Fetching
One moment.
Fetching
One moment.
1ease a great imaginative artist can produce a deeper thrill by a far slighter use of the weird and the mysterious. The chief interest of the story for the ordinary reader centres, not in its ghostly characters and improbable machinery, the scenes in Mejnour’s chamber in the ruined castle among the Apennines, the colossal and appalling apparitions on Vesuvius, the hideous phantom with its burning eye that haunted Glyndon, but in the loves of Viola and the mysterious Zanoni, the blissful and the fearful scenes through which they pass, and their final destiny, when the hero of the story sacrifices his own “charmed life” to save hers, and the Immortal finds the only true immortality in death. Among the striking passages in the work are the pathetic sketch of the old violinist and composer, Pisani, with his sympathetic “barbiton” which moaned, groaned, erowled, and laughed responsive to the feelings of its master; the description of Viola’s and her father’s triumph, when “ The Siren,” his masterpiece, is performed at the San Carlo in Naples; Glyndon’s adventure at the Carnival in Naples ; the death of his sister ; the vivid pictures of the Reign of Terror in Paris, closing with the downfall of Robespierre and his satellites; and perhaps, above all, the thrilling scene where Zanoni leaves Viola asleep in prison when his guards call him to execution, and she, unconscious of the terrible sacrifice, but awaking and missing him, has a vision of the procession to xy
2Cin. gectetion wah, Seed See een and beauty, followed by the sudden the headsman, — tie Week snd d= of her loved one to Heaven im a myriad of meledies from the choral hosts above. “Zanoni” was originally peblished by Saunders and Otley, London, im three volumes Ilma, iz 1842. A translation into French, made by ML Sheldon under the direction of P. Lorain, was poblished in Paris im the “Biblicthigue des Meillears Romans Btrangers.” wu PREFACH 10 THE EDITION OF 1853 As a work of imagination, “ Zanoni” ranks, perhaps,
3amongst the highest of my prose fictions. In the Poem of “King Arthur,” published many years afterwards, | have taken up an analogous design, in the contemplation of our positive life through a spiritual medium; and I have enforced, through a far wider development, and, F believe, with more complete and enduring success, that harmony between the external events which are all that the superficial behold on the surface of human affairs, and the subtle and intellectual agencies which in reality influence the conduct of individuals, and shape out the destinies of the world. As man has two lives, —that of action and that of thought, — so I conceive that work to be the truest representation of humanity which faithfully deiineates both, and opens some elevating glimpse into the sublimest mysteries of our being, by establishing the inevitable union that exists between the plain things of the day, in which our earthly bodies perform their allotted part, and the latent, often uncultivated, often invisible, affinities of the soul with all the powers that eternally breathe and move throughout the Universe of Spirit. T refer those who do me the honor to read “ Zanoni ” with more attention than is given to ordinary romance, to the Poem of “King Arthur,” for suggestive conjecture into xvi PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1853.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
1ease a great imaginative artist can produce a deeper thrill by a far slighter use of the weird and the mysterious. The chief interest of the story for the ordinary reader centres, not in its ghostly characters and improbable machinery, the scenes in Mejnour’s chamber in the ruined castle among the Apennines, the colossal and appalling apparitions on Vesuvius, the hideous phantom with its burning eye that haunted Glyndon, but in the loves of Viola and the mysterious Zanoni, the blissful and the fearful scenes through which they pass, and their final destiny, when the hero of the story sacrifices his own “charmed life” to save hers, and the Immortal finds the only true immortality in death. Among the striking passages in the work are the pathetic sketch of the old violinist and composer, Pisani, with his sympathetic “barbiton” which moaned, groaned, erowled, and laughed responsive to the feelings of its master; the description of Viola’s and her father’s triumph, when “ The Siren,” his masterpiece, is performed at the San Carlo in Naples; Glyndon’s adventure at the Carnival in Naples ; the death of his sister ; the vivid pictures of the Reign of Terror in Paris, closing with the downfall of Robespierre and his satellites; and perhaps, above all, the thrilling scene where Zanoni leaves Viola asleep in prison when his guards call him to execution, and she, unconscious of the terrible sacrifice, but awaking and missing him, has a vision of the procession to xy
2Cin. gectetion wah, Seed See een and beauty, followed by the sudden the headsman, — tie Week snd d= of her loved one to Heaven im a myriad of meledies from the choral hosts above. “Zanoni” was originally peblished by Saunders and Otley, London, im three volumes Ilma, iz 1842. A translation into French, made by ML Sheldon under the direction of P. Lorain, was poblished in Paris im the “Biblicthigue des Meillears Romans Btrangers.” wu PREFACH 10 THE EDITION OF 1853 As a work of imagination, “ Zanoni” ranks, perhaps,
3amongst the highest of my prose fictions. In the Poem of “King Arthur,” published many years afterwards, | have taken up an analogous design, in the contemplation of our positive life through a spiritual medium; and I have enforced, through a far wider development, and, F believe, with more complete and enduring success, that harmony between the external events which are all that the superficial behold on the surface of human affairs, and the subtle and intellectual agencies which in reality influence the conduct of individuals, and shape out the destinies of the world. As man has two lives, —that of action and that of thought, — so I conceive that work to be the truest representation of humanity which faithfully deiineates both, and opens some elevating glimpse into the sublimest mysteries of our being, by establishing the inevitable union that exists between the plain things of the day, in which our earthly bodies perform their allotted part, and the latent, often uncultivated, often invisible, affinities of the soul with all the powers that eternally breathe and move throughout the Universe of Spirit. T refer those who do me the honor to read “ Zanoni ” with more attention than is given to ordinary romance, to the Poem of “King Arthur,” for suggestive conjecture into xvi PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1853.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
No commentary for this page.