Monti - Monti (English spelling) Vincenzo Monti

Italian poet. Born to a wealthy family in Alfonsine, a small village near the ancient city of Ravenna. He went to Ferrara to become a medical student, but soon made a name for himself with the occasional poems he composed for various events. At the age of 21, he enrolled in the Arcadia Literary Academy, and in 1778, he made a bold move to Rome. At the time, decorative neoclassical art and culture was in vogue in Rome, in opposition to the Enlightenment, and he incorporated this trend into his own poetic style. Three years later, in 1781, he wrote a congratulatory poem for the marriage of Pope Pius' (VI) nephew, entitled "The Beauty of the Universe," which was a success, and he was made the nephew's secretary. He gained the Pope's trust and became a central figure in the Roman literary world. Other works produced during this period include "The Lady Feronia" (unfinished), which praised the Pope's land reclamation projects by likening them to a myth, and "The Death of Bassevilles" (1793), which was a condemnation of the Republican Revolution based on the massacre of French Revolutionary government diplomats in Rome.

However, when the influence of the French Revolution, which began in 1789, reached northern Italy with the Napoleonic campaign in 1796, Monti suddenly turned to republicanism, and in the following year, 1797, he secretly left Rome, published a series of Jacobin poems denounced the Papacy, and settled in Milan, which was occupied by French troops. Under the rule of Napoleon, who called himself the new Roman Emperor, Monti's neoclassical style of poetry was very popular. While continuing to write poems praising the emperor, such as "The Troubadour of the Black Forest" (1806), which sang of Napoleon's German campaign, he also completed and published a translation of the Greek epic poem "The Iliad" in 1810. This was a retranslation from the French translation, but it was because of this that his poetic talent for poetry as a form of beauty was fully displayed, and it is considered to be his masterpiece. When Napoleon fell in 1815 and Italy returned to the control of Austria, Monti praised the new ruler and sided with the restored monarchy. However, the mainstream of literature was shifting to Romanticism, and his political conversion led to distrust of Romanticism, so his former fame faded and he was in a difficult position in his later years. Among his works from this period, the most important is On Mythology (1825), which argues for the necessity of mythology in poetry from a neoclassical point of view.

[Kazuhiro Hayashi]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

イタリアの詩人。古都ラベンナに近い小村アルフォンシーネの裕福な家に生まれる。フェッラーラに出て医学生となるが、まもなく種種の行事に際してつくった機会詩で名を馳(は)せ、21歳のとき文芸アカデミー「アルカディア」に入会、1778年には勇躍ローマに上った。ローマでは、当時、啓蒙(けいもう)思想に対抗して装飾的な新古典主義の芸術・文化が流行していたが、彼はこの傾向を自分の詩法に取り入れていった。そして3年後の81年、教皇ピウス（6世）の甥(おい)の結婚に寄せた祝詩『宇宙の美』を成功させてこの甥の秘書に迎えられ、教皇の信任を得て、ローマ文壇の中心的存在として活躍した。この時期にはほかに、教皇の干拓事業を神話になぞらえて称(たた)えた『女神フェーローニア』（未完）、ローマで起きたフランス革命政府外交官の虐殺事件を題材にして共和革命を弾劾した『バスビルの死』（1793）などがある。

　しかし、1789年に始まったフランス革命の影響が96年のナポレオン遠征によって北イタリアにも及ぶと、モンティは一転して共和主義に接近し、翌97年、ひそかにローマを去り、矢つぎばやにジャコバン主義的な教皇庁非難の詩を発表したのち、フランス軍占領下のミラノに落ち着いた。新ローマ皇帝を自任するナポレオン支配のもとで、モンティの新古典主義的詩風は大いに好まれた。ナポレオンのドイツ遠征を歌った『黒森の吟遊詩人』（1806）をはじめとする皇帝賛美の詩を書き続ける一方、ギリシア叙事詩『イリアス』の翻訳を1810年に完成、出版した。これは仏訳からの重訳であるがむしろそのために、形式美としての詩を目ざす彼の詩才が最大限に発揮され、代表作とみなされる。15年、ナポレオンが没落してイタリアがオーストリアの勢力下に戻ると、モンティは新しい支配者を称賛して復古王政側についた。しかし文学の主流はロマン主義に移りつつあり、再度の政治的転向がロマン派の不信を招くなか、かつての名声は衰え、晩年は不遇であった。この時期の著作では、新古典主義の立場から詩における神話の必要性を説いた『神話について』（1825）が重要である。

［林　和宏］

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