Mary Shelley, The Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Letter to Leigh Hunt, 3 December 1820)

Performer Name:

Sgricci

Performance Venue:

 

Performance Date:

 

Author:

Shelley, Mary

Date Written:

1820

Language:

Italian

Publication Title:

The Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Article Title:

Letter to Leigh Hunt, 3 December 1820

Page Numbers:

1:164-67

Additional Info:

Ed. Betty T. Bennett

Publisher:

Johns Hopkins UP

Place of Publication:

Baltimore

Date Published:

1980

Text:

[165] We have also made the acquaintance of an Improvisatore [Tommaso Sgricci] — a man of great talent — and very strong in Greek, with an incomparable poetic genius. He improvises with an admirable fire and precision. His subject is the future destiny of Italy. He recalled that Petrarch said that neither the very high Alps nor the sea was enough to defend this unsteady and aged country from the foreign masters — But he says — I see the Alps grow — and the sea rise and become agitated in order to impede the enemies. Unfortunately he, like some of the poets of our own country, finds more pleasure in the momentary applause of a theater and the fuss that the women make, rather than in studying for posterity.

Notes:

Collected by:

AE