Wisdom and Woe

Romola (1862) is one of George Eliot's most ambitious and imaginative works: sworn by Eliot herself to be "written with [her] best blood"; admired by Robert Browning as "the noblest and most heroic prose poem" he had ever read; and vivid with historical, political, and geographical details that are "wonderful in their energy and in their accuracy" (Anthony Trollope).

It offers an in-depth perspective of the artistic, philosophical, religious, and social life of Renaissance Florence, featuring a cast of real-world figures such as Piero di Cosimo, Fra Angelico, and Niccolò Machiavelli. The novel begins in 1492, just as Italy is entering one of its most turbulent historical periods: including war, the exile of the Medici dynasty (famous for its luxuriance), and the ascendency of the religious zealot, Savonarola (famous for his austerity), harbingering Italy's proto-Protestant Reformation.

In this crucible is introduced the heroine, Romola, a naive youth seeking to define herself. A mysterious shipwreck survivor, Tito Melema, arrives in Florence seeking to redefine himself. The two are soon married, but Tito is haunted by a dark past. Swirled in national and marital intrigues of Shakespearean dimensions, Romola confronts crises of faith and virtue, loyalty and resistance.

Schedule:

• Week 1 (August 17): Introduction-Chapter 14
• Week 2 (August 24): Chapters 15-33
• Week 3 (August 31): Chapters 34-51
• Week 4 (September 7): Chapters 52-Epilogue

Romola:

Romola (1862) is one of George Eliot's most ambitious and imaginative works: sworn by Eliot herself to be "written with [her] best blood"; admired by Robert Browning as "the noblest and most heroic prose poem" he had ever read; and vivid with historical, political, and geographical details that are "wonderful in their energy and in their accuracy" (Anthony Trollope).

It offers an in-depth perspective of the artistic, philosophical, religious, and social life of Renaissance Florence, featuring a cast of real-world figures such as Piero di Cosimo, Fra Angelico, and Niccolò Machiavelli. The novel begins in 1492, just as Italy is entering one of its most turbulent historical periods: including war, the exile of the Medici dynasty (famous for its luxuriance), and the ascendency of the religious zealot, Savonarola (famous for his austerity), harbingering Italy's proto-Protestant Reformation.

In this crucible is introduced the heroine, Romola, a naive youth seeking to define herself. A mysterious shipwreck survivor, Tito Melema, arrives in Florence seeking to redefine himself. The two are soon married, but Tito is haunted by a dark past. Swirled in national and marital intrigues of Shakespearean dimensions, Romola confronts crises of faith and virtue, loyalty and resistance.

Schedule:

• Week 1 (August 17): Introduction-Chapter 14
• Week 2 (August 24): Chapters 15-33
• Week 3 (August 31): Chapters 34-51
• Week 4 (September 7): Chapters 52-Epilogue

Romola:

The balance of power in Italy was shattered following the death of Lorenzo ("the Magnificent") de' Medici in 1492. The peninsula erupted in war among France, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire, while the factional Italian city-states contended against each other.

Therefore, in the final paragraphs of The Prince (1513), Machiavelli urges Lorenzo II (the Magnificent's grandson, to whom the book is dedicated) to expel the invaders, quell the infighting, and unify all of Italy under Medici dynastic rule. He concludes by quoting Petrarch (Canzone 128, "Italia mia") in what is one of the earliest recorded examples of peninsular (as opposed to local) Italian pride. But it would be over three centuries before the nation would fulfill its hope of unity.

The Prince is perhaps the most famous book on politics ever written. Its most revolutionary conceit is its divorce of politics from ethics. Whereas classical political theory (ala Erasmus) regarded the rightful exercise of power as a function of the moral character of its ruler, Machiavelli treats authority from a purely instrumental perspective. He urges the presumptive prince to reject Christian meekness and "act contrary to faith, friendship, humanity, and religion." Instead of Christ as a role model, he cites Cesare Borgia (1475-1507), whose aristocratic family was infamous for decadence, cruelty, and criminality in its ruthless pursuit of wealth and power.

Today, Machiavelli is synonymous with treacherous, sinister self-seeking, one of the "dark triad" of negative personality traits. Yet his work remains as vital and controversial as when it first appeared, prefiguring Nieztsche's critique of Christian morality, and being both a stigma and stimulant in politics, business, and psychology.

The Prince:

The Betrothed (Alessandro Manzoni, 1827) is considered Italy's "national novel"; a founding masterpiece of its culture; "a classic that has never ceased shaping reality in Italy" (Italo Calvino); and "a gift to humanity" (Verdi). For its descriptions, history, characters, wit, and expansiveness, it draws comparisons to Tolstoy, Scott, Dickens, Thackery, and Melville. It is not only "the most famous and widely read novel in the Italian language," but also "the most inspirational novel of the Risorgimento."

It is set in early 17th-century Lombardy amid Spanish occupation and the extremes of famine, war, and plague. But its basic theme transcends "a given, concrete, historical crisis" to speak not only to "the Italian people as a whole," but to universal themes of love, faith, and justice.

The central protagonists are two peasant-born lovers who find themselves opposed by a corrupt local tyrant. Just as the titular lovers are emblematic of Italy's resistance to foreign domination, the setting--teeming with numerous characters and points-of-view, filtered through an omniscient narrator--evokes its fragmented polity and sense of Providential unity.

The Betrothed helped establish a common literary language across Italy's diverse regional dialects. Tackling a philological debate known as the questione della lingua, Manzoni spent nearly two decades reworking the novel's idiom, producing a hybrid Florentine dialect, both formal and vernacular, that endeavored to do for the nation linguistically what the Risorgimento would do for it politically.

Schedule:

• Week 1 (September 21): Introduction-Chapter 8
• Week 2 (October 5): Chapters 9-23
• Week 3 (October 19): Chapters 24-38

The Betrothed (1844 translation):