Four Tuesdays meeting bi-weekly: September 19, October 3, 17, and 31, from 6 to 8 p.m. ET Online
Lecture and Discussion. This live class will be recorded and available for later viewing for a limited time.
Hidden in Plain Sight: the Rediscovery of an Italian Classic
A historical novel in the tradition of Walter Scott, The Betrothed pits the fortunes of two young silk-weavers against the backdrop of Northern Italy in 1628-30, when a famine had just broken out, aggravated by the war of Mantuan succession, involving France, Spain, the Holy Roman Emperor, and the Vatican. The story begins when the couple’s impending marriage is stopped by a feudal lord. Before they can finally be joined in matrimony at novel’s end, the reader will encounter good and bad priests, a wayward nun, bread riots in Milan, a miraculous conversion and an outbreak of the bubonic plague. The novel gives a sweeping portrait of political upheaval, social injustice, and clerical misbehavior. It also takes up the defense of the poor and humble, with all their flaws, and invites its Italian readers to see themselves as a people with a shared ethos and language.
Here is link to the preface, by Jhumpa Lahiri on Michael F. Moore's Translation of Alessandro Manzoni's The Betrothed
Reading Schedule:
Dates: Four Tuesdays meeting bi-weekly: September 19, October 3, 17, and 31, from 6 to 8 p.m. ET Online
First Class: Chapters 1-8
Second Class: Chapters 9-19
Third Class: Chapters 20-30
Fourth Class: Chapters 31-38
Here are some reviews:
“An important new translation . . . It feels strange to have had a bona fide canonical classic hiding in plain sight for all these years. But with [Michael F.] Moore’s vigorous and companionable translation, the book is now here for everyone to see. . . . Now the English-speaking world can discover what the fuss is all about.”—The Wall Street Journal
“The Betrothed emerges in the new translation as a work that anyone who cares about nineteenth-century fiction should want to read. It has the great events—war, famine, plague—and the record of their impact on humble people. It has the sentimentality: demure maidens and brave lads and black-hearted villains. It has passages of lyrical description and passages where the specificity of detail verges on the sociological. It has the prolixity, annoying to some, comforting to others. In other words, it is an exemplary historical novel.”—The New Yorker
“Michael F. Moore’s new version strikes me as remarkable, extraordinarily well pitched, finding the right levels of colloquialism and eloquence. Moore preserves the heteroglossia of the novel, its rich impasto of spoken and written styles whose incompatibility is one of its deep subjects. And he manages to catch Manzoni’s narrative voice, which is not easy to characterize.”—Peter Brooks, The New York Review of Books
Required Book:
The Betrothed, by Alessandro Manzoni, translated by Michael F. Moore (9780679643562)
Michael F. Moore’s translations range across genres, from modern classics to contemporary fiction and non-fiction, including, most recently: The Drowned and the Saved, by Primo Levi; Agostino, by Alberto Moravia; Quiet Chaos, by Sandro Veronesi; and Live Bait, by Fabio Genovesi. He is currently working on a new translation of Moravia’s short story collection, Rome Tales. For many years Michael served as the chair of the PEN Translation Committee and, subsequently, as the Chair of the Advisory Board of the PEN/Heim Translation Grant. He was also the staff interpreter and translator of the Italian Mission to the United Nations. He teaches literary translation in the MFA program of the School of the Arts of Columbia University.
REFUND POLICY: Please note that we can issue class refunds up until seven (7) days before the first class session.
