Halcyon: Gabriel d'Annunzio(Fyfield Books)

First published in 2003. GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO was born in 1863 in Pescara, on the Adriatic coast of Italy, the son of a wealthy landowner. His first volume of poetry was published in 1879, when he was sixteen. After graduating from the University of Rome, d'Annunzio married and began to write short stories to support his wife and family. In 1919 d'Annunzio led a small force to seize the town of Fiume, ruling it as a dictator until 1921. D'Annunzio spent the later part of his life at his home on Lake Garda. In 1937 he was made President of the Italian Royal Academy. He died in 1938 and was given a state funeral by Mussolini. When Halcyon was first published, at the end of 1903, its author was already forty and famous: J/ placere, which ranks with A rebours and The Picture of Dorian Gray as a novel of the Decadence, had appeared in 1889, and d'Annunzio had published other novels, short stories, plays, and many volumes of poetry since his first great success at the age of sixteen.

Table of Contents:
Introduction -- HALCYON -- The truce -- The youngster -- By the side of the Affrico on an evening in June after rain -- Evening at Fiesole -- The olive -- The ear of corn -- Works and days -- The bard without a lyre -- Beatitude -- Fvrit aestvs -- First dithyramb -- Peace -- The tenzon -- Mouth of the Arno -- Between twoArnos -- The rain in the pine wood -- The roots of song -- The name -- Before dawn -- The two eyes of a Pleiad -- The tributaries -- The camels -- Noon -- The mothers -- Calm -- The highest Alps -- Combo -- Orphic anniversary -- Terra, vale! -- Second dithyramb -- The oleander -- Mou th of the Serchio -- The stag -- The hippocampus -- The wave -- The coronal of Glau co -- Melitta-Sour grapes-Nico-Nicarete-ToNicarete- Gorgo-To Gorgo-The flautist-Baccha -- Sta bat nvda Aestas -- Third dithyramb -- V ersilia -- The death of the stag -- The asphodel -- Summer madrigals -- Supplication-The sands ofTime-The footprint-At dawn- At midday-Towards evening-Circean charm-The wind writesSea- lanterns-In the slime-The Grecian grape -- August festival -- The many-headed song -- Triton -- Roman sarcophagus -- Ocean laurel -- The prisoner -- The Victory of Samothrace -- The rupestrian peplos -- The vulture of the Sun -- The wing on the sea -- Altivs egit iter -- Fourth dithyramb -- Sadness -- The Sea-Hours -- A goddess of the shore -- Undulna -- The Thessalian -- The goatskin -- The signs -- Dreams of distant places -- The shepherds-The baths-The flock and the herd - Lacus Iuturnae-The loggia-The pack-The carobs -- New moon -- Envoi -- Glossary.

About the Author :
Translated with an introduction by J.G. Nichols. J.G. NICHOLS was born in Liverpool (UK) in 1930. He is a poet, literary critic and translator (particularly from the Italian). His translation of Guido Gozzano's Colloquies won the John Florio prize in 1988, and his translation of Petrarch's Canzoniere won the Monselice prize in 2000.