영어로 읽는 고전 _ 가브리엘레 단눈치오의 불꽃
가브리엘레 단눈치오의 “불꽃”은 19세기 말에 쓰인 소설입니다. 이 작품은 열정적인 시인 스텔리오 에프레나와 저명한 비극 배우 라 포스카리나의 관계를 중심으로, 베네치아라는 배경 속에서 예술, 아름다움, 그리고 감정의 얽힘이라는 주제를 탐구합니다. 이야기는 창작의 과정과 영감의 탐구를 깊이 파고들며, 도시의 매혹과 욕망의 복잡성을 섬세하게 포착합니다. 소설의 서두에서 우리는 베네치아의 성대한 축제를 앞둔 기대감 어린 순간, 스텔리오와 라 포스카리나를 만나게 됩니다. 그녀는 그가 대중 앞에서 연설을 준비하는 동안 그를 격려하며, 그 저녁의 힘과 청중의 기대를 상기시킵니다. 예술과 감성으로 충만한 분위기 속에서 두 사람은 친밀한 대화를 나누며 아름다움과 삶에 대한 깊은 성찰을 이끌어냅니다. 스텔리오는 베네치아가 자신에게 미치는 도취적인 영향, 석류와 같은 상징이 지닌 의미, 그리고 인간 경험 안에 공존하는 쾌락과 고통의 이중성에 대한 내면의 생각을 드러내며, 실존적, 예술적 주제에 대한 단눈치오의 탐구를 시적으로 펼쳐 보입니다.
Classics Read in English _ The Flame by Gabriele D'Annunzio
The Flame is a late nineteenth-century novel in which D'Annunzio does something audacious — he places himself, thinly disguised, at the center of his own fiction. His protagonist, Stelio Effrena, is a poet of burning ambition and restless intellect, a man for whom art and life are not separate pursuits but a single, consuming flame. Opposite him stands La Foscarina, a celebrated tragic actress whose mastery of the stage conceals a far more vulnerable interior. Together, against the incomparable backdrop of Venice, they enter into a relationship as beautiful and precarious as the city itself.
At its heart, The Flame is a novel about what it costs to create — and what it costs to love someone who is equally devoted to their art. D'Annunzio moves fluidly between the sensory and the philosophical, weaving the creative process, the pursuit of inspiration, and the ache of desire into a single, richly layered narrative.
The novel opens in a moment suspended between anticipation and performance. A grand Venetian festival is imminent, and Stelio stands on the threshold of a public address, steadied by La Foscarina's quiet encouragement. The air between them is alive — with artistic tension, unspoken feeling, and the intoxicating pull of the city around them. In their intimate exchange, Stelio gives voice to his inner world: Venice as a force of almost narcotic power, the pomegranate as a symbol of beauty fused with suffering, pleasure and pain as inseparable truths of human experience. It is a scene that reads less like an opening chapter and more like an overture — establishing, with extraordinary economy, the aesthetic and existential obsessions that will drive everything that follows.
Among the contents
"Stelio, does not your heart quail a little, for the first time?" inquired La Foscarina, with a fleeting smile, as she touched the hand of the taciturn friend seated beside her. "I see that you are pale and thoughtful. Yet this is a beautiful evening for the triumph of a great poet."
With an all-comprehensive glance, she looked around at all the beauty of this last twilight of September. In the dark wells of her eyes were reflected the circles of light made by the oar as it flashed in the water, which was illuminated by the glittering angels that shone from afar on the campaniles of San Marco and San Giorgio Maggiore.
"As always," she went on, in her sweetest tones, "as always, everything is in your favor. On such an evening as this, what mortal could shut out from his mind the dreams that you may choose to evoke by the magic of your words? Do you not feel already that the multitude is well disposed to receive your revelation?"
