Graziella
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Cover, 1905 English edition
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| Author | Alphonse de Lamartine |
|---|---|
| Translator | James Runnion |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Set in | Naples and surrounding area |
| Published |
|
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Published in English
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1875 |
| Pages | 119 (first edition) |
| OCLC | 78282173 |
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Original text
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at French |
| Translation | Graziella online |
Graziella is an 1852 novel by the French author Alphonse de Lamartine. It tells of a young French man who falls for a fisherman's granddaughter – the titular Graziella – during a trip to Naples, Italy; they are separated when he must return to France, and she soon dies. Based on the author's experiences with a tobacco-leaf folder while in Naples in the early 1810s, Graziella was first written as a journal, and intended to serve as commentary for Lamartine's poem "Le Premier Regret".
First serialised as part of Les Confidences beginning in 1849, Graziella received popular acclaim. An operatic adaptation had been completed by the end of the year, and the work influenced paintings, poems, novels, and films. The American literary critic Charles Henry Conrad Wright considered it one of the three most important emotionalist French novels, the others being Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's novel Paul et Virginie (1788) and Chateaubriand's novella Atala (1801). Two English translations have been published, one by James Runnion in 1875 and the other by Ralph Wright in 1929.
The eighteen-year-old narrator travels from his home in Mâcon, Burgundy, to Italy, staying first in Rome, then Naples. There he meets a young man named Aymon de Virieu, and the two decide to apprentice themselves to Andrea, a local fisherman. Although the first few months pass in contemplative tranquility and beauty, during a surging September storm they are forced to take refuge at Andrea's home on Procida, where they spend the night. Here the narrator first meets the fisherman's granddaughter, Graziella.
The following morning, the narrator overhears Andrea's wife berating him for taking on the two "pagan" Frenchmen. Graziella, however, comes to their defence, silencing her grandmother by pointing out the two young men's compassion and religious acts. The family and their apprentices go to recover the remnants of the destroyed boat. Soon afterwards, the narrator and Virieu go to the village, where they purchase a new boat and fishing supplies for the fisherman. When they return, Andrea and his family are sleeping, but are soon awoken and brought to the beach, where they joyously accept the new vessel.
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Wikipedia