Graziella
by Alphonse de Lamartine
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Description
In its first modern translation, a novel-cum-memoir of a Frenchman's erotic awakening in Italy by a preeminent writer of the Romantic period In 1812 Alphonse de Lamartine, a young man of means, traveled through southern Italy, where, during a sojourn in Naples, he fell in love with a young woman who worked in a cigar factory--and whose death after he returned to France would haunt him throughout his writing life. Graziella, Lamartine called this lost girl in his poetry and memoirs--and show more also in Graziella , a novel that closely follows the story of his own romance. "When I was eighteen," the narrator begins, as if penning his memoir, "my family entrusted me to the care of a relative whose business affairs called her to Tuscany." The tale that unfolds, of the young man's amorous experiences amid the natural grandeur and subtle splendors of the Italian countryside, is one of the finest works of fiction in the French Romantic tradition, a bildungsroman that is also a melancholy portrait of the artist as a young man discovering the muse who would both inspire and elude him. Remarkable for its contemplative prose, its dreamy passions and seductive drawing of the Italian landscape, and its place in the Romantic canon, Graziella is a timeless portrait of love, chronicling the remorse and the misguided ideals of youth that find their expression, if not their amends, in art. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Shamelessly romantic! 'Graziella' is set on a small island by Naples and tells of the love story between a young Frenchman eager to discover the world and a beautiful, pure, simple Italian girl. Their relationship is reminiscent of 'Paul et Virginie', with all the simple beauties of nature and life celebrated and the evils of the modern world decried. Lamartine's style, full of images and poetry, is wonderful, and the age-old plot would draw tears from a stone. This novella is also an intense tribute to the charms of Italy - I've been wanting to live there ever since I read the book.
Balda 2
Nov 25, 2025Spanish
Pròleg de Joan Puig i Ferrater
Mar 25, 2025Catalan
NBB-3
May 12, 2021Catalan
843.7 LAM
Apr 18, 2020Italian
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- Members
- 178
- Popularity
- 183,300
- Reviews
- 5
- Rating
- (3.89)
- Languages
- 10 — Catalan, English, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 30
- ASINs
- 18
