Sonnets by Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli: A Dual-Language Book

Sonnets by Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli: A Dual-Language (Parallel Text) Book

Writing clandestine sonnets in local dialect for over fifteen years whilst leading a respectably conformist life of letters and bureaucracy, Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli erected a lasting poetical monument to the people of nineteenth-century Rome.

Set against the chequered background of the city of the six Ps - Pope, priests, princes, prostitutes, parasites and the poor - Belli's sometimes scandalous sonnets deal with life's elementals: love, death, sex, food, money, family, religion and politics. In his immense oeuvre, sampled here in a sizeable and varied selection of the best poems, people from every course and manner of life have their say - housewives, mothers, beggars, lovers, businessmen, popes, whores, doctors, thieves, lawyers, priests, pen-pushers, actresses, gossips and many more. Their voices and preoccupations are brilliantly and accurately rendered in this volume by Mike Stocks, one of the finest sonneteers of our day.

Sonnets by Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli - About the author

(1778-1827) Born in Rome in 1792, Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli is best known for his witty, sharp sonnets written in the Roman dialect, and forming an invaluable record of life in the Papal city during the 19th century. He died from a stroke in 1863.

Sonnets by Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli - Dual-Language (Parallel Text) Book

Translated from the Italian by Mike Stocks (Original Italian text on the left page with the English translation on the facing page).