Il piacere: an Italian graded reader at level C1

Glossary

anima · the soul ((sin. spirito, interiorità))

La parte spirituale e interiore dell'uomo.

The spiritual, inner part of a person.

Andrea invokes the soul when it suits him, to ennoble desire. It is perhaps his most refined lie: calling spirit what is only appetite.

aristocrazia · aristocracy ((sin. nobiltà, élite))

La classe dei nobili; per estensione, chi si ritiene superiore per nascita o per gusto.

The class of the nobility; those who deem themselves superior by birth or taste.

Roman aristocracy in 1885 governs nothing anymore: it has only taste left, the last privilege. D'Annunzio paints it beautiful and finished: and knows he belongs to it.

arte · art ((sin. opera, creazione))

L'attività umana che produce opere di valore estetico.

Human activity that produces works of aesthetic value.

Andrea writes verses, engraves, collects. But art, in him, isn't a vocation: it's furniture. D'Annunzio shows a gifted dilettante who mistakes taste for genius, and his own life for a masterpiece.

artificio · artifice ((sin. espediente, affettazione))

Espediente studiato, che imita il naturale senza esserlo.

A studied device that imitates the natural without being it.

It's Andrea's signature: nothing in him is spontaneous, everything is composed. And artifice repeated for years is no longer a mask you can take off: it has become the face.

asta · auction ((sin. incanto, vendita))

Vendita pubblica in cui un oggetto va a chi offre di più.

A public sale in which an object goes to the highest bidder.

The auctions come back twice and close the circle: at the start Andrea outbids to conquer a woman; at the end another woman's house goes under the hammer. Between them, the whole novel.

azzardo · gambling ((sin. gioco d'azzardo, scommessa))

Il gioco in cui si punta denaro sull'esito del caso.

Play in which money is staked on the outcome of chance.

Gambling is the most honest form of vice in this book: at least here one really loses, and the accounts add up. Manuel Ferres will ruin his wife and daughter over it.

bellezza · beauty ((sin. avvenenza, splendore))

La qualità di ciò che dà piacere allo sguardo o allo spirito.

The quality of what gives pleasure to the eye or the spirit.

In this novel beauty saves no one: it corrupts. It's the only thing Andrea believes in, and it's what lets him justify absolutely anything.

carne · the flesh ((sin. corpo, senso))

Il corpo, considerato nella sua materialità e nei suoi appetiti.

The body, seen in its materiality and its appetites.

Flesh and soul divide the novel like two political parties. Andrea would like to keep them together without choosing: and the book shows that whoever refuses to choose loses both.

The glossary contains 53 entries in all