영어로 읽는 고전 _ 가브리엘레 단눈치오의 죽음의 승리
가브리엘레 단눈치오의 “죽음의 승리”는 '장미의 로망스' 연작에 속하는 소설입니다. 아브루초 지방을 배경으로, 연인 이폴리타에 대한 집착에 사로잡힌 귀족 탐미주의자 조르조 아우리스파의 이야기를 따라갑니다. 한 자살 사건을 목격하고 가문의 몰락을 목도한 후, 조르조는 이폴리타와 함께 바닷가로 피신합니다. 그러나 점점 깊어지는 편집증과 죽음에 대한 집착은 그를 절벽 위에서의 절망적이고 치명적인 결단으로 이끕니다.
Classics Read in English _ The Triumph of Death by Gabriele D'Annunzio
The Triumph of Death is part of D'Annunzio's ambitious "Romances of the Rose" cycle, and it may be the darkest, most psychologically relentless of them all. Set against the rugged landscape of the Abruzzo region — all cliffs, sea wind, and ancient stone — the novel follows Giorgio Aurispa, a nobleman of refined sensibility and deeply unstable inner life, whose love for Ippolita has long since curdled into something closer to obsession.
The novel's trajectory is one of slow, inevitable descent. A witnessed suicide plants something dark in Giorgio's imagination. The discovery of his family's financial and moral ruin strips away whatever illusions of stability he had left. Seeking escape, he retreats to the sea with Ippolita — but there is no escape to be found, only a change of scenery for the same consuming darkness. As the waves crash below and the cliffs loom above, Giorgio's paranoia deepens, his fixation on death tightening its grip until reality and morbid fantasy become indistinguishable. What begins as a retreat becomes a reckoning, and the seaside cliff that frames the novel's terrible conclusion is less a location than a symbol — the outermost edge of a mind that has nowhere left to go.
With The Triumph of Death, D'Annunzio pushes his signature themes of beauty, desire, and destruction to their absolute limit, crafting a novel that is as hypnotic as it is harrowing.
Among the contents
When she perceived a group of men leaning against the parapet and looking down into the street below, Hippolyte stopped and exclaimed: "What has happened?"
With a slight gesture, betraying fear, she placed her hand involuntarily on George's arm as if to restrain him.
After watching the men a moment George said: "Someone must have leaped from off the terrace." Then he added: "Shall we turn back?"
She hesitated a few moments, wavering between curiosity and fear, and then replied: "No. Let's see what it is."
They advanced along the parapet as far as the end of the walk.
Unconsciously, Hippolyte accelerated her pace towards the small crowd that had gathered.
On this March afternoon the Pincio was almost deserted. Occasional sounds died away in the gray and heavy atmosphere.
"That's what it is," said George. "Someone has killed himself."
They stopped close to the crowd.
