Resumen
Resumen de Reputaciones usurpadas
Para quién es
Readers who enjoy a fierce, funny critic, who like to see famous names tested against the evidence, and who care about how poems, translations and histories are made and judged.
De qué trata este libro
Usurped Reputations is a book of sharp critical studies by the Italian writer Vittorio Imbriani, who died in 1886. The pieces were written between the 1860s and the late 1870s. Each one takes a person or a work with a big name and asks whether the name is earned. Imbriani calls such a name a usurped reputation, one held without the merit to back it.
The targets are the Veronese poet Aleardo Aleardi, Goethe's Faust, the priest and poet Giacomo Zanella, the translator Andrea Maffei, the Venetian leader Daniele Manin, and the minister Benedetto Cairoli. Imbriani writes with wit, anger and a great many digressions and stories. His method is to quote, compare and test, and to say plainly what he finds.
You will hear a critic who holds that praise without reasons is a kind of lie, and who believes honesty matters more than politeness. You will also meet his theory of poetry, which he builds as he goes. He says a poet must feel an image so fully that it lives on its own. Let us begin with the first target, the poet Aleardi, and the failure of feeling that Imbriani finds at the heart of his verse.
En este resumen
- 1A critic must tell the truthFree
- 2Poetry needs feeling turned into image
- 3Aleardi loves himself, not his subjects
- 4Religion, country and love ring hollow
- 5Borrowed images, botany and bad scholarship
- 6Goethe's Faust, a flawed masterpiece
- 7Zanella, a poet of the dinner table
- 8Maffei's translation tested line by line
- 9Manin, Cairoli and the politics of illusion
Idea clave 1 de 9
A critic must tell the truth
Imbriani opens with a dedication to his friend Tommaso Gar, who admires Aleardi. He admits the dilemma. Staying silent would spare a friend's feelings, but his conscience will not allow it. He claims that polite consideration is the great enemy of honest criticism. It is not fear of violence that silences critics, he says, but affection for friends, relatives and admirers.
He quotes the journalist Ruggiero Bonghi, who sees no reward in writing except doing good by telling the truth. A man who believes he holds the truth and does nothing to win others to it disgusts him. He compares the critic to a cleric among worshipers of gold who smashes a few idols.
He then draws a line between the man and the poet. He says he judges only the abstract author Aleardi, not the flesh and blood man. He also defends his own heat. Anger at a widespread error, he argues, is a way of taking the subject seriously, and he compares himself to a surgeon cutting out gangrene.
This stance runs through the whole book. The principle is that a reputation is a public claim, and anyone may test it in public. Imbriani cares more about being right than about being liked, and he says so again and again.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about Reputaciones usurpadas
What is Usurped Reputations about?
It is a set of critical essays in which Vittorio Imbriani tests famous reputations against the evidence. He examines the poet Aleardi, Goethe's Faust, the poet Zanella, the translator Maffei, Daniele Manin and the minister Cairoli.
What does usurped reputation mean?
For Imbriani it means a fame held without the merit to support it. He argues that applause often comes from friendship, fashion, politics or habit, and that a critic should check the work itself.
Who was Aleardo Aleardi?
Aleardo Aleardi was a nineteenth-century Italian poet from Verona. Many admirers called him a great poet of patriotic and civic themes, and Imbriani's first essay is a detailed attack on that praise.
Why does Imbriani criticize Goethe's Faust?
He admires many passages but finds the whole poem a failure. He argues that it lacks a unifying idea, mixes three kinds of story, and leaves its characters thin, while its second part hides behind allegory.
Is the book easy to follow?
Imbriani writes in a lively, conversational voice full of jokes, anecdotes and direct quotations. Each essay has a clear target and a clear argument, and the digressions add humor and context.