 | The old Continental, or, The price of liberty |  |
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALFIERI.
The Autobiography of Vittorio Alfieri, the Tragic Poet, born
at Asti, 1749, died at Florence, 1803.
Contents.—Period 1. Infancy, embracing nine years of
vegetation; 2. Youth, nine years of in-education; 3. Ten
years of Travelling and dissipation; 4. More than thirty
years of devotion to letters.
“Vittorio Alfieri was unquestionably one of the mighty masters of the
Italian muse. His dramas, though built on the classic model, and very different
from those standards which the great achievements in British tragedy
have made equally familiar and classical to us, are productions of remarkable
symmetry and vigor. They embody, as was embodied in the
whole heart of their author, the stern inflexible genius of republicanism.
They are compositions of strength rather than tenderness; of majesty and
terror, rather than of grace and sweetness; yet they have a delicacy, and
possess a purity of nature, which is due to the severe simplicity of soul which
so largely distinguished the character of Alfieri. This character is written,
by himself, in the autobiography before us. This narrative seems to us one
of the most curious, as one of the most honest, in literary history.
—Charleston
Transcript.
“This biography, from the pen of its subject, the poet who pictured the
softness of Italian scenery, and the romantic characteristics of his nation,
in his beautiful dramatic productions, is given to us in a style that partakes
alike of the poem and the novel.”
—Hunt's Merchants' Magazine.
| The old Continental, or, The price of liberty | |