11 h 30 minAudiobook11 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if a famous name rests on praise that no one has bothered to check?
In Usurped Reputations, Vittorio Imbriani asks what admired writers and thinkers actually deserve. These four sharp critical studies enter the quarrels of a young Italy still deciding whom to honor. A famous name is only a claim; evidence must come before praise. Imbriani returns to texts, dates and the claims surrounding them, refusing to let admiration stand in for proof.
The book explores literary fraud, the national pride that helps it flourish, and the courage honest criticism demands. Something false can pass for something old, rare or important when it flatters its audience. Imbriani answers with patient reading and quick, scornful prose. His learned asides and combative style make this an argument to wrestle with, not a calm survey.
What you’ll discover
- Fame put to the test Watch Imbriani separate the weight of a name from the strength of its work.
- Evidence before applause Follow a critic back to the texts and claims that easy praise leaves unexamined.
- The lure of literary fraud Explore why false claims find a welcome when they flatter national pride.
- A critic ready to fight Meet a learned polemicist whose scorn makes literary judgment feel anything but polite.
- Room for your own judgment Consider how one honest reader can question a reputation that others take on trust.
Who will love it
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.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A critic must tell the truth
- Poetry needs feeling turned into image
- Aleardi loves himself, not his subjects
- Religion, country and love ring hollow
- Borrowed images, botany and bad scholarship
- Goethe's Faust, a flawed masterpiece
- Zanella, a poet of the dinner table
- Maffei's translation tested line by line
- Manin, Cairoli and the politics of illusion
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Réputations usurpées
by Vittorio Imbriani · 1877
A nineteenth-century critic takes on Aleardi, Goethe's Faust and Manin, and shows his proofs line by line.
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In short
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.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
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.
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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.
The author
Vittorio Imbriani
1840–1886 · Italian writer
Vittorio Imbriani was an Italian writer born in Naples in 1840. He wrote fiction and literary criticism and collected folktales. His collection of critical essays, Fame usurpate, was published in 1877. He also taught aesthetics at the University of Naples. He died in Naples in 1886.
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