Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Two Plays
    Two Plays
    Two Plays
    Ebook27 pages18 minutes

    Two Plays

    By Italo Svevo

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Italo Svevo (1861-1928), born Aron Ettore Schmitz in Trieste, then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, is most well known for his novel _La coscienza di Zeno_. His work for the theater is much less well known and has not, until now, been made widely available in English (translations of some of his plays have appeared only sporadically and are now hard to find). Included here are _An Unpublished Play_ and _Before the Ball_.

    "Reading Svevo," says Peruvian Julio Ramón Ribeyro in his diary, "I have had the impression of reading my own work, not what I'm writing now, but what I would have written if I had been born in Trieste seventy years ago."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFario
    Release dateAug 29, 2011
    ISBN9781466034921
    Two Plays
    Author

    Italo Svevo

    Italian writer, born in Trieste, then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1861, and most well known for the novel _La coscienza di Zeno_.

    Read more from Italo Svevo

    Related to Two Plays

    Related ebooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Apply Aesthetic Pressure to the Language: An Interview with Paul Harding

      Jun 18, 2018

      This interview first appeared in Chinese at the Shanghai Review of Books on June 3, 2018. I spent my first Iowan winter day at home reading Tinkers, the 2010 Pulitzer Fiction Prize winner. Outside, snow began to fall. I poured myself a cup of hot tea

      19 min read

    • Article

      A Mournful Spring

      Mar 1, 2022

      in memory of Adam Zagajewski So many friends have you seen pass,maestro of the poetic eulogy. Now it’s my turn. Can you hear me?We don’t know. Why didn’t we spend more time together,talk more, call each other? I thought you’d live to be old,very ol

      1 min read

    • Article

      Thomas Bernhard (1978)

      Dec 1, 2020

      WHEN, JUST over a month ago, Thomas Bernhard’s last play, Immanuel Kant, premiered in Stuttgart—a play in which the philosopher from Königsberg, accompanied by a servant, a parrot, and his wife, undertakes a long, long sea voyage to New York—most Ger

      3 min read

    • Article

      José Donoso Saw the Future of Latin American Literature

      Nov 21, 2023

      American readers have largely forgotten the single greatest writer to come from the Latin American Boom: Chilean novelist José Donoso. The post José Donoso Saw the Future of Latin American Literature appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Bring Back Cortázar

      Oct 17, 2018

      Bring Back Cortázar
      2 min read

    • Article

      U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón

      Dec 14, 2022

      U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón
      2 min read

    • Article

      How A Book About Yoga Became A Meditation On Grief

      Jun 6, 2022

      The French writer and filmmaker Emmanuel Carrère is a divisive figure. Lauded by the European literati (Julian Barnes is not alone in considering him “the most impressive writer in Europe”), Carrère’s excavation of his family life has drawn criticism

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Slow Bloom of ‘Suite for Barbara Loden’

      Apr 19, 2019

      This 2018 publication of the novel brings closure to a 50-year saga, coinciding with the height of the #MeToo movement, which has given women everywhere renewed strength through common vulnerabilities. The post The Slow Bloom of ‘Suite for Barbara Lo

      6 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2020

      The American linden sways nonplussed by the storm,a bounce here, a shimmy there, just shaking like musicleft over from the night’s end wafting into the avenues before sleep.I remember once walking down Clinton Street, and singingthat line returning,

      4 min read

    • Article

      Diary of a Displaced Person

      Aug 17, 2017

      Diary of a Displaced Person
      6 min read

    • Article

      ‘Starling Days’: Featured Fiction from Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

      Apr 7, 2020

      In today's edition of featured fiction, we present an excerpt from Rowan Hisayo Buchanan's latest novel, Starling Days. The post ‘Starling Days’: Featured Fiction from Rowan Hisayo Buchanan appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Ian Nairn and the Art of Seeing a City

      Jan 16, 2018

      It’s not easy to pigeonhole the late English writer Ian Nairn. But after reading his work—and I’ll be focusing here on Nairn’s Paris, originally published in 1968 and just reissued by Notting Hill Editions—you might rightly decide that there’s no nee

      5 min read

    • Article

      So Many Different Worlds

      Jun 8, 2021

      On the evening of the accident Ganesan was on a bus from the office in Fort, heading in the direction of the National Cancer Institute in Maharagama. The bus was making its way in starts and stops, accelerating and braking as the driver tried, ruthle

      19 min read

    • Article

      Re-Covered: The Mischief

      Dec 2, 2019

      Re-Covered: The Mischief
      8 min read

    • Article

      For Snow Queens Who Have Considered Suicide Because Paul Newman in the First Twenty Minutes of Paris Blues Is Too Much

      Jun 14, 2022

      But I start with the great Sidney Poitier because his stardom was an established part of the Freedom movement in 1964, and he was to be the chaperone of my inner awakening that dramatic year. Indianapolis, my hometown, had some brave marches and two

      10 min read

    • Article

      Siri Hustvedt Is Writing to Discover

      Mar 6, 2019

      Like its author, ‘Memories of the Future’ cannot be easily defined, labeled, or categorized. The post Siri Hustvedt Is Writing to Discover appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Saul Bellow and the Human Look

      Mar 1, 2022

      Saul Bellow and the Human Look
      10 min read

    • Article

      Jan Morris

      Jun 15, 2018

      I have always rather envied the poet Ovid, who was banished from Rome by the emperor Augustus, you may remember, to a remote place called Tomis on the shores of the Black Sea. There he died, ten years later, and his exile has gone into legend and int

      17 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

      Dec 14, 2021

      Sometimes you just happen to be reading the right book—maybe it doesn't happen as often as you'd like, but when it happens oh my it happens. The post A Year in Reading: Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore appeared first on The Millions.

      11 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Two Plays

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Two Plays - Italo Svevo

      TWO PLAYS

      Italo Svevo

      Translated from Italian by John Penuel

      Original titles: Una commedia inedita and Prima del ballo

      English translation copyright 2011 by John Penuel

      Published at Smashwords by John Penuel

      Cover image: piazza della Borsa, Trieste

      Table of Contents

      An Unpublished Play

      Scene One

      Scene Two

      Scene Three

      Scene Four

      Scene Five

      Before the Ball

      An Unpublished Play

      A scherzo drammatico in one act

      Dramatis Personae

      Signor Penini

      Elena, his wife

      Adolfo

      Rosa

      The action takes place in a lavishly decorated room with a door at the far end. To the left of the spectator is the door leading to Elena’s room, and farther towards the back is the door leading to her sewing room.

      SCENE ONE

      Signor Penini and Elena

      ELENA (emerges from the door to right; highly agitated). No! No! No! (Takes a seat.)

      PENINI (follows her calmly, cigar in hand). But why not?

      ELENA. Oh! Because I don’t like Venice.

      PENINI. You don’t like it? But I thought it was your ideal. On our honeymoon, you would have stayed there the time we allotted for the whole trip. You had me running after the guide the whole time, looking at things I wasn’t interested in: paintings, naked cherubs, churches that, for all intents and purposes, all looked the same. You got carried away; I put up with that torture out of love for you. I liked piazza San

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1