frassinelli, cui va comunque il grande merito di avercene proposto una nuova traduzione integrale una ventina d'anni fa, l'abbia inserito in una collana chiamata addirittura I Classici Classici.
A mio avviso, infatti, L'Italiano è un romanzo strettamente legato al periodo storico ed al contesto in cui fu scritto, la fine del settecento in Gran Bretagna; riletto oggi, per essere apprezzato richiede lo sforzo di cercare di calarsi in quel contesto, ed anche quando ciò riesca non possono non emergere i difetti strutturali di quello che già ai suoi tempi probabilmente poteva essere considerato un buon romanzo d'appendice. Troppo deboli la maggior parte dei personaggi, troppo unilaterali e schematici le loro personalità e i loro modi di agire per consegnarci un romanzo che vada al di là dell'essere una testimonianza storica di come una parte della letteratura di quell'epoca si stesse attrezzando per divenire, in nuce, una forma espressiva aderente ai gusti e alle richieste di un pubblico borghese. Vi è però subito da aggiungere che in questo quadro che fa de L'Italiano un antesignano del romanzo di genere e d'appendice non mancano alcuni tratti nei quali fa capolino la grande letteratura, o che quantomeno testimoniano la capacità della scrittrice di essere parte attiva delle grandi correnti culturali che attraversavano l'epoca in cui visse. Ma andiamo con ordine.
L'Italiano è un romanzo gotico, nel senso che costruisce la storia attorno al mistero ed alla suspense, e proprio la capacità di creare attesa per lo sviluppo della storia, di fare sapiente uso dei colpi di scena è il tratto per cui Ann Radcliffe fu riconosciuta anche in vita come una grande scrittrice. Le sue due opere principali, questo romanzo (del 1797) e il di poco antecedente I misteri di Udolpho furono dei veri e propri best-sellers, soprattutto tra il pubblico femminile della ormai trionfante borghesia britannica.
Il primo elemento che esprime con forza, per noi quasi paradossalmente, l'atmosfera gotica del romanzo è l'ambientazione nell'Italia del centro-sud, tra Napoli, Roma e l'Abruzzo. Alla fine del settecento l'Italia per il pubblico britannico della Radcliffe era sicuramente un paese sconosciuto e, come dice anche il curatore del volume Alessandro Gallenzi nella sua pregevole postfazione, nell'immaginario collettivo un paese selvaggio, pieno di rovine antiche, abitato da gente strana, con costumi e mentalità affatto diversi rispetto a quelli britannici: se si pensa come ancora nel 1957 la BBC potesse imbastire il celeberrimo scherzo del raccolto degli spaghetti possiamo pensare cosa sapessero dell'Italia gli inglesi di due secoli prima. La stessa Radcliffe non è mai stata nel nostro Paese, ma proprio questa Italia sconosciuta permette alla Radcliffe di ambientare una storia che narra di avvenimenti quasi contemporanei alla scrittura (i fatti narrati si svolgono nel 1758) in un contesto arcaico ed ancestrale, in cui le passioni umane si esprimono con modalità affatto diverse da quelle della fredda Inghilterra in piena prima industralizzazione. Ne derivano descrizioni di un'Italia stereotipata, dove i paesaggi napoletani sono meravigliosamente dolci e pieni di vividi colori, mentre gli Appennini sono fatti di boschi cupi e di orride gole. Naturalmente anche gli abitanti che fanno da contorno alla storia in questa Italia favolosa sono fortemente tipizzati: in genere i pescatori napoletani la sera ballano sulla spiaggia, mentre i contadini abruzzesi sono rudi ma leali. Al di là degli inevitabili stereotipi, tuttavia, ritengo che il paesaggio e le sue descrizioni, che così gran parte hanno nel determinare l'atmosfera complessiva del libro, siano uno degli elementi fondamentali che denotano il carattere preromantico del romanzo.
