Marino, Giambattista

Marino, Giambattista (jäm'bät-tē`stä märē`nō), 1569–1625, Italian poet. His florid, highly elaborated style, called Marinismo, which was akin to euphuism, was much admired and imitated in his time. He had a strong influence on writing in all European literature. Among his principal works is Adone (1623), a long narrative poem. His name sometimes appears as Marini.

Bibliography

See study by J. V. Mirollo (1963).

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Marino, Giambattista

(born Oct. 18, 1569, Naples—died March 25, 1625, Naples) Italian poet, founder of the school of Marinism (later secentismo), which dominated 17th-century Italian poetry. Trained as a lawyer, Marino chose not to practice and instead found immense success with poetry that he managed to get published despite censorship. His most important work, a labour of 20 years, is Adonis (1623), an enormous poem (45,000 lines) that relates, with many digressions, the love story of Venus and Adonis. His work, praised throughout Europe, far surpassed that of his imitators, who carried his complicated wordplay and elaborate conceits and metaphors to such extremes that Marinism became a pejorative term.

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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.