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Loading... The Italian (Oxford World's Classics)by Ann Radcliffe
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Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0140437541, Paperback)The haughty, manipulative Marchesa, determined to thwart the romance between her son, the young Neapolitan nobleman Vincentio di Vivaldi, and Elena di Rosalba, has enlisted the help of the villainous, scheming monk, Schedoni. With a livid paleness of face and a melancholy eye, whose brooding presence dominates the novel, Schedoni has become an archetype of Romantic literature. Set in the mid-eighteenth century against the dramatic, lush backdrop of the Bay of Naples, The Italian is a tale of passion, deceit, abduction, and the horrors of the Inquisition.In one of the most powerful Gothic tales ever written, Mrs. Radcliffe, the unrivalled master of the genre, skillfully combines traditional elements of danger, romance, and the supernatural with her abiding interest in history and considerable ability to paint poetic images of sublime landscape. In the introduction, Robert Miles examines the novel's literary and historical context. (retrieved from Amazon Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:48:04 -0500) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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Wikipedia in English (1)
I feel that if you cut out most of the traveling scenes, and most of the scenes involving description of the setting, this book would be many times more enjoyable. It was pretty great once I got into it, but actually getting into the reading and not being easily distracted was difficult to do.
However, at the time of writing, it's been four or five years since I read it, so I don't remember it as clearly as I should, and I may simply be remembering the strongest of my post-reading impressions. At the very least, I never hated the book, and I've been unwilling to part with it, even as I've had to shrink my library several times. (