Valperga: Or, the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca - Couverture souple

Shelley, Mary W.

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0192832891 ISBN 13 : 9780192832894

Editeur : Oxford Paperbacks, 2000

Synopsis

"The earth is a wide sea," she cried, "and we its passing bubbles; it is a changeful heaven, and we its smallest and swiftest driven vapours; all changes, all passes nothing is stable, nothing for one moment the same." Valperga (1823), the novel Mary Shelley wrote after Frankenstein, is based on the life of Castruccio Castracani (1281-1328), Prince of Lucca. A brilliant soldier and cruel tyrant, he successfully commanded Ghibelline forces in Tuscany against the Guelphs, threatening Florence, their stronghold. Woven into the story of this factional conflict are the tragice destinies of two heroines, fictional creations of the author. Ethanasia, Countess of Valperga (the name of her castle to the north of Lucca), finds herself increasingly torn between loyalty to her Guelph roots and her affection fro Castruccio which began in childhood. Beatrice, who the author's father, William Godwin, described as 'the jewel of the book', is a heretical Paterin with whom Castruccio falls in love only to abandon. This meticulously researched historical fiction combines a narrative of suspense with a remarkable reconstruction of manners in the Middle Ages. Set in the period of Dante's lifetime, it is also suffused with a poetic spirit which evokes the beauties of Italy's physical environment and points to the melancholy inevitability of change. This edition provides a clear account of the circumstances in which Valperga was composed and published.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

Valperga: or, the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca is an 1823 historical novel by the Romantic novelist Mary Shelley, set amongst the wars of the Guelphs and Ghibellines (the latter of which she spelled "Ghibeline".) Valperga is a historical novel which relates the adventures of the early fourteenth-century despot Castruccio Castracani, a real historical figure who became the lord of Lucca and conquered Florence. In the novel, his armies threaten the fictional fortress of Valperga, governed by Countess Euthanasia, the woman he loves. He forces her to choose between her feelings for him and political liberty. She chooses the latter and sails off to her death. Through the perspective of medieval history, Mary Shelley addresses a live issue in post-Napoleonic Europe, the right of autonomously governed communities to political liberty in the face of imperialistic encroachment. She opposes Castruccio's compulsive greed for conquest with an alternative, Euthanasia’s government of Valperga on the principles of reason and sensibility. In the view of Valperga's recent editor Stuart Curran, the work represents a feminist version of Walter Scott’s new and often masculine genre, historical novel. Modern critics draw attention to Mary Shelley’s republicanism, and her interest in questions of political power and moral principles.

Présentation de l'éditeur

Not reprinted since its first edition, Mary Shelley's second novel is a major discovery of the Mary Shelley bicentenary of 1997. The novel's lack of success as a follow-up to Frankenstein was the result of its subject matter and unconventional approach to the genre of historical fiction, attributes that can only delight the twentieth-century reader. Shelley's mastery of the intricate details of thirteenth-century Tuscan politics is unique among women of her time, and her resolute filtering of the bloody heroics of the age through the sensibilities of two women who are destroyed by them reveals the feminist perspective missing so conspicuously from her first novel. The lastest addition to the acclaimed Women Writers in English series, this glittering novel from Romanticism's premier woman storyteller belongs on the shelves of all serious readers of English fiction.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Oxford Paperbacks
• Date d'édition: 2000
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0192832891
• ISBN 13: 9780192832894
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 462
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: Ufficio Anagrafiche Messaggerie; ufficio.anagrafiche@meli.it; ; Via Verdi, 8; Assago Milano; 20090; Italie