The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis

(Paperback)

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Saddened with his countrys loss of freedom, disillusioned with life and racked with loneliness and ennui, university student Jacopo Ortis can only find some comfort in the company of his friends and in his love for Teresa. But when his studies call him back to Padua and he is separated from her, Jacopos torments become unbearable, and he feels that there is only one way out of his misery a symbolic gesture against fate, God and all the tyrants of this world. Allegedly based on the real-life tragic story of the Italian student Girolamo Ortis, and suffused with the authors own autobiographical experiences, The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis is a masterly prose work by one of Italys most celebrated poets, and perhaps the greatest Italian novel of the Romantic movement.

Reviews

Foscolos social sensitivity is unexpectedly apparent in the pages of this novel, and leaves one amazed by its almost anarchic lucidity. -- Valerio Massimo Manfredi

Author Bio

Ugo Foscolo (17781827) is one of the most popular and studied Italian poets. He is most famous for his long poem On Sepulchres, and his unfinished work The Graces. After a life of wanderings, he ended up in London, where he spent the last eleven years of his life mixing with high society and the greatest writers of the day, including Lord Byron. He died in poverty in Turnham Green, now part of London, and his tomb can still be seen in the Chiswick Old Cemetery.