Wisdom and Woe

E. M. Forster first encountered Billy Budd in 1926, near the start of the "Melville Revival." Some twenty years later, he embarked on a collaboration with Benjamin Britten and Eric Crozier, adapting Melville's novella for the opera stage. The result is one of the most successful operas of the 20th century, psychologically and philosophically compelling, set to a masterful score.

Presented as a flashback of Captain Vere, the drama takes place aboard a British warship in 1797. Forster saw the story primarily as an exploration of evil and repressed desire, writing that "Evil is labeled and personified" in the character of Claggart, as it clashes with Goodness "alloyed by H.M.'s suppressed homosex" in the character of Billy Budd.

His "approach, rooted very much in Freudian psychology... becomes the theme of Britten's opera" and "set the tone for a good deal of later criticism" (Stephen Matterson).

This meetup will consist of a live viewing, accompanied by discussion and analysis.

About the production:

• In English with English closed caption
• Runtime: 2h 38m
• Written by: Benjamin Britten
• Libretto by: E. M. Forster and Eric Crozier
• Music by: London Symphony Orchestra
• Recorded: BBC-TV 1966, black & white

Billy Budd:

The Betrothed (Alessandro Manzoni, 1827) is considered Italy's "national novel"; a founding masterpiece of its culture; "a classic that has never ceased shaping reality in Italy" (Italo Calvino); and "a gift to humanity" (Verdi). For its descriptions, history, characters, wit, and expansiveness, it draws comparisons to Tolstoy, Scott, Dickens, Thackery, and Melville. It is not only "the most famous and widely read novel in the Italian language," but also "the most inspirational novel of the Risorgimento."

It is set in early 17th-century Lombardy amid Spanish occupation and the extremes of famine, war, and plague. But its basic theme transcends "a given, concrete, historical crisis" to speak not only to "the Italian people as a whole," but to universal themes of love, faith, and justice.

The central protagonists are two peasant-born lovers who find themselves opposed by a corrupt local tyrant. Just as the titular lovers are emblematic of Italy's resistance to foreign domination, the setting--teeming with numerous characters and points-of-view, filtered through an omniscient narrator--evokes its fragmented polity and sense of Providential unity.

The Betrothed helped establish a common literary language across Italy's diverse regional dialects. Tackling a philological debate known as the questione della lingua, Manzoni spent nearly two decades reworking the novel's idiom, producing a hybrid Florentine dialect, both formal and vernacular, that endeavored to do for the nation linguistically what the Risorgimento would do for it politically.

Schedule:

• Week 1 (September 21): Introduction-Chapter 8
• Week 2 (October 5): Chapters 9-23
• Week 3 (October 19): Chapters 24-38

The Betrothed (1844 translation):

Tommaso Anielo (better known as "Masaniello") was an illiterate fishmonger-turned-"Fisherman King of Naples." His tale of rebellion, victory, betrayal, and defeat--in other words, all the elements of a good story--has been adapted extensively for literature, poetry, paint, plays, and opera.

In the mid-seventeenth century, Naples was under the rule of Habsburg Spain. To supply its protracted military campaigns, the Court of Madrid fettered the city with ever-increasing demands for men, money, and equipment. A new tax on fruit finally pushed the citizenry into revolt.

On 7 July 1647, Naples was celebrating an annual festival featuring a historical recreation of the Battle of Lepanto (7 October 1571). This battle was symbolically significant not only as a military victory of the Spanish over the invading Ottomans, but as a religious victory of the Catholics over invading Islam. Masaniello took the opportunity to rally the mock armies into an actual fighting force and marched upon the castle of the Spanish viceroy.

Masaniello's victory was short-lived. He was assassinated less than ten days later, on 16 July 1647. But from the moment of his death, his figure became legendary. During the 19th-century Risorgimento, he was exalted as a freedom fighter, a hero of the Italian proletariat, and a spiritual successor to Cola di Rienzo.

Masaniello:

On October 13, 1820, Silvio Pellico (1789-1854) was arrested on suspicion of being a member of the Carbonari--a secret society of revolutionaries opposed to Austria's repressive foreign occupation of Italy. After a perfunctory trial, he was condemned to death, but the sentence was commuted to imprisonment with hard labor.

The account of his ten years' imprisonment (Le Mie Prigioni, 1833) is a classic of Italy's struggle for liberty. It was hugely popular, translated into every European language, and inspired widespread sympathy for Italy's nationalist movement, dealing a deadly blow to the cause of the Austrian government.

Transcending mere memoir, Pellico's story is a poetic and moving declaration of trial and tribulation, and a meditation on solitude, friendship, and faith. Said one reviewer: "It breathes a spirit of such profound resignation, such exalted peace, such heroic piety that the stoniest heart must be touched by it."

Said another: "Every page contains a practical illustration of the powerful aids of a sound and genuine philosophy, based upon religion, in fortifying the mind, and enabling it to triumph over the most appalling disasters. Every page breathes the purest spirit of philanthropy, and may be quoted as a specific against the cynicism and irritability which blacken and degrade human nature, and hold it up to scorn and contempt."

My Ten Year's Imprisonment: