506 



LITER ATUEE, CONTINENTAL, IN 1881. 



there are still about ten distinguished writers 

 who contend for public favor: Cavallotti and 

 Castelnuovo, of Milan ; Ludovico Muratori, of 

 Rome; Achille Torelli, of Naples; Giacinto 

 Gallina, of Venice; Bettoli, of Parma; Giuseppe 

 Giacosa, Vittorio Bersezio, Leopoldo Marenco, 

 and Valentino Carrera, of Turin. The last- 

 named has had great success at Turin with a 

 Elay in two acts, the subject of which is the 

 ist days of Goldini, the Venetian dramatist. 

 F. Galanti's volume, entitled " Carlo Goldoni e 

 Venezia nel Secolo XVIII," is one of the best 

 literary monographs produced in Italy. This 

 book, like Antonio Virgili's "Francesco Berni," 

 which also appeared thia year, is the result of 

 many years of conscientious work, and is a 

 proof of the way in which literary criticism 

 has advanced in Italy within the last few years. 



Count Louis Sernagiotto has written the lives 

 of two Venetian painters, Natale and Felice 

 Schiavoni. A work on Correggio is by a Greek 

 lady, Marguerite Mignaty, and is written in 

 French. Signer Molmenti is illustrating the 

 works of the great Venetian masters; and 

 Signer Bertolotti has compiled in two volumes 

 a curious account of the life of Lombard art- 

 ists in Rome. All the congresses which have 

 this year met in Italy, and especially the Inter- 

 national Geographical Congress of Venice and 

 the International Geological Congress of Bo- 

 logna, have given birth to a number of special 

 publications and interesting memoirs. Besides 

 these has also appeared this year the second 

 volume of the " Acts of the International Con- 

 gress of Orientalists at Florence." 



Antonio Lubin has written an excellent com- 

 mentary on the "DivinaComraedia." Giuseppe 

 Jacopo Ferrazzi has edited a "Bibliografia Ario- 

 stesca." The collected works of Bernardino 

 Zendrini, the translator of Heine, have been 

 published, with a biography. The " Ricordi 

 delta Giovinezza di Alfonso La Marmora," by 

 Louis Chiala, is a book of thrilling interest. 

 The twelfth and last volume of the works of 

 Shakespeare, translated by Giulio Carcano, has 

 been printed. Contemporary portraits, " Dis- 

 raeli and Gladstone," are by Ruggiero Bonghi. 

 The " Codex Astensis " of Malabayla has been 

 carefully edited by Qnintino Sella. The first 

 volume of the "Storia della Letteratura in 

 Italia " has been published at Genoa by Eman- 

 nele Celesia. The important " Carteggio Gali- 

 leiano Inedito " was issued by the Marquis 

 Giuseppe Campori, of Modena. Dr. Giovanni 

 Urtoller de Cesena has published " Lo Statuto 

 Fondamentale del Regno d'ltalia," with a com- 

 mentary. 



The most popular of the poets, Giosud Car- 

 dncci, has issued no volume this year, though 

 he has published a good many poems in differ- 

 ent newspapers of republican and naturalistic 

 tendencies. One of these papers, "La Cronaca 

 Bizantina," published in Rome, occasioned some 

 stir and emotion. The " Giobbe " is a satirical 

 poem of another illustrious poet. 



Important new Italian novels are the fol- 



lowing: " Malombra," by Giovanni Fogazzaro; 

 "Mio Figlio," by Salvatore Farina; "Vita de' 

 Campi," of Giovanni Verga; "Sotto i Ligus- 

 tri " and " II Roccolo di Sant' Alipio " of Cac- 

 cianiga; "O Tutto o Nulla" of Anton Giulio 

 Barrili ; " La Contessina " of Enrico Castel- 

 nuovo; "Sfoghi del Signor Scannavini " of 

 G. L. Patnzzi; "Dalla Finestra" of Grazia 

 Pierantoni Mancini ; " Cuore Infermo " of Ma- 

 tilde Serao; "Sull' Orlo dell' Abisso " of 

 Antonio Baccaredda ; " Nuovi Racconti " and 

 "Fra Galdino"of B. E. Maineri ; and "En- 

 tusiasmi," a posthumous novel of Roberto 

 Sacchetti. 



NORWAY. A change is taking place in the 

 character of Norwegian literature. Norway 

 did not feel the impulse of the spirit of roman- 

 tic nationalism which originated in Germany 

 at the beginning of the century until long after 

 it had elsewhere lost its significance. Conse- 

 quently, when the chief civilized nations had 

 ceased to regard nationality as a natural attri- 

 bute, and modern culture as necessarily in an- 

 tagonism with it and with poetic sentiment, 

 Norwegian writers continued to see in the un- 

 cultured rural population of their country the 

 true kernel of Norse nationality and the only 

 objects worthy of their muse, while in their 

 eyes the dwellers in towns were at once pro- 

 saic and unnational. Fifteen years ago the 

 first signs of a reaction against this mode of 

 viewing things made themselves felt, and since 

 then the new tendency has gradually been gain- 

 ing in strength and extent. The self-elation 

 which characterized the earlier literature of 

 Norway has vanished, and we find in its place 

 a self-depreciation equally strongly marked, to 

 which is due the pessimism which distinguishes 

 every modern Norwegian writer of any emi- 

 nence, and which Ibsen may be said to have 

 initiated. 



The most interesting literary productions of 

 the past year are certain novels in which this 

 new bias is especially strongly marked. These 

 works emanate from three young authors, who, 

 under widely different conditions and forms of 

 .development, have each of them produced a 

 novel which advocates pessimist views, and 

 which will be found to be essentially similar 

 to the other two in nature and aims. The first 

 to claim attention is "Arbejdsfolk " (" Working 

 People"), from the pen of Alexander Kielland. 

 He writes gracefully if superficially, and looks 

 at the classes below him from a noble and gen- 

 erous although false point of view. The scenes 

 are laid in the uppermost stratum of Norwe- 

 gian town life, which it depicts as fundament- 

 ally corrupt, while its literary character is in 

 strict accordance with the type introduced 

 by Zola in his naturalistic delineations of so- 

 ciety. In a shorter story, entitled " Else, a 

 Christmas Tale," Kielland seems to have at- 

 tempted to follow English rather than French 

 models. Here, too, the heroine belongs to the 

 people; and the narrative is gracefully writ- 

 ten, but marred by a want of psychological 