In questa Italia meridionale quasi medievale, dove agiscono forze oscure come la Santa Inquisizione, si snoda la storia d'amore tra Vincenzo di Vivaldi ed Elena di Rosalba. Naturalmente è una storia d'amore drammatica, osteggiata dalla famiglia di lui, piena di intrighi e che avrà lo scontato lieto fine. Come detto molti dei personaggi sono veramente troppo convenzionali (soprattutto per la nostra sensibilità di lettori contemporanei) per non far a volte sorridere delle ingenuità della scrittrice. In particolare i due protagonisti, Vincenzo – innamorato intrepido pronto ad affrontare ogni pericolo per sposare la sua amata - e Rosalba - giovane dotata di ogni virtù, apparentemente di umili condizioni ma che naturalmente si rivelerà essere la rampolla di una nobilissima famiglia – sono i due anelli più scontati e deboli della catena dei personaggi che appaiono nel romanzo. E' invece nei coprotagonisti e nei personaggi di contorno che Ann Radcliffe rivela secondo me il meglio delle sue capacità di narratrice. Il malvagio monaco Schedoni, vero deus ex machina della vicenda, è infatti sicuramente un personaggio complesso, meno manicheo dei due innamorati, più sfaccettato nei suoi sentimenti, e per questo dotato di indubbi tratti di modernità: l'autrice ci mostra il suo animo tormentato con tratti che ancora una volta proiettano il romanzo verso l'incipiente romanticismo.
Un'altra figura notevole è secondo me la madre di Vincenzo: non perché sia un personaggio a tutto tondo come Schedoni – è malvagia sino al midollo, e si pente solo sul letto di morte - ma perché è a mio avviso strano che l'autrice abbia affidato un ruolo appunto così malvagio ad una donna, alla madre del protagonista. Si può immaginare la reazione del pubblico di Ann Radcliffe, che era prevalentemente femminile, a questo ruolo e concludere che forse questo è l'elemento più inquietante inserito dall'autrice in una trama che aveva come scopo primario quello di rassicurare sull'inevitabile trionfo del bene.
Altro personaggio topico del romanzo è Paolo, il fedele servitore di Vincenzo: non tanto per il suo essere il tipico napoletano come veniva immaginato dall'autrice, quindi furbo, salace e sempre allegro e danzante, quanto per il fatto di esprimere benissimo il ruolo che per la borghese Radcliffe dovevano giocare le classi subalterne. Paolo è letteralmente innamorato del proprio padrone, si butta costantemente ai suoi piedi per baciargli gli stivali, ed alla fine della vicenda rifiuta l'indipendenza offertagli per stare accanto a lui tutta la vita. Ah, se fossero stati così fedeli e remissivi anche gli ingrati operai delle tessiture di Manchester…
L'Italiano di Ann Radcliffe è quindi un libro che oggi ci può lasciare perplessi per la sua ingenuità, ma che tuttavia ci può interessare per una serie di motivi. E' innanzitutto un libro che va letto alla luce del contesto storico in cui fu scritto, e di questo contesto, della sua percezione da parte delle classi dominanti ci dice molto. E' anche un romanzo che scopertamente intende giocare un ruolo didattico nei confronti di un nascente pubblico di massa, se per massa si intende la piccola borghesia inglese dell'epoca. Contiene però alcuni elementi che lo proiettano verso il profondo cambiamento delle forme espressive che caratterizzerà da lì a poco il pieno affermarsi del romanticismo, nel cui ambito soprattutto nel contesto anglosassone la letteratura gotica giocherà un ruolo di primo piano. Certo, siamo ancora lontani dalle capacità espressive di una Wollstonecraft-Shelley o di un Polidori (entrambi nascevano ai tempi della scrittura de L'Italiano), ma i semi di un genere che col tempo avrebbe permesso di esprimere letterariamente le angosce di un secolo erano gettati, forse all'insaputa dell'autrice.
