Vittorio Alfieri - Detailed Study Notes

Vittorio Alfieri: A Life of Restless Genius

Early Life and Family

  • Birth and Aristocratic Background: Vittorio Alfieri was born in Asti on January 16, 1749, into a high-ranking Piedmontese aristocratic family.
  • Loss of Father: His father died in the same year he was born.
  • Mother's Subsequent Marriages: His mother, Monica Maillard de Tournon, a strict Savoyard noblewoman and twice a widow, remarried for a third time.
  • Education by a Priest: Alfieri was entrusted to a lenient but ignorant family priest who, as Alfieri recalled, left him "casino between the asses and under an ass", contributing to his view of childhood as a period of "stupid vegetation."

Character and Personality

  • Incessant Restlessness: Alfieri was known for his restless and indomitable nature.
  • Mood Swings: He experienced extreme mood swings, oscillating between heroic aspirations and self-pity.
  • Self-Dramatization: He turned his complex temperament into a subject of his art, dramatizing and celebrating his exceptional character.
  • Desire for Escape: Alfieri's restlessness led him to travel extensively in difficult conditions, seeking solace in extreme and desolate landscapes.

Education and Early Discontent

  • Accademia Reale: In 1758, his uncle enrolled him in the Accademia Reale of Turin, a school for Savoy's diplomatic and military personnel.
  • Military Discipline: Military discipline increased his rebelliousness against hierarchies and impositions.
  • Financial Independence: Upon being discharged from service, Alfieri began a series of travels, supported by his family's wealth.

Travels and Disillusionment

  • Extensive Travels (1767-1772): He traveled across Italy (Milan, Florence, Rome, Naples, Venice) and Europe (France, England, Holland, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Russia).
  • Purpose of Travel: These journeys were not for enlightenment but were driven by an inability to remain still and a sense of discontent.
  • Passionate Affairs: Alfieri engaged in intense love affairs, even risking his life and facing duels (e.g., with Penelope Pitt's husband in England).
  • Disdain for Society: He disliked Paris, Frederick II's Prussia, and Catherine II's St. Petersburg, and refused to meet Pietro Metastasio, the famous poet, because he considered him guilty of subservience.
  • Appreciation for Wilderness: Alfieri found solace only in untouched landscapes, anticipating the Romantic taste for sublime spectacles.

Love and Relationships

  • Failed Attempts to Forget: Alfieri once shaved his head and immersed himself in studies to avoid pursuing a woman named Gabriella.
  • Relationship with Luisa Stolberg d'Albany: He pursued Countess Luisa Stolberg d'Albany, the wife of Charles Edward Stuart, and attempted to help her escape from her elderly husband.

Literary Conversion

  • Year of Literary Conversion: 1775 marked Alfieri's "literary conversion."
  • First Work: He wrote Esquisse du jugement universel, a satirical text in French criticizing the Turin nobility.
  • Disdain for Nobility: Alfieri stated that his noble birth allowed him to critique nobility's ridicules, abuses and vices without being accused of envy.
  • First Tragedy: His first tragedy, Antonio e Cleopatra (1775), inspired by Giovanni Dolfin and Plutarch, allowed him to express political rebellion and the power of passions.
  • Success and Dedication: The successful staging of Antonio e Cleopatra on June 16, 1775, encouraged him to dedicate himself to tragedy.
  • "Volli, e volli sempre, e fortissimamente volli": This famous phrase (from a letter to Ranieri de' Calzabigi, September 6, 1783) encapsulates his commitment to becoming a true tragic author.

Literary Production and Themes

  • Peak Production (1777-1789): Alfieri's main body of work was produced in just over a decade.
  • Political Treatises: He wrote two important political treatises: Della tirannide (1777) and Del principe e delle lettere (1778-1786).
  • Poetry: He also composed a collection of poems titled Rime.
  • Renunciation of Social Norms: He changed his lifestyle, dedicating himself to writing, which he saw as a cathartic and political act, urging readers toward freedom.
  • Classical Studies: He studied Italian and Latin classics and moved to Tuscany to refine his language.

Relationship with Luisa Stolberg d'Albany and Later Travels

  • Meeting Luisa Stolberg d'Albany: In Florence, he met Countess Luisa Stolberg d'Albany, whom he deeply loved and tried to win over.
  • Relocation for Love: He followed her, living in various Italian locations and Alsace until 1787.
  • Financial Independence for Art: In 1778, he ceded his inheritance to his sister, retaining only a pension to dedicate himself fully to literature.

French Revolution and Later Life

  • Initial Support of the Revolution: Alfieri initially supported the French Revolution.
  • Disillusionment: He soon became disillusioned, viewing the new government as tyrannical and vulgar, adopting conservative views.
  • Flight from Paris: In 1792, threatened as a nobleman, he fled Paris and returned to Florence.
  • Death in Solitude: He died in Florence in 1803, in solitude, surrounded by his beloved classics.
  • Failed Encounter with Foscolo: Ugo Foscolo attempted to meet him but was unsuccessful.
  • Burial and Monument: Alfieri was buried in Santa Croce, Florence, where Luisa Stolberg d'Albany commissioned Antonio Canova to create a funerary monument in his memory.

