Oriani lived a singularly isolated life, having little contact with his fellow workers and little recognition. But he was a thinker and idealist, and it is unfortunate that he did not choose more attractive media to present his thought and project his aspirations. Only after his death did he begin to get any measure of appreciation. The four wars against Austria, the final charge against the Alps, foreseen and invoked by Oriani, were the conditions of his recognition by the Italian people.
The most widely read of all Italian writers of this period was Edmondo de Amicis (1846-1908). His books, "Bozzetti Militari" ("Military Life"), which appeared shortly after his period of service in the army, and the book for boys entitled "Cuore" ("Heart"), had a tremendous sale and still have. They were also widely read outside of Italy. He wrote many books of travel, some poetry, literary portraits, and short stories. However, he made no particular impression upon the literary period of his time.
Guido Mazzoni, born in 1859, was, and perhaps still is, professor at the University of Florence. He has been for many years secretary of the Crusca and senator of the realm. His critical work is "L'Ottocento." His poetry is of the familiar variety. "Sewing-machine" is one of them. He is an excellent example of the culture of the Italians, but he has made no lasting impression upon Italian letters. He is best known in this country from Papini's gibes at him and at the Crusca. His recent contributions, "The Lament of Achilles" and "Con Gli Alpini" ("With the Alpini"), are of the eminently respectable, commendable, poet-laureate variety, called forth by valorous deeds of Italy's soldier sons.
Nothing shows the flight from romanticism to realism that took place at the end of the nineteenth century so clearly as its stage literature. The dominating figure of that period was Giuseppe Giacosa. He was not alone the most prolific contributor to the literature of the theatre, but a man who early excited and kept the admiration and affection of fellow artists. He can truthfully be called the literary mirror of that period in Italy.
The lamp of enthusiasm was flickering when he first put secure steps upon the literary road, but it lighted him to a great success in "Una Partita a Scacchi" ("A Game of Chess"). Then the car of realism came along with a rush, as if it would carry everything in its wake, and he threw a great bouquet into the tonneau in the shape of "Surrender at Discretion." But his ear was always to the ground, and, when he sensed the advent of a new literary period and learned of the existence of readers that did not know just what they wanted but thought they would like to have the truth, the naked truth of life as depicted in fiction, he wrote "Sad Loves." But the Veristic period did not last long, and Giacosa took leave of it without a tear. Pascoli and D'Annunzio had not only entered idealistic realism in the literary race, but they were shouting in the most vociferous way for the latter especially to win. When Giacosa became fully cognizant of the favorite colors he was quick to make his entry with "As the Leaves" and "Il Più Forte" ("The Stronger").
The play to which he owed his first success, "A Game of Chess," had a remarkable career in Italy, and it still makes leading appeal to extravagant youth and romantic maturity, who see, in the lovely Iolande or in the dashing Fernando, prototypes who solve perplexing problems of life with an ease and readiness that is soul-satisfying. They also see in their experiences the smouldering or dying embers of their own passions, whose articulate breathings cause them to glow consumingly and pleasantly.
Its success turned the author from law, which he despised, to literature, which he adored.
His next play, "Il Trionfe d'Amore" ("The Triumph of Love"), was along the same lines: life without sorrow or strife save such as make pleasure—which bulks large in life—sweeter. Within a few years Giacosa began to depict life as it really was, is, or should be, and the first indication of it was "Il Conte rosso" ("The Red Count"), and for a decade he gave himself to the production of historical plays none of which can be used to-day as a wreath on the monument to his memory. It was not until he wrote "Resa a Discrezione" ("Surrender at Discretion"), that he came into the field which he finally tilled so profitably, holding up to the contemptuous, scornful gaze of the people the useless, iniquitous, pernicious existences of a certain class, the noble. In this he did the same thing that he had done in his masterpiece, "As the Leaves." But here he portrayed flesh and blood confronted with problems conditioned by life, called chance. Instead of desperation and whetted appetite for sensuous appeasement, we see latent character budding and flowering under the stimulus of adversity; virtue which does not lose its aroma from enforced tarry in putrid milieu; the deadly sins, rooted in ancestral emotions and nurtured by environment displayed in the conduct of human beings of our acquaintance and our intimacy; we see the exaltation and the deprecation of viciousness just as we see it and accomplish it in real life. The literary features of the lines, the crispness and naturalness of the dialogue, the fidelity with which he reflected the handling of problems likely to confront any one show the finished artist.
Giacosa was a conspicuous literary figure of yesterday's Italy, friend of poets and philosopher, journalist, essayist, lecturer, man of the world, mirror of one side of its mental and emotional activity.
Next to Verga the Verists found their chief exponent in Luigi Capuana, a Sicilian born in 1839 and still living. He wrote romances, short stories, plays, and criticisms, none of which save the latter had great vogue, though one of his plays, "Malia" ("Enchantment"), gave such offense to Mrs. Grundy that it had great popularity. Like Verga he knows his countrymen and women, particularly their emotional reactions and the conduct conditioned by it, by their inheritancy, and by their environment. Many of his short stories are gems of construction and of narrative. For instance, "Passa l'Amore," in "Il buon Pastore" ("The Good Pastor"), is a masterly delineation of the struggle between what is usually called good and evil in the person of a saintly old priest. Love had been an abstract conception for the good pastor until he essayed to reclaim a lamb who had been driven from the fold by the efforts of a cruel father intensively to prepare her for sacrifice at the hands of Cavalier Ferro. Perhaps if Capuana had not been content with merely interesting and diverting the public, as he counselled Bracco to be, and had tried to teach them and lead them he would have greater renown. As it is he is one of the best short-story writers of Italy, a discerning, trustworthy critic, who has written an interesting volume of studies in contemporary literature, and several plays, the last of which, "Il Paraninfo" ("The Best-man"), has recently been published. Nevertheless he must be considered a writer whose potentialities were but partially realized.