Stendhal's Italy

the long version

Stendhal's fascination with Italy dates from his first visit to that country, as a teenager, with the 'liberating' French army of 1799. Throughout his career as a writer, Italy offered him countless opportunities for reflection upon matters artistic, political, religious, and personal. His incisive mind and the natural wit of his style combined easily to produce not only perceptive and sympathetic assessments of music and art, but also some trenchant political commentary. The essential thrust of this book is an examination of the origins and development of the satirical element of Stendhal's writing on Italy, which culminates with the creation of what many critics consider to be his finest achievement, the novel La Chartreuse de Parme. Tony Greaves adduces some of Stendhal's lesser-known, non-fictional 'Italian' works as essential ingredients in the understanding of where La Chartreuse comes from, telling how the different Italian themes of the novel emerge from their historical context.