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The Flame by Gabrielle DAnnunzio PDF

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Flame, by Gabriele D'Annunzio This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: The Flame Author: Gabriele D'Annunzio Translator: Dora Ranous Release Date: October 31, 2019 [EBook #60601] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FLAME *** Produced by Andrés V. Galia, Sherry Kaufman and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) cover TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: A number of words in this book have both hyphenated and non-hyphenated variants. For the words with both variants present the one more used has been kept. Obvious punctuation and other printing errors have been corrected. The book cover was modified by the Transcriber and has been put in the public domain. The Transcriber would like to point out to what are considered a couple of translation inaccuracies from the original Italian language version. In page 59 the text reads: "I know of no marsh capable of provoking in human pulses a fever more violent that that which at times steals up to us from the shadows of a silent canal." While in the Italian edition (Publisher: Milano Fratelli Treves; year: 1900), the text reads: "Io non conosco palude capace di provocare in polsi umani una febbre più violenta di quella che sentimmo talvolta venire verso di noi all'improvviso dall'ombra di un canale taciturno." The Transcriber thinks a more adequate translation would be: "I know of no marsh capable of causing a fever in human pulses more violent than the one we sometimes hear coming towards us suddenly from the shadow of a taciturn channel." In page 195 the text reads: "He had astonished even himself by that sudden apparition, that unexpected discovery which illumined the shadows of his mind, because exterior reality, and almost tangible." While in the Italian edition the text reads: "Si stupiva egli medessimo di quell'apparizione subitanea, di quella improvvisa scoperta che, illuminandosi nell buio del suo spirito si esternava e quasi diveniva tangibile." The Transcriber thinks a more adequate translation would be: "He was surprised himself by that sudden appearance, of that sudden discovery that, illuminating itself in the darkness of his spirit, it became external and almost became tangible." THE LITERATURE OF ITALY consists of sixteen volumes, of which this one forms a part. For full particulars of the edition see the Official Certificate bound in the volume entitled "A HISTORY OF ITALIAN LITERATURE." statue ilobox Literature of Italy 1265 1907. Edited by Rossiter Johnson and Dora Knowlton Ranous With a General Introduction by William Michael Rossetti and Special Introductions by James, Cardinal Gibbons, Charles Eliot Norton, S. G. W. Benjamin, William S, Walsh, Maurice Francis Egan, and others New translations, and former renderings compared and revised Translators: James C. Brogan, Lord Charlemont, Geoffrey Chaucer, Hartley Coleridge, Florence Kendrick Cooper, Lady Dacre, Theodore Dwight, Edward Fairfax, Ugo Foscolo, G. A. Greene, Sir Thomas Hoby, William Dean Howells, Luigi Monti, Evangeline M. O'Connor, Thomas Okey, Dora Knowlton Ranous, Thomas Roscoe, William Stewart Rose, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, John Addington Symonds, William S. Walsh, William Wordsworth, Sir Thomas Wyatt ilofronti THE FLAME (IL FUOCO) BY GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO TRANSLATED BY DORA KNOWLTON RANOUS .... fa come natura face in foco. —DANTE THE NATIONAL ALUMNI COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY THE NATIONAL ALUMNI CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION ix BOOK I THE EPIPHANY OF THE FLAME. CHAPTER I—The Bells of San Marco 1 CHAPTER II—The Face of Truth 30 CHAPTER III—The Nuptials of Autumn and Venice 40 CHAPTER IV—The Spirit of Melody 67 CHAPTER V—The Epiphany of the Flame 77 CHAPTER VI—The Poet's Dream 95 CHAPTER VII—The Promise 123 CHAPTER VIII—"To Create with Joy!" 134 BOOK II THE EMPIRE OF SILENCE. CHAPTER I—"In Time!" 147 CHAPTER II—After the Storm 156 CHAPTER III—A Fallen Giant 173 CHAPTER IV—The Master's Vision 181 CHAPTER V—Sofia 201 CHAPTER VI—A Brother to Orpheus 209 CHAPTER VII—Only One Condition 221 CHAPTER VIII—Illusions 231 CHAPTER IX—The Labyrinth 239 CHAPTER X—The Power of the Flame 262 CHAPTER XI—Reminiscence 270 CHAPTER XII—Cassandra's Reincarnation 291 CHAPTER XIII—The Story of the Archorgan 304 CHAPTER XIV—The World's Bereavement 319 CHAPTER XV—The Last Farewell 333 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE "O espousals of Paris, fatal to the beloved!"