Vi sono libri che, sia pure scritti in epoche e magari nell'ambito di culture molto diverse dalle nostre, mantengono intatta la loro forza emozionale e comunicativa. Sono quelli che definiamo classici, perché sanno parlarci ancora oggi, sanno descriverci situazioni e sentimenti che ancora riusciamo a decifrare, in una parola sanno ancora dirci qualcosa che ci aiuta a capire meglio la realtà, personale e sociale, in cui siamo immersi ogni giorno.
Questa è la mia definizione, forse un po' confusa e parziale, di un classico, ed in questo senso credo di poter dire che L'Italiano di Ann Radcliffe non si possa considerare un classico, a dispetto del fatto che l'editore Frassinelli, cui va comunque il grande merito di avercene proposto una nuova traduzione integrale una ventina d'anni fa, l'abbia inserito in una collana chiamata addirittura I Classici Classici.
A mio avviso, infatti, L'Italiano è un romanzo strettamente legato al periodo storico ed al contesto in cui fu scritto, la fine del settecento in Gran Bretagna; riletto oggi, per essere apprezzato richiede lo sforzo di cercare di calarsi in quel contesto, ed anche quando ciò riesca non possono non emergere i difetti strutturali di quello che già ai suoi tempi probabilmente poteva essere considerato un buon romanzo d'appendice. Troppo deboli la maggior parte dei personaggi, troppo unilaterali e schematici le loro personalità e i loro modi di agire per consegnarci un romanzo che vada al di là dell'essere una testimonianza storica di come una parte della letteratura di quell'epoca si stesse attrezzando per divenire, in nuce, una forma espressiva aderente ai gusti e alle richieste di un pubblico borghese. Vi è però subito da aggiungere che in questo quadro che fa de L'Italiano un antesignano del romanzo di genere e d'appendice non mancano alcuni tratti nei quali fa capolino la grande letteratura, o che quantomeno testimoniano la capacità della scrittrice di essere parte attiva delle grandi correnti culturali che attraversavano l'epoca in cui visse. Ma andiamo con ordine.
L'Italiano è un romanzo gotico, nel senso che costruisce la storia attorno al mistero ed alla suspense, e proprio la capacità di creare attesa per lo sviluppo della storia, di fare sapiente uso dei colpi di scena è il tratto per cui Ann Radcliffe fu riconosciuta anche in vita come una grande scrittrice. Le sue due opere principali, questo romanzo (del 1797) e il di poco antecedente I misteri di Udolpho furono dei veri e propri best-sellers, soprattutto tra il pubblico femminile della ormai trionfante borghesia britannica.
Il primo elemento che esprime con forza, per noi quasi paradossalmente, l'atmosfera gotica del romanzo è l'ambientazione nell'Italia del centro-sud, tra Napoli, Roma e l'Abruzzo. Alla fine del settecento l'Italia per il pubblico britannico della Radcliffe era sicuramente un paese sconosciuto e, come dice anche il curatore del volume Alessandro Gallenzi nella sua pregevole postfazione, nell'immaginario collettivo un paese selvaggio, pieno di rovine antiche, abitato da gente strana, con costumi e mentalità affatto diversi rispetto a quelli britannici: se si pensa come ancora nel 1957 la BBC potesse imbastire il celeberrimo scherzo del raccolto degli spaghetti possiamo pensare cosa sapessero dell'Italia gli inglesi di due secoli prima. La stessa Radcliffe non è mai stata nel nostro Paese, ma proprio questa Italia sconosciuta permette alla Radcliffe di ambientare una storia che narra di avvenimenti quasi contemporanei alla scrittura (i fatti narrati si svolgono nel 1758) in un contesto arcaico ed ancestrale, in cui le passioni umane si esprimono con modalità affatto diverse da quelle della fredda Inghilterra in piena prima industralizzazione. Ne derivano descrizioni di un'Italia stereotipata, dove i paesaggi napoletani sono meravigliosamente dolci e pieni di vividi colori, mentre gli Appennini sono fatti di boschi cupi e di orride gole. Naturalmente anche gli abitanti che fanno da contorno alla storia in questa Italia favolosa sono fortemente tipizzati: in genere i pescatori napoletani la sera ballano sulla spiaggia, mentre i contadini abruzzesi sono rudi ma leali. Al di là degli inevitabili stereotipi, tuttavia, ritengo che il paesaggio e le sue descrizioni, che così gran parte hanno nel determinare l'atmosfera complessiva del libro, siano uno degli elementi fondamentali che denotano il carattere preromantico del romanzo.
