The European relevance of the literary work of Edgardo Maddalena from Zadar

Abstract

The article discusses the life and work o f Edgardo M addalena (1856-1929) w ho w hile alive was know n as the m ost fam ous w orld authority on G oldoni. In early youth he m anifested proclivities both for literature, reading G oldoni's M em orie, and for the theatre by join in g up with the am ateur dram atic group "Paravia" in Zadar. A fterw ards as a student then a professor in W ien and Italy he indefatigably d evoted h im self to G oldoni, collectin g his w orks, criticism , facts about his life and translations. H e b ecam e know n w orld-w ide as p ossessin g the m ost com plete collection o f works and material and facts pertaining to the life of the great Venetian writer of comedies. Working within the positivistic tendencies of literary studies but enriching them with moral and psychological analyses, Maddalena wrote numerous studies and articles in which he came up with new insights into Goldoni's life, his work, its sources and success both in Italy and world-wide, its connections with other literary works and its reception on the eastern shores of the Adriatic. In addition he wrote a number of interesting studies on German literature and translated works devoted to Goldoni as well as a number of plays by German playwrights including Shiller. He was particularly interested in Dalmatia and wrote about writers and intellectuals whose work was written in Italian. Although he spent the greater part of his life outside of Zadar, he made a contribution to the the cultural life of his home city through the numerous articles he published in the Zadar newspaper II Dalmata and in the journal La Rivista Dalmática. The whole range of his achievemnts made the presence of Zadar felt within the cultural life of Europe at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century.