The Professor and the Siren

The Professor and the Siren or The Siren (original Italian title: La Sirena) is a novella by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. It is sometimes known as Lighea, the name of the title character, which was the title chosen by the writer's widow.[1]

Background

The novella was the last work the author completed before his death.[2] Conceived while staying with his cousins Casimiro and Lucio Piccolo di Calanovella. Written in the winter of 1956-1957, the novella is the result of the short and late creative period of the author who, in a very short tour of years (1956-1957), he led the author to write a small number of stories and works of various kinds, including essays works, including the novel the Leopard , to experience failure without appeal of his literary aspirations, to go to their deaths without being able to see any of his published literary works. The story, along with others, was only published posthumously in 1961 by Feltrinelli, the same publishing house that you had, three years earlier, the intuition that had led to the posthumous publication of the novel The Leopard, a choice crowned with success the critics and the public that would consecrate the author on an international scale. The manuscript was delivered by Elena Croce (daughter of the philosopher Benedetto) to Giorgio Bassani, who oversaw the publication and wrote the accompanying preface.[3][4]

Plot

The narrative begins in 1938 in Turin and misty winter, where the encounter between two personalities different from each other, both Sicilians: the distinguished classicist Rosario La Ciura, an eminent retired professor of Ancient Greek and member of the Italian Senate, and the young Paolo Corbera di Salina, a Sicilian of noble birth who works as a journalist and chases skirts. Despite the cultural and generational gap, and the harshness of character of the professor, the meeting, which took place in a bar on Via Po, the young man can earn, without even knowing how, the professor's sympathy. The result is a mutual interest and a familiar partnership that leads gradually to open up the professor confidently to that young man and tell him of an episode far, during the preparation for the competition for the chair of greek at the University of Pavia. In those days, the risk of mad crazy after months of study, he was invited by a friend to move to a deserted huts on the coast of Sicily , at Augusta, where the magical encounter with a mermaid Lighea, the daughter of Calliope, the muse of epic poetry.

Publication in English

In 1962, translated by Archibald Colquhoun, it was published in Two Stories and a Memory, a collection of short works by Tomasi with a preface by E. M. Forster. Forster described the novella as an "exquisite fantasy", while Edmund Wilson called it a "masterpiece".[5]

See also

References

  1. Di Scipio, Giuseppe C. (1 January 1993). "INTRODUCTION". Merveilles & contes. 7 (1): 5–12.
  2. Di Paolo, Maria Grazia (1 January 1993). "FOR A NEW READING OF LAMPEDUSA'S "LIGHEA"". Merveilles & contes. 7 (1): 113–132.
  3. Marrone, Gaetana (2007). Encyclopedia of Italian Literary Studies: A-J. Taylor & Francis. p. 1878. ISBN 9781579583903.
  4. Gilmour, David (2003). L'ultimo gattopardo: vita di Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (in Italian). Feltrinelli Editore. p. 159. ISBN 9788807817564.
  5. Wilson, Edmund; Dabney, Lewis M. The Sixties: The Last Journal, 1960-1972 (1994 ed.). Farrar, Straus & Giroux. ISBN 9780374524142.
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