In questa Italia meridionale quasi medievale, dove agiscono forze oscure come la Santa Inquisizione, si snoda la storia d'amore tra Vincenzo di Vivaldi ed Elena di Rosalba. Naturalmente è una storia d'amore drammatica, osteggiata dalla famiglia di lui, piena di intrighi e che avrà lo scontato lieto fine. Come detto molti dei personaggi sono veramente troppo convenzionali (soprattutto per la nostra sensibilità di lettori contemporanei) per non far a volte sorridere delle ingenuità della scrittrice. In particolare i due protagonisti, Vincenzo – innamorato intrepido pronto ad affrontare ogni pericolo per sposare la sua amata - e Rosalba - giovane dotata di ogni virtù, apparentemente di umili condizioni ma che naturalmente si rivelerà essere la rampolla di una nobilissima famiglia – sono i due anelli più scontati e deboli della catena dei personaggi che appaiono nel romanzo. E' invece nei coprotagonisti e nei personaggi di contorno che Ann Radcliffe rivela secondo me il meglio delle sue capacità di narratrice. Il malvagio monaco Schedoni, vero deus ex machina della vicenda, è infatti sicuramente un personaggio complesso, meno manicheo dei due innamorati, più sfaccettato nei suoi sentimenti, e per questo dotato di indubbi tratti di modernità: l'autrice ci mostra il suo animo tormentato con tratti che ancora una volta proiettano il romanzo verso l'incipiente romanticismo.
Un'altra figura notevole è secondo me la madre di Vincenzo: non perché sia un personaggio a tutto tondo come Schedoni – è malvagia sino al midollo, e si pente solo sul letto di morte - ma perché è a mio avviso strano che l'autrice abbia affidato un ruolo appunto così malvagio ad una donna, alla madre del protagonista. Si può immaginare la reazione del pubblico di Ann Radcliffe, che era prevalentemente femminile, a questo ruolo e concludere che forse questo è l'elemento più inquietante inserito dall'autrice in una trama che aveva come scopo primario quello di rassicurare sull'inevitabile trionfo del bene.
Altro personaggio topico del romanzo è Paolo, il fedele servitore di Vincenzo: non tanto per il suo essere il tipico napoletano come veniva immaginato dall'autrice, quindi furbo, salace e sempre allegro e danzante, quanto per il fatto di esprimere benissimo il ruolo che per la borghese Radcliffe dovevano giocare le classi subalterne. Paolo è letteralmente innamorato del proprio padrone, si butta costantemente ai suoi piedi per baciargli gli stivali, ed alla fine della vicenda rifiuta l'indipendenza offertagli per stare accanto a lui tutta la vita. Ah, se fossero stati così fedeli e remissivi anche gli ingrati operai delle tessiture di Manchester…
L'Italiano di Ann Radcliffe è quindi un libro che oggi ci può lasciare perplessi per la sua ingenuità, ma che tuttavia ci può interessare per una serie di motivi. E' innanzitutto un libro che va letto alla luce del contesto storico in cui fu scritto, e di questo contesto, della sua percezione da parte delle classi dominanti ci dice molto. E' anche un romanzo che scopertamente intende giocare un ruolo didattico nei confronti di un nascente pubblico di massa, se per massa si intende la piccola borghesia inglese dell'epoca. Contiene però alcuni elementi che lo proiettano verso il profondo cambiamento delle forme espressive che caratterizzerà da lì a poco il pieno affermarsi del romanticismo, nel cui ambito soprattutto nel contesto anglosassone la letteratura gotica giocherà un ruolo di primo piano. Certo, siamo ancora lontani dalle capacità espressive di una Wollstonecraft-Shelley o di un Polidori (entrambi nascevano ai tempi della scrittura de L'Italiano), ma i semi di un genere che col tempo avrebbe permesso di esprimere letterariamente le angosce di un secolo erano gettati, forse all'insaputa dell'autrice.