—(Page 298) Frontispiece He gazed deep into her eyes, and saw that she was as pale as if her blood had been sapped to nourish the rich fruits of the garden 130 He watched the woman turning and running like a mad creature along the dark, delusive paths 259 INTRODUCTION Gabriele D'Annunzio, poet, novelist, and dramatist, was born in 1864, on the yacht Irene near Pescara in the Abruzzi, his mother being the Duchess Maria Galesse of Rome. His education was begun in the College of Prato, in Tuscany, and finished in the University of Rome. His mind early showed signs of extraordinary power and brilliant versatility; he studied art and produced very creditable work while a mere lad, and at the age of sixteen he published his first poem, Primo Vere, which attracted flattering attention and caused him to be hailed as an infant prodigy. In 1880 he went to Rome and became a contributor to the Cronaca Bizantina, a magazine of art and literature. He remained in Rome three years, producing in that time Terra vergine ("Virgin Soil"), Canto novo ("New Song"), and Intermezzo di rime ("Intervals of Rhyme"), all of which were received with admiration and amazement, and with not a little criticism for their unconventional boldness of expression. D'Annunzio left Rome in 1884 and returned to his native hills, where he wrote Il libro delle vergine ("The Book of the Virgins") in 1884; San Pantaleone (1886), and Isottèo Guttadauro. Then, abandoning his revolutionary and realistic though splendid and intoxicating poetry for prose, the young genius next surprised his public with a novel, Giovanni Episcopo, followed by Il Piacere ("The Child of Pleasure"), in 1889. The former is a strong yet repelling story of crude brutalism, told by a victim of relentless fate; the latter is a kind of poem in prose, in which there is something above mere facility of literary touch; he shows the power of the master poet or painter to see the world at a glance, and with a dextrous hand to draw for eyes less keen that world in all its changeful aspects. His next important novel, Il trionfo della morte ("The Triumph of Death") was produced in 1896. This brought upon him a storm of mingled applause and criticism—admiration for its marvelous beauty of literary expression, condemnation of the realistic study of a degenerate whose sins lead him to suicide. But, with a proud defiance of criticism, with eyes fixed only on his art, he dared after this achievement to write the self-revelatory novel that is known as his masterpiece—Il fuoco ("The Flame"). In this great novel, which may fairly be called unique, we recognize the personification of a renascence of Latin genius. Under the thinnest veil of disguise, the author presents his own figure and that of one of the world's greatest tragic actresses, revealing the most intimate details of their well known friendship. On this picture of the most romantic of love-affairs, in Venice, the most romantic of cities, he has lavished his finest strokes of genius, writing of feminine nature with rare truth and skill, and an exquisite intuition as to the workings of a woman's mind and the throbbings of her heart. Besides his poems and novels, D'Annunzio has written several plays, the best known being La Gioconda ("Joy"), La Gloria ("Glory"), La morta città ("The City of the Dead"), and Francesca da Rimini. He is unquestionably the greatest Italian writer of to-day, and few works of Italian fiction appear that do not show something of his influence. A European critic of keen discernment says: "Read his works, all ye men and women for whom life has no secrets and truth has no terror." D. K. R. BOOK I THE EPIPHANY OF THE FLAME TO TIME AND TO HOPE Without hope, it is impossible to find the unhoped-for. —HERACLITUS OF EPHESUS. He who sings to the god a song of hope shall see his wish accomplished. —ÆSCHYLUS OF ELEUSIS. Time is the father of miracles. —HARIRI DI BASRA.

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