Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 16, 2025
Récamier and the Duchess of Devonshire, Canova and Foscolo, and Sismondi and Werner, the whole intellectual world of the Empire and the Restoration, all seem to be projected, figures now flitting past like shadows, now dwelling long, clear and coloured, upon the rather colourless and patternless background of Mme. d'Albany's house; nay, of Mme. d'Albany herself.
See Foscolo, Discorso sul Testo, p. 432. He says, that in Verona, where descendants of the poet survive, they call it Alìgeri. But names, like other words, often wander so far from their source, that it is impossible to ascertain it. Who would suppose that Pomfret came from Pontefract, or wig from parrucca?
He was a political exile, of about the same date as his remarkable contemporary, Ugo Foscolo; his high forehead, from which his hair fell back in a long grizzled curtain, his wild, melancholy eyes, and the severe and sad expression of his face, impressed me with some awe and much pity. He was at that time one of the latest of the long tribe of commentators on Dante's "Divina Commedia."
Ugo Foscolo, an excellent critic where his own temper and violence did not interfere, sees nothing but jealousy in Petrarch's dislike of Dante, and nothing but Jesuitism in similar feelings entertained by such men as Tiraboschi. Such men, with all their acuteness, are incapable of seeing what can be effected by nobler and serener times, and the progress of civilisation.
The character and history of Ugo Foscolo, like Chénier, half a Greek in blood, and more than half a Greek in passionate love of beauty and indomitable love of liberty, are amongst the most interesting in Italian literature; and I regret that I can say but little of them in this place.
Foscolo is of opinion he was not only in earnest, but that he was very near taking himself for an apostle, and would have done so had his prophecies succeeded, perhaps with success to the pretension. Thank heaven, his "Hell" has not embittered the mild reading-desks of the Church of England.
Inchbald, who used to walk up and down Sackville Street in order that she might see Dr. Warren's light in his window? Foscolo was a believer in the love; Sismondi admits it; and Rosini, the editor of the latest edition of the poet's works, is passionate for it.
Ashtaroth, who had been a seraph, takes no notice of the advice, except with a waving of the recollection of happier times. He bids the hero farewell, and says he has only to summon him in order to receive his aid. This retention of a sense of his former angelical dignity has been noticed by Foscolo and Panizzi, the two best writers on these Italian poems.
Dummie. Slapping his thigh with the gesticulatory vehemence of a Ugo Foscolo, that gentleman exclaimed, "I 'as it, I 'as thought of a tutor for leetle Paul!" "Who's that? You quite frightens me; you 'as no marcy on my narves," said the dame, fretfully. "Vy, it be the gemman vot writes," said Dummie, putting his finger to his nose, "the gemman vot paid you so flashly!" "What! the Scotch gemman?"
Foscolo, it is true, says it is, in general, more severe than refined; and it is perilous to differ with such a critic on such a point; for much of it, unfortunately, is lost to a foreign reader, in consequence of its dependance on the piquant old Tuscan idiom, and on popular sayings and allusions.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking