Giambattista Marino (redirected from Giovanni Battista Marino)

Marino, Giambattista 

Born Oct. 18, 1569, in Naples; died there Mar. 25, 1625. Italian poet.

Marino gave his name to a trend in baroque poetry, marinismo, which was prevalent in 17th-century Italian literature. His attitude was one of hedonism combined with a belief in the transitory nature of everything and in the disharmony of the universe. He was a skillful poet, although he fell back upon mannered images, complicated metaphors, and forced antitheses and comparisons. His most important work is Adonis (Paris, 1623; Russian translation, 1783), a narrative poem in 20 cantos, written in octaves. His fame was short-lived.

WORKS

Poesia e prosa. Milan, 1930.
In Russian translation:
Khrestomatiia po zapadno-evropeiskoi literature XVII v., 2nd ed. Compiled by B. I. Purishev. Moscow, 1949.

REFERENCES

Artamanov, S. D., and R. M. Samarin. Istoriia zarubezhnoi literatury XVII v. Moscow, 1958.
De Sanctis, F. Istoriia ital’ianskoi literatury, vol. 2. Moscow, 1964.
Flora, F. Storia della letteratura italiana, vol. 3. Milan, 1940.