April 2, 2022
Rating: 4 / 5
After reading The Mysteries of Udolpho, I confessed myself disappointed by Anne Radcliffe and more or less resigned to a love of the Victorian Gothic, but not particularly the Romantic Gothic genre. However, the exception to the rule has been Matthew Lewis's The Monk--still one of my favourite books of all time--and when I first read that this novel was Radcliffe's response to Lewis's, of course I had to try it out.
The beginnings are almost identical: taking place in Italy and with a monastic/cathedral presence nearby, we have the meeting between the hero, Vivaldi, and the heroine, Ellena. Vivaldi of course immediately falls for Ellena who, like Antonia from The Monk, is mostly hidden beneath a veil and is of course so shy that, if not for her escort (her aunt, Bianchi), she cannot even talk to the hero at first. But the hero, intent upon seeing her, of course pursues her and falls in love.
This time, the character of the monk is Schedoni, who is the Confessor to Vivaldi's mother, the Marchesa, who is very haughty and doesn't want her son to marry a common little nobody. Still, Vivaldi persists, and eventually, despite mysterious warnings, he manages to get Ellena's consent to marry him.
So begins the trouble, all arranged by Schedoni.
Now, personally, this story doesn't even come close to topping The Monk, though I'd be lying if I said that I didn't appreciate the parallels--and, believe it or not, also the twists, as I didn't fully see those coming either. But while the influences of The Monk are there in how evil Schedoni is, the story itself takes a very different turn and isn't quite so dark or so graphic as Lewis's story.
Is it bad that I was secretly hoping that it would be?
Ahem, but then again, it's hard to top black magic, lust, murder, rape, and a condemnation to hell, isn't it?
That being said, just having the Inquisition involved in this story is horrid enough, and especially the scenes with Vivaldi and Paulo (ah, funny, comic relief Paulo!) and how they're questioned. If you're someone who has studied history (ahem, like me), then you just know how bad things can get with the Inquisition and how close we are to those horrid scenes, and yet we never quite get there. I don't know if it's because it would have been censored if Radcliffe had been more graphic, or if she herself just didn't have the nerve to write those scenes; but, regardless, we never get quite to the level of The Monk, and I guess that's what I was missing out on.
All in all though, this was a better read for me by Radcliffe and has me excited to check out more Gothic novels again. It IS my favourite genre, after all, and so I'll for sure want to seek out more such reads this year. We'll see what I find, shall we?
After reading The Mysteries of Udolpho, I confessed myself disappointed by Anne Radcliffe and more or less resigned to a love of the Victorian Gothic, but not particularly the Romantic Gothic genre. However, the exception to the rule has been Matthew Lewis's The Monk--still one of my favourite books of all time--and when I first read that this novel was Radcliffe's response to Lewis's, of course I had to try it out.
The beginnings are almost identical: taking place in Italy and with a monastic/cathedral presence nearby, we have the meeting between the hero, Vivaldi, and the heroine, Ellena. Vivaldi of course immediately falls for Ellena who, like Antonia from The Monk, is mostly hidden beneath a veil and is of course so shy that, if not for her escort (her aunt, Bianchi), she cannot even talk to the hero at first. But the hero, intent upon seeing her, of course pursues her and falls in love.
This time, the character of the monk is Schedoni, who is the Confessor to Vivaldi's mother, the Marchesa, who is very haughty and doesn't want her son to marry a common little nobody. Still, Vivaldi persists, and eventually, despite mysterious warnings, he manages to get Ellena's consent to marry him.
So begins the trouble, all arranged by Schedoni.
