Giovan Battista Marino, La Lira.

Porcellini-Slawinski, M. P. (2007) Giovan Battista Marino, La Lira. UNSPECIFIED.

Abstract

Since it was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books (1678), the lyric poetry of Giovan Battista Marino (1569-1625) has only been available in small selections, despite growing awareness that this vast body of verse needs to be considered in its entirety. This first ever critical edition of the complete corpus is a major contribution to the study of an author whose importance in the history of Italian (and European) literature is widely acknowledged, but not yet fully explored. Vol. I contains the two parts of the Rime published in 1602 and revised in 1604 (this version being preferred to that of 1614, when for contingent reasons some sixty texts were removed prior to re-issue). Vol. II reproduces the 'third part' added in 1614, when the title of the whole was changed to 'La Lira' (the name by which all three parts are now known, and which has been retained as the general title of the collection). Vol. III includes verse not collected by the author (occasional pieces published in his lifetime; posthumous attributions; previously unpublished manuscripts), followed by a critical apparatus. The apparatus to this corpus of c1200 texts consists of (i) a Nota al testo describing the poems' genesis, the textual tradition and the editorial criteria adopted (including justification of the decision to publish the text in hybrid form, with the 1602-04 text of parts one and two, and base only the third part on the definitive 1614 edition); (ii) a detailed account of authorial revisions, variant readings and conjectural corrections; (iii) a Glossary of words and phrases; and extensive biographical notes concerning addressees of the various texts, which between them aid understanding, provide the main evidence for time of composition, and permit the reconstruction of Marino's poetic development; (v) indexes.