Luigi Capuana
Encyclopedia
Verism
Verism is the artistic preference of contemporary everyday subject matter instead of the heroic or legendary in art and literature; a form of realism. The word comes from Latin verus .-In Roman art:...
movement. He was a contemporary of Giovanni Verga
Giovanni Verga
Giovanni Carmelo Verga was an Italian realist writer, best known for his depictions of life in Sicily, and especially for the short story "Cavalleria Rusticana" and the novel I Malavoglia .-Life and career:The first son of Giovanni Battista Catalano Verga and Caterina Di Mauro,...
, both having been born in the province of Catania
Province of Catania
Catania is a province in the autonomous island region of Sicily in Italy. Its capital is the city of Catania.It has an area of 3,552 km², and a total population of 1,073,881 . There are 58 comunes in the province, see Comunes of the Province of Catania...
within a year of each other. He was also one of the first authors influenced by the works of Émile Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
, French author and creator of Naturalism
Naturalism (literature)
Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character...
. Capuana also wrote poetry in Sicilian
Sicilian language
Sicilian is a Romance language. Its dialects make up the Extreme-Southern Italian language group, which are spoken on the island of Sicily and its satellite islands; in southern and central Calabria ; in the southern parts of Apulia, the Salento ; and Campania, on the Italian mainland, where it is...
, of which an example appears below.
He was the author of plays (Garibaldi, Vanitas Vanitatum, Parodie, Semiritmi), stories (Studi sulla letteratura contemporanea, Per l'arte, Gli "ismi" contemporanei, Cronache letterarie, Il teatro italiano contemporaneo), novels (Giacinta, Marchese di Roccaverdina, La sfinge, Profumo, Rassegnazione) and various other theatrical works.
'What follows is the beginning of a translation from the Italian Wikipedia page (which will be updated):
Origins and schooling
Luigi Capuana was born at MineoMineo
Mineo is a town and comune in the Province of Catania, part of the Sicily region in southern Italy. It lies 64 km southwest of Catania, 56 km from Ragusa, 54 km from Gela, and 22 km from Caltagirone. There are approximately 5600 citizens living there.It serves as the center...
, in the Province of Catania
Province of Catania
Catania is a province in the autonomous island region of Sicily in Italy. Its capital is the city of Catania.It has an area of 3,552 km², and a total population of 1,073,881 . There are 58 comunes in the province, see Comunes of the Province of Catania...
. His family was wealthy, and owned property in the area. He attended the local school.
In 1851 he enrolled in the Royal College of Bronte, Catania, but left after only 2 years because of bad health. However, he continued to study by teaching himself.
After graduating he enrolled in the Faculty of Law at Catania in 1857. He abandoned this in 1860 in order to take part in Garibaldi
Giuseppe Garibaldi
Giuseppe Garibaldi was an Italian military and political figure. In his twenties, he joined the Carbonari Italian patriot revolutionaries, and fled Italy after a failed insurrection. Garibaldi took part in the War of the Farrapos and the Uruguayan Civil War leading the Italian Legion, and...
's Risorgimento
Italian unification
Italian unification was the political and social movement that agglomerated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of Italy in the 19th century...
as the secretary of the Secret Committee of Insurrection in Mineo
Mineo
Mineo is a town and comune in the Province of Catania, part of the Sicily region in southern Italy. It lies 64 km southwest of Catania, 56 km from Ragusa, 54 km from Gela, and 22 km from Caltagirone. There are approximately 5600 citizens living there.It serves as the center...
, and later as the chancellor of the nascent civic council.
"Literary Adventures"
In 1861 Capuana released the legendary drama Garibaldi in three cantos, published in Catania by Galatola. In 1864 he settled in FlorenceFlorence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
to begin his "literary adventure": he met, and kept in touch with, the most notable Italian authors of the era (including Aleardo Aleardi
Aleardo Aleardi
Aleardo Aleardi , born Gaetano Maria, was an Italian poet who belonged to the so-called Neo-romanticists....
); he published his first critical essays in the "Italian Review" in 1865; he became the theatre critic for "Nation" in 1866; he published, serially in a Florentine daily in 1867, his first novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
, entitled Dr. Cymbalus which took Dumas fils' La boîte d'argent as a model. He would stay in Florence until 1868.
Return to Sicily
In 1868 Capuana returned to SicilySicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
planning a brief stay, but his father's death and economic hardship anchored him to the island.
He worked as a school inspector and later as counselor of Mineo until he was elected as mayor of the town.
During these years he learned more about Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.Hegel developed a comprehensive...
's idealist philosophy. He was especially inspired by "Dopo la Laurea", an essay by positivist
Positivism
Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....
and Hegelian doctor Angelo Camillo De Meis, who had developed a theory on the evolution and death of literary genres.
Catania: work at university and death
In 1902 Capuana moved to Catania to lecture lexicographyLexicography
Lexicography is divided into two related disciplines:*Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries....
and stylistics
Stylistics (linguistics)
Stylistics is the study and interpretation of texts from a linguistic perspective. As a discipline it links literary criticism and linguistics, but has no autonomous domain of its own...
at the local university.
His last literary works included "Coscienze" (1905), "Nel paese di Zàgara" (1910), and "Gli Americani di Rabbato" (1912).
Capuana died in Catania
Catania
Catania is an Italian city on the east coast of Sicily facing the Ionian Sea, between Messina and Syracuse. It is the capital of the homonymous province, and with 298,957 inhabitants it is the second-largest city in Sicily and the tenth in Italy.Catania is known to have a seismic history and...
on November 29, 1915, shortly after Italy entered the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
.
Sta notti... (Tonight)
| Sicilian | English |
|---|---|
| Sta notti mi sunnai quattru funtani, | Tonight I dreamt of four fountains |
| Quattru pedi d'aranciu a lu ciuriri; | Of four orange trees about to blossom; |
| Vitti li stiddi scinniri e acchianari, | I saw the stars descend and ascend; |
| Vitti lu suli comu un lebbru jiri; | I saw the sun run like a hare; |
| Vitti n'aquila fina a lu vulari, | I saw a fine eagle ready to soar, |
| Vitti lu cori tò npettu viniri; | I saw your heart come into my breast; |
| Ca siddu mi putieva arrisbigghiari, | And could I have awakened, |
| Nun ti l'avissi cchiù lassatu jiri. | I would never have let you go. |
External links
- Capuana's works: text with concordances and frequency list
- Text Frequencies of "Profumo"
- Answers.com article on Luigi Capuana