Now, personally, this story doesn't even come close to topping The Monk, though I'd be lying if I said that I didn't appreciate the parallels--and, believe it or not, also the twists, as I didn't fully see those coming either. But while the influences of The Monk are there in how evil Schedoni is, the story itself takes a very different turn and isn't quite so dark or so graphic as Lewis's story.
Is it bad that I was secretly hoping that it would be?
Ahem, but then again, it's hard to top black magic, lust, murder, rape, and a condemnation to hell, isn't it?
That being said, just having the Inquisition involved in this story is horrid enough, and especially the scenes with Vivaldi and Paulo (ah, funny, comic relief Paulo!) and how they're questioned. If you're someone who has studied history (ahem, like me), then you just know how bad things can get with the Inquisition and how close we are to those horrid scenes, and yet we never quite get there. I don't know if it's because it would have been censored if Radcliffe had been more graphic, or if she herself just didn't have the nerve to write those scenes; but, regardless, we never get quite to the level of The Monk, and I guess that's what I was missing out on.
All in all though, this was a better read for me by Radcliffe and has me excited to check out more Gothic novels again. It IS my favourite genre, after all, and so I'll for sure want to seek out more such reads this year. We'll see what I find, shall we?
Read
February 28, 2025Incredibly dramatic but oh so fun! The villains and side characters were so dynamic, and I loved the gothic style of this novel. The plot is thrilling, and it was so hard to put this book down!
August 9, 2022
The plot is totally bonkers — and don’t look for things _other_ than plot, like characterization or pacing or logic, mind you, cuz you won’t find ’em. There is the occasional deliciously written scene (the Marchese speaking in withering condescension to his son about the foolishness of young lovers is a personal favorite), but overall I found the style to be excruciatingly prolix and the twists and turns of the narrative to be more guffaw- than awe-inspiring. O happy day when I turned the final page! O! giorno felíce!
January 26, 2016
Ann Radcliffe's novel is one of the landmarks of the early gothic novel, and a basic sketch of the plot shows us why: aristocrat Vivaldi falls in love with the lovely Ellena, a girl without title or money, and his family conspires to go to any lengths to keep them apart, eventually involving the sinister and amoral monk Schedoni in their plans. Vivaldi and Ellena are sympathetic enough, but Schedoni steals the show, as all great villains do--murder, blackmail, false accusations, family abandonment, and all-around scheming only begin his list of accomplishments.
Just as fascinating is to see the oh-so-English Radcliffe's view of Italy, a land of compelling horror for many in Northern Europe. Catholic nations were seen as claustrophobic, secretive, and treacherous, a dispiriting atmosphere set up in the prologue, when a group of English tourists see a barbarous muderer slinking through the shadows of a gloomy church; the tourists are aghast to discover that the criminal has claimed "sanctuary" and thus cannot be touched by the law! Once the plot itself begins to unfold, we find that Vivaldi, that noble youth, might as well be named an honorary Englishman and Protestant, as he questions Catholic doctrines, thinks for himself, and has a loftiness of character--a desire for justice and freedom that is blocked continuously by the feudal oppression of the Catholic church. One of the climaxes of The Italian comes when Vivaldi is arrested by the Inquisition, a subplot worthy of Kafka's The Trial. The Inquisition occupies acres of subterranean tunnels and chambers beneath Rome, a literal and figurative labyrinth; Vivaldi begs to know what he has been charged with, but perversely, until he confesses he cannot be told. The inscrutable rules and obscure customs used by the Inquisitors never fully make sense, even when Vivaldi is eventually freed by those with agendas opposed to Schedoni's. For Vivaldi and Ellena's sake, let's hope they became Protestants and moved to England!
