Alessandro Manzoni

Mary Ann McDonald Carolan (Fairfield University)

Ed. by Jo Ann Cavallo, Columbia University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.6.1: Italian Writing and Culture, 453-present.
Vol. editors: Carla Bregman (Independent Scholar - North America), Jo Ann Cavallo (Columbia University)

Dates

Born 7 Mar 1785
Died 22 May 1873
Activity 1805-1873

Places

Born in Italy
Active in Italy

Activities

Primary

Novelist
Poet

Other

Playwright / Dramatist

Resources

Manzoni's Works

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Novelist, language theorist, poet, and dramatist, Alessandro Manzoni embodies the literary, linguistic and political concerns of nineteenth-century Italy. Best known for his

I promessi sposi

(

The Betrothed

, 1840), an epic tale of contested love, war, plague and famine set in seventeenth-century Spanish-ruled Milan, Manzoni also celebrated major historical events in his poetry and plays. “Il cinque maggio” (“The Fifth of May”, 1821), an ode on the death of Napoleon, remains one of the most popular lyric poems of all time. Manzoni’s best known tragedies also reveal the author’s predilection for refiguring the past: “Il conte di Carmagnola” (“The Count of Carmagnola”, 1819) tells the tale of a mercenary soldier’s life and death in fifteenth-century Venice, and…

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2256 words

Citation: Carolan, Mary Ann McDonald. "Alessandro Manzoni". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 18 March 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2925, accessed 23 November 2024.]