La secchia rapita
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''La Secchia Rapita'' (The kidnapped bucket) is a
mock-heroic Mock-heroic, mock-epic or heroi-comic works are typically satires or parodies that mock common Classical stereotypes of heroes and heroic literature. Typically, mock-heroic works either put a fool in the role of the hero or exaggerate the heroic ...
epic poem An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants. ...
by
Alessandro Tassoni Alessandro Tassoni (28 September 156525 April 1635) was an Italian poet and writer, from Modena, best known as the author of the mock-heroic poem ''La secchia rapita'' (''The Rape of the Pail'', or ''The stolen bucket''). Life He was born in M ...
, first published in 1622. Later successful mock-heroic works in French and English were written on the same plan.


Background

The invention of the heroi-comic poem in the
Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
period is usually ascribed to Alessandro Tassoni who, in 1622, published in Paris a poem entitled ''La Secchia Rapita''. Written in
ottava rima Ottava rima is a rhyming stanza form of Italian origin. Originally used for long poems on heroic themes, it later came to be popular in the writing of mock-heroic works. Its earliest known use is in the writings of Giovanni Boccaccio. The otta ...
, his "poema eroicomico" consists of twelve substantial cantos and deals with the regional rivalry between Ghibbeline Modena and Guelph Bologna in the 14th century. To avoid giving offence in a still divided Italy, the book was first published from Paris under the name of Androvinci Melisone, but was soon afterwards reprinted in Venice with illustrations by Gasparo Salviani, and with the author’s real name. The subject of Tassoni's poem was the
war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
which the inhabitants of
Modena Modena (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language#Dialects, Modenese, Mòdna ; ett, Mutna; la, Mutina) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern I ...
declared against those of
Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...
, on the refusal of the latter to restore to them some towns which had been occupied ever since the time of the Emperor Frederick II. The author mischievously made use of a popular tradition, according to which it was believed that a certain wooden
bucket A bucket is typically a watertight, vertical Cylinder (geometry), cylinder or Truncation (geometry), truncated Cone (geometry), cone or square, with an open top and a flat bottom, attached to a semicircular carrying handle (grip), handle called ...
, kept in the treasury of Modena cathedral, came from Bologna, and that it had been forcibly taken away by the Modenese. Every episode of the poem, though beginning in the epic manner, ends in some hilarious absurdity. The poem twice received operatic treatment under its original title. The first was
Antonio Salieri Antonio Salieri (18 August 17507 May 1825) was an Italian classical composer, conductor, and teacher. He was born in Legnago, south of Verona, in the Republic of Venice, and spent his adult life and career as a subject of the Habsburg monarchy ...
's comic three-act ''La Secchia Rapita'', first performed in Vienna in 1772. Then in 1910 the work was reinterpreted as an
operetta Operetta is a form of theatre and a genre of light opera. It includes spoken dialogue, songs, and dances. It is lighter than opera in terms of its music, orchestral size, length of the work, and at face value, subject matter. Apart from its s ...
by
Giulio Ricordi Giulio Ricordi (19 December 1840 in Milan – 6 June 1912 in Milan) was an Italian editing, editor and musician who joined the family firm, the Casa Ricordi music publishing house, in 1863, then run by his father, Tito, the son of the company' ...
under his musical pseudonym Jules Burgmein.


The battle of the books

Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni (October 9, 1663March 8, 1728) was an Italian critic and poet. Crescimbeni was a founding member and leader of the erudite literary society of Accademia degli Arcadi in Rome. Biography Born in Macerata, which was then ...
, in his ''Istoria della Volgar Poesia'' (1698), records his doubt whether the invention of the heroicomic poem ought to be ascribed to Tassoni, but instead to
Francesco Bracciolini Francesco Bracciolini (26 November 1566 – 31 August 1645) was an Italian poet. Biography Bracciolini was born of a noble family in Pistoia in 1566. On his removing to Florence he was admitted into the academy there, and devoted himself to lit ...
. Though the latter's ''Lo Scherno degli Dei'' (The Mockery of the Gods) was printed four years after ''La Secchia'', he claimed in the epistle prefixed to it that he had written his some years earlier. Crescimbeni adds that, because Tassoni had severely ridiculed the Bolognese, Bartolomeo Bocchini (1604-1648/53), to revenge his countrymen, published from Venice in 1641 a poem in the same vein with the title ''Le Pazzie dei Savi '' (The Madness of the Wise), or alternatively the ''Lambertaccio'', in which the Modenese are spoken of with contempt. Tassoni's mock-heroic manner was also found a fruitful model by Boileau, whose ''Le Lutrin'' (The Lectern, 1674-83) recounts a feud between the priest and the choirmaster of a French church. There the priest tries to position a reading-desk so as to obscure his rival from the sight of the congregation in a conflict that ends with champions of both sides gathering in a bookstore to pelt each other with books. Boileau's work has been seen as the model for
Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...
's ''
The Rape of the Lock ''The Rape of the Lock'' is a mock-heroic narrative poem written by Alexander Pope. One of the most commonly cited examples of high burlesque, it was first published anonymously in Lintot's ''Miscellaneous Poems and Translations'' (May 1712) ...
''. But the coincidence of a simultaneous translation of Tassoni's work by
John Ozell John Ozell (died 15 October 1743) was an English translator and accountant who became an adversary to Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope. He moved to London from the country at around the age of twenty and entered an accounting firm, where he was s ...
has also led to the claim that ''La Secchia Rapita'' might have served Pope as a more direct model. Pope's poem originally appeared anonymously in 1712 and Ozell's translation of the first two cantos of ''La Secchia Rapita'' was published the following year as ''The Trophy Bucket: An heroi-comical poem. The first of the kind. Made English from the original Italian of Tassoni''. Following the great success of Pope's expanded five-canto version of ''The Rape of the Lock'' in 1714, this time under his own name, Ozell's publisher seized the opportunity to profit from its popularity by retitling his translation ''The Rape of the Bucket'' in a "second edition" in 1715. In 1825 the linguist James Atkinson published an ottava rima translation of the whole of Tassoni's poem. In his introduction, while acknowledging the general assumption that the poem is known "as the model upon which the ''Rape of the Lock'' of Pope, and the ''Lutrin'' of Boileau are conceived", goes on to comment that "there is little of similarity among them. The ''Secchia Rapita'' indeed differs essentially from the ''Rape of the Lock'', both in spirit, and execution. There is nothing in the latter that can be compared with the humour of the former, or with the admirably grotesque pictures with which it abounds".Preface to ''La Secchia Rapita or The Rape of the Bucket'', vol. 1
p.vi
/ref>


References

*''Cambridge History of Italian Literature'' ed. Brand and Pertile (1996) p. 310 *''The Salieri Album'' booklet notes to the recording by Cecilia Bartoli (Decca, 2003)


External links



{{DEFAULTSORT:Secchia rapita, La Italian poems 1624 books Mock-heroic poems