Alexandre Dumas Neapolitan: conference by Claude Schopp
On Tuesday 13 October, at 19:00 pm, the Institut français Napoli hosts the conference in the media library
Alexandre Dumas Neapolitan by Claude Schopp, historian of literature and one of the greatest
world experts on Alexandre Dumas. The meeting will be moderated by Alvio Patierno, professor of Literature
French from the University of Naples Suor Orsola Benincasa.
This conference is part of the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the death of
Alexandre Dumas and in particular in the season Dumas and Italy edited by Jocelyn Fiorina (Société
des amis d'Alexandre Dumas) which will take place in Rome, Naples and Marseille from October to December
2020.
The subject of the meeting will be the bond between the famous French writer and the city of Naples, where
he spent many years of his life there, and where he found the inspiration for some of his major works.
It is said that when Dumas first arrived in Naples in 1835 he was so impressed
fascinated by it, he was inspired to write “Il Corricolo”, a work from 1843 full of anecdotes and stories
set in the alleys that the French writer loved to listen to, tell and invent. Dumas
in fact he loved to observe Neapolitan habits and customs, for this reason he used to frequent the streets
the most crowded areas of the city, on board a sort of very small carriage, the corricolo, in fact, in
able to pass through the narrowest and most unreachable alleys.
He returned there in 1860, called by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who appointed him Honorary Director of the Museums and
of the excavations of Pompeii, a position he held for three years.
During that period, at the suggestion of Garibaldi himself, he founded L'Indipendente, a daily newspaper which
supported the Garibaldian cause and where, among other things, the first Italian translations of
some of his novels and stories, and his guide, Naples and its surroundings, published in 1863.
Dumas poured his knowledge into the history of Naples and the Neapolitan Republic. in
monumental novel La Sanfelice, entitled to the noblewoman Luisa Sanfelice, a real figure
existed.
Claude Schopp is president of the Société des Amis d'Alexandre Dumas and one of the leading experts
World Cup by Alexandre Dumas. In 2017 with Dumas fils ou l'Anti-OEdipe (Éditions Phébus) he won the
Goncourt Prize for biography. For Donzelli he edited some works by Dumas including: The Count of
Monte Cristo (2010); The Three Musketeers (2014); Twenty Years Later (2015) and The Woman Without a Face.
Investigation into a scabrous painting (2019).
Alvio Patierno is associate professor of French Literature at the University of Suor
Orsola Benincasa. She edited Alexandre Dumas and Southern Italy (CUEN) in 2004, and in 2019
Chateaubriand et le Monde sensible – Littératures magazine n°79.
RESERVATION REQUIRED: 081 761 62 62 (select 01 – Reception)
The Institut Français has activated all the necessary precautionary measures to allow participation
to the event in safety. For this reason, the limit of places is 35, once reached it will no longer be possible
it is possible to access the event.
Article published on 12 October 2020 - 15:36