Just as fascinating is to see the oh-so-English Radcliffe's view of Italy, a land of compelling horror for many in Northern Europe. Catholic nations were seen as claustrophobic, secretive, and treacherous, a dispiriting atmosphere set up in the prologue, when a group of English tourists see a barbarous muderer slinking through the shadows of a gloomy church; the tourists are aghast to discover that the criminal has claimed "sanctuary" and thus cannot be touched by the law! Once the plot itself begins to unfold, we find that Vivaldi, that noble youth, might as well be named an honorary Englishman and Protestant, as he questions Catholic doctrines, thinks for himself, and has a loftiness of character--a desire for justice and freedom that is blocked continuously by the feudal oppression of the Catholic church. One of the climaxes of The Italian comes when Vivaldi is arrested by the Inquisition, a subplot worthy of Kafka's The Trial. The Inquisition occupies acres of subterranean tunnels and chambers beneath Rome, a literal and figurative labyrinth; Vivaldi begs to know what he has been charged with, but perversely, until he confesses he cannot be told. The inscrutable rules and obscure customs used by the Inquisitors never fully make sense, even when Vivaldi is eventually freed by those with agendas opposed to Schedoni's. For Vivaldi and Ellena's sake, let's hope they became Protestants and moved to England!
January 11, 2020
I can see why Ann Radcliffe was enormously popular in her time. The Italian is tightly plotted and dripping with atmosphere. There are kidnappings, poison, forced marriage, illicit lovers, secret identities, and murders: what more could you want? It's also fairly well written (aside from superfluous commas) and surprisingly funny, with characterization that is sometimes unexpectedly nuanced, given the era and subject matter.
The Italian is also interesting from a historical perspective. English classes (at least the ones I attended) tend to present Romanticism as emerging suddenly when Wordsworth and Coleridge published Lyrical Ballads in 1798, but here, in 1797, is incontrovertible evidence that the Romantic movement was already well on its way in the world of novels.
Lastly, I found it interesting that the characters often have to make decisions on the basis of information which they know to be incomplete or inconclusive. Though this is hardly unique to the characters in this book, the prominence with which this phenomenon recurs makes me think that it may have been a subject of particular interest to Radcliffe, who skillfully explores the concept without bogging down the narrative.
The Italian is also interesting from a historical perspective. English classes (at least the ones I attended) tend to present Romanticism as emerging suddenly when Wordsworth and Coleridge published Lyrical Ballads in 1798, but here, in 1797, is incontrovertible evidence that the Romantic movement was already well on its way in the world of novels.
Lastly, I found it interesting that the characters often have to make decisions on the basis of information which they know to be incomplete or inconclusive. Though this is hardly unique to the characters in this book, the prominence with which this phenomenon recurs makes me think that it may have been a subject of particular interest to Radcliffe, who skillfully explores the concept without bogging down the narrative.
May 24, 2015
En lo desconocido siempre estará la sorpresa. Famosa por los “Los misterios de Udolfo”, demuestra que las novelas gruesas son más fáciles del boca a boca.
Tras 420 páginas, la soledad nos ahogará. Chico con bienes, conoce a chica conviviendo con su tía moribunda. Ella claro esta no tiene ni un duro y su alcurnia es del subsuelo. Ellos se quieren y casarse también. Mamá con posibilidades tiene un sofocón, al igual que papa Duque. No es posible que su hijo se case con un desecho material.
Tras esa base, las sorpresas y las aventuras no pararan de suceder. No hay posibilidad de comentarlas, pues el destrozo sería irreparable, tan sólo decir: hay sorpresa tras sorpresa.
Elementos góticos desbordan la novela.
Otro desconocido inmerecido.
Tras 420 páginas, la soledad nos ahogará. Chico con bienes, conoce a chica conviviendo con su tía moribunda. Ella claro esta no tiene ni un duro y su alcurnia es del subsuelo. Ellos se quieren y casarse también. Mamá con posibilidades tiene un sofocón, al igual que papa Duque. No es posible que su hijo se case con un desecho material.
Tras esa base, las sorpresas y las aventuras no pararan de suceder. No hay posibilidad de comentarlas, pues el destrozo sería irreparable, tan sólo decir: hay sorpresa tras sorpresa.
Elementos góticos desbordan la novela.
Otro desconocido inmerecido.
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