Key Works and Dates

  • 1775: Antonio e Cleopatra
  • 1777: Della tirannide
  • 1778: Del principe e delle lettere (begun)
  • 1781: Polinice, Virginia
  • 1782: Saul
  • 1783: Antigone, Agamennone, Oreste, Ottavia, Timoleone
  • 1784: Mirra
  • 1786: Del principe e delle lettere (completed)
  • 1788: La congiura de' Pazzi
  • 1789: Bruto primo, Bruto secondo, Rime
  • 1790: Vita di Vittorio Alfieri da Asti scritta da esso stesso (first draft)
  • 1799: Il Misogallo

Alfieri's Tragic Vision

  • Tragedy as Expression: Alfieri chose tragedy because it aligned with his heroic and tragic nature.
  • Influence: Inspired by Racine, Alfieri simplified plots to focus on interior conflicts.
  • Psychological Depth: He explored protagonists' psychology, leading them toward inevitable, often fatal, destinies.
  • Internal Conflict: Alfieri concentrated opposing forces within single characters (e.g., Saul, Mirra), emphasizing inner turmoil.

Antithetical Tyranny

  • Rebellion Against Authority: Alfieri's works and life reflected a rebellion against authority.
  • Critique of Monarchies: He criticized absolute monarchies and servile literature.
  • Tyranny Defined: Alfieri defined tyranny as any regime suppressing individual freedom and generating fear.
  • Metaphorical Tyranny: His fight against tyranny was more poetic than political, focusing on abstract ideals.
  • Aristocratic Vision: Alfieri distrusted the populace, instead admiring exceptional individuals who opposed tyranny, even through tyrannicide or suicide.
  • Titanism: His aristocratic ideology and opposition to his era aligned him with Romanticism.
  • Writer as Hero: He viewed the writer as a heroic figure against tyranny, promoting intellectual independence.

Rejection of His Time

  • Literary Solitude: Alfieri's life was marked by solitude after his literary conversion.
  • Provincial Discontent: His rebellion stemmed from the suffocating provincialism of Piedmont.
  • Rejection of Enlightenment: He surpassed the Enlightenment's rationalism, focusing on subjective experiences.
  • Precursor of Romanticism: His literature emphasized individual feelings and aspirations, anticipating Romanticism.
  • Psychological Themes: Alfieri explored themes of self-affirmation, existential angst, and the inability to live fully, reflecting a sense of solitude and melancholy.

Alfieri's Tragedies: Structure and Style

  • Output: Alfieri wrote 19 tragedies, focusing on historical and mythological figures.
  • Structure: His tragedies followed Aristotelian unities (time, place, action) and were divided into five acts.
  • Style: He used an elevated style with complex syntax to reflect characters' inner conflicts.
Theban Cycle Tragedies
  • Polinice (1781): Centered on the conflict between brothers Eteocle and Polinice for the throne of Thebes.
  • Antigone (1783): Based on Sophocles' play, Antigone defies Creon to bury her brother Polinice.
Atreid Cycle Tragedies
  • Agamennone (1783): Inspired by Aeschylus and Seneca, focuses on Clytemnestra's murder of Agamemnon.
  • Oreste (1783): A continuation of Agamennone, Oreste seeks revenge, killing his mother and her lover.
Roman Subject Tragedies
  • Ottavia (1783): Based on Tacitus, Agrippina schemes to secure Nero's succession, leading to Ottavia's tragic death.
  • Bruto Primo (1789): Lucius Junius Brutus incites a revolt against Tarquinius Superbus, ending the monarchy.
  • Bruto Secondo (1789): Brutus participates in the assassination of Julius Caesar.
Tragedies of Liberty
  • Virginia (1781): Appius Claudius attempts to possess Virginia, leading her father to kill her.
  • Timoleone (1783): Timoleone conspires against his brother Timophanes to liberate Corinth.
  • La congiura de' Pazzi (1788): The Pazzi family's conspiracy against the Medici fails.
Masterpieces
  • Saul (1782): Explores the psychological turmoil of King Saul, driven by paranoia and loss of power.
  • Mirra (1784): Focuses on Mirra's incestuous passion for her father, leading to her tragic suicide.

Other Verse Works

  • Rime (1789): A collection of 351 poems, mainly sonnets focused on self-portraiture and love.
  • Il Misogallo (1799): A satirical attack, in prose and verse, against the French Revolution's degeneration.

Political Treatises

  • Della Tirannide (1777): Defines tyranny and describes life under it, advocating for the love of liberty.
  • Del Principe e delle Lettere (1778-1786): Argues for the independence of artists from political institutions.

Autobiography: La Vita

  • Modern Autobiography: Alfieri's Vita is considered an early example of modern autobiography.
  • Structure: Divided into four epochs: Puerizia, Adolescenza, Giovinezza, and Virilità.
  • Themes: Explores the roots of his literary vocation, emphasizing travel and the knowledge gained from it.
  • Literary Models: Inspired by Augustine, Cellini, Goldoni, and Rousseau.
  • Style: Combines traditional and innovative elements in language, with a concise and incisive narrative.
Key Themes in La Vita
  • Vocation: Highlights the development and elements that led him to his career
  • Travel: Stresses voyages as avenues to first-hand learning
  • Love: Depicts the evolution amorours relationships, culminating in his relationship with Stolberg d'Albany
  • Politics: Presents judgment son states, with exceptions, of those he visited.
Writing and Language Choice
  • Language Preference: Alfieri typically wrote in French, but learned Italian(Tuscan), through study. Also he had a Piedmontese dialect.
  • Literary Focus: Despite his french, he emphasized Italian culture and literature, with his new Italian language.
  • Style: He had a mixture of traditional and innovating stylistic elements
  • Tone: His writing contained sharp, simple syntac and concise word choices.