Mario Praz (September 6, 1896, Rome, Italy - March 23, 1982, Rome) was an Italian-born critic of art and literature, and a scholar of English literature. His best-known book, The Romantic Agony, was a comprehensive survey of the erotic and morbid themes that characterized European authors of the late 18th and 19th centuries.
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Life and writings
The House of Life, Praz's autobiography, was praised by Edmund Wilson as a masterpiece, though the learned Cyril Connolly has written: "One of the dullest books I have ever read; it has a bravura of boredom, an audacity of ennui that makes one hardly believe one's eyes." His works of art criticism include an Illustrated History of Interior Decoration, a study on Italian sculptor Antonio Canova, and numerous essays. His house has become a museum, and is open for visits in Rome. It is in Palazzo Primoli, just above the Museo Napoleonico. He was Professor of Italian Studies at the Victoria University of Manchester, 1932-1934. He taught English literature at the University of Rome from 1934 to his retirement in 1966. In 1962, Queen Elizabeth II made him a Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE). Praz died in Rome in 1982, admired by the French biographer and decadent critic, Philippe Jullian.
As Muriel Spark [1] and others have noted, Praz was widely believed to have the Evil Eye, and thus was known as Malocchio.
Critical views
In the Life and Letters of Sir Edmund Gosse, one reads, from a letter written on the 17th November 1923: "Mario Praz is an interesting young professor, a great Swinburnian." In the "Italian Pageant", Derek Patmore says at page 8: "Dr. Mario Praz, so long a staunch friend of England." Charles Du Bos writes in his diary in 1923: "I dined with Abraham and Mario Praz. He is a great friend of Vernon Lee." Marie-Anne Comnène, the widow of Benjamin Crémieux, writes in Hommes et Mondes of December 1949: "There were authoritative critics: Marco Pron, Franci, Rossi, count Morra and Mademoiselle Bellonci, great animators of the Pen Club." Marco Pron is actually Mario Praz, misspelled. Charles Jackson says in The Outer Edges: "Mario Praz and Bertold Brecht make the best reading in the world for a sexual criminal." Around 1950, Kadar Jennö translated Neoclassic Taste into Hungarian; he asserts that comrade Praz is a harsh enemy of capitalism.
Bibliography
- Praz, Mario. The Romantic Agony (1930). ISBN 0-19-281061-8
- Praz, Mario. Mnemosyne: the Parallel between literature and the visual arts (1975)
- Praz, Mario, ed. English Miscellany: a symposium of literature, history and arts. Reprint of the Complete Collection of Articles in English and Selected Writings by Mario Praz, in 10 vols., Kyoto: Eureka Press ISBN 978-4-902454-19-2 www.aplink.co.jp/ep/4-902454-20-3.html
References
- ^ New York Times, March 13, 1983
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