ALFIERI (1774)

Tragic poet whose predominant theme was the overthrow of tyranny.


In his tregedies, he hopped to provide Italy with a corpus of drama comparable to that of other European nations. Through his lyrics and dramas he helped to revive the national spirit of Italy and so earned the title of precursor of the Risorgimento.


Educated at the Military Academy of Turin, he became an nensign. He developed a distaste for military life and obtained leave to travel, touring most of Europe. In England he found the political liberty that became his ideal, and in France the literature that influenced him most profoundly. He studied Voltaire, J-J. Rousseau, and, above all, Montesquieu.


Alfieri settled in nTurin in 1772 and resigned his commission the folowing year. To divert himself, he began to compose a play. The result was Cleopatra, a tragedy performed with great success in 1775. Thereupon Alfieri decided to devote himself to literature. He began a methodical study of the classics and of the Italian poets, and since he expressed himself mainly in French, the language of the ruling classes in Turin, he went to Tuscany to familiarize himself with pure Italian.


By 1782 he had composed 14 tragedies as well as many poems (including four odes in the series L´America libera, on American independence, to which a fith ode was added in 1783) and a political treatise on tyranny, in prose, Della tirannide (1777). He also hailed the fall of the Bastille with an ode, "Parigi sbastigliata" (1789). Ten of the tragedies were printed at Siena in 1783.


Meanwhile, in Florence in 1777, Alfieri had met the Countess of Albany, wife of the Stuart pretender to the English throne, Charles Edward. He remained deeply attached to her for the rest of his life.


Alfieri´s genius was essentially dramatic. He sought to wage war against tyrants, and he used verse as a substitute for weapons. He chose a harsh, bitter style to persuade the oppressed and the resigned to accept his political ideas and to inspire them to heroic deeds.


Nearly always, Alfieri´s tragedies present the struggle between a champion of liberty and a tyrant. The hero has all the qualities of the heroes of Plutarch, and the tyrant is usually reminiscent of the foreign despots then ruling a segmented and depressed Italy. Love has litle place in a world so shaken by political passions.


The 19 tragedies that he finally approved for publication in the Paris edition of 1787-89 were Filippo, Polinice, Antigone, Virginia, Agamennone, Oreste, Rosmunda, Ottavia, Timoleone, Merope, Maria Stuarda, La congiura de Pazzi, Don Garzia, Saul, Agide, Sofonisba, Bruto primo, Mirra, and Bruto secondo. The best are Filippo, in which Philip II of Spain is presented as the tyrant; Antigone; and Oreste; and, above all, Mirra and Saul.


Saul, his masterpiece, is often considered the most powerful drama in the Italian theatre. Saul is a forerunner of Byron´s heroes.