Author | Ethel Voynich |
---|---|
Language | English |
Genre | Novel |
Publisher | H. Holt |
Publication date | June 1897 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (hardback and paperback) |
Pages | 373 pp (first edition hardcover) |
The Gadfly is a novel by Irish-born British writer Ethel Voynich, published in 1897 (United States, June; Great Britain, September of the same year), set in 1840s Italy under the dominance of Austria, a time of tumultuous revolt and uprisings. [1] The story centres on the life of the protagonist, Arthur Burton. A thread of a tragic relationship between Arthur and his love, Gemma, simultaneously runs through the story. It is a tale of faith, disillusionment, revolution, romance, and heroism.
The book, set during the Italian Risorgimento , is primarily concerned with the culture of revolution and revolutionaries. Arthur, the eponymous Gadfly, embodies the tragic Romantic hero, who comes of age and returns from abandonment to discover his true state in the world and fight against the injustices of the current one. The landscape of Italy, in particular the Alps, is a pervading focus of the book, with its often lush descriptions of scenery conveying the thoughts and moods of characters.
Arthur Burton, an English Catholic, travels to Italy to study to be a priest. He discovers radical ideas, renounces Catholicism, fakes his death and leaves Italy. While away he suffers great hardship, but returns with renewed revolutionary fervour. He becomes a journalist, expounding radical ideas in brilliant satirical tracts published under the pseudonym "the gadfly". The local authorities are soon dedicated to capturing him. Gemma, his lover, and Padre Montanelli, his Priest (and also secretly his biological father), show various forms of love via their tragic relations with the focal character of Arthur: religious, romantic, and family. The story compares these emotions to those Arthur experiences as a revolutionary, particularly drawing on the relationship between religious and revolutionary feelings. This is especially explicit at the climax of the book, where sacred descriptions intertwine with reflections on the Gadfly's fate. Eventually Arthur is captured by the authorities and executed by a firing squad. Montanelli also dies, having lost his faith and his sanity.
According to historian Robin Bruce Lockhart, Sidney Reilly – a Russian-born adventurer and secret agent employed by the British Secret Intelligence Service – met Ethel Voynich in London in 1895. Ethel Voynich was a significant figure not only on the late Victorian literary scene but also in Russian émigré circles. Lockhart claims that Reilly and Voynich had a sexual liaison and voyaged to Italy together. During this dalliance, Reilly apparently "bared his soul to his mistress," and revealed to her the story of his strange youth in Russia. After their brief affair had concluded, Voynich published in 1897 her critically acclaimed novel, The Gadfly, the central character of which, Arthur Burton, was allegedly based on Sidney Reilly's own early life. [2] In 2004, writer Andrew Cook suggested that Reilly may have been reporting on Voynich and her political activities to William Melville of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch. [3] In 2016, new evidence surfaced from archived communication between Anne Fremantle, who attempted a biography of Ethel Voynich, and a relative of Ethel's on the Hinton side. The evidence demonstrates that a liaison of some sort took place between Reilly and her in Florence, 1895. [4]
With the central theme of the book being the nature of a true revolutionary, the reflections on religion and rebellion proved to be ideologically suitable and successful. The Gadfly was exceptionally popular in the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, and Iran, exerting a large cultural influence. In the Soviet Union, The Gadfly was compulsory reading and the top best seller; indeed, by the time of Voynich's death, The Gadfly is estimated to have sold 2,500,000 copies in the Soviet Union alone. [5] Voynich was unaware of the novel's popularity, and did not receive royalties, until visited by a diplomat in 1955. [6] In China, several publishers translated the book, and one of them (China Youth Press) sold more than 2,050,000 copies. Irish writer Peadar O'Donnell recalls the novel's popularity among Republican prisoners in Mountjoy Prison during the Irish Civil War. [7]
The Russian composer Mikhail Zhukov turned the book into an opera, The Gadfly (Овод, 1928). In 1955, the Soviet director Aleksandr Faintsimmer adapted the novel into a film of the same title (Russian: Ovod) for which Dmitri Shostakovich wrote the score. The Gadfly Suite is an arrangement of selections from Shostakovich's score by the composer Levon Atovmian. A second opera The Gadfly was composed by Soviet composer Antonio Spadavecchia.
On the other hand, in Italy, where the plot takes place during the Italian Unification, the novel is totally neglected: [8] it was translated into Italian as late as in 1956 and was never reprinted: Il figlio del cardinale (literally, The Son of the Cardinal). A new edition, carrying the same title, came out in 2013.
Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky was a Russian and Soviet literary theorist, critic, writer, and pamphleteer. He is one of the major figures associated with Russian formalism.
Sidney George Reilly, known as the "Ace of Spies", was a Russian-born adventurer and secret agent employed by Scotland Yard's Special Branch and later by the Foreign Section of the British Secret Service Bureau, the precursor to the modern British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6/SIS). He is alleged to have spied for at least four different great powers, and documentary evidence indicates that he was involved in espionage activities in 1890s London among Russian émigré circles, in Manchuria on the eve of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), and in an abortive 1918 coup d'état against Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik government in Moscow.
Gadfly most commonly refers to:
Wilfrid Voynich was a Polish revolutionary, antiquarian and bibliophile. Voynich operated one of the largest rare book businesses in the world. He is remembered as the eponym of the Voynich manuscript.
Ethel Lilian Voynich was an Irish-born novelist and musician, and a supporter of several revolutionary causes. She was born in Cork, but grew up in Lancashire, England.
The Gadfly Suite, Op. 97a, is a suite for orchestra arranged by Levon Atovmyan from Dmitri Shostakovich's score for the 1955 Soviet film The Gadfly, based on the novel of the same name by Ethel Lilian Voynich. Atovmyan's suite differs markedly from the original: the orchestration is more colorful and economic, certain sections have been transposed harmonically, and he inserted newly composed connecting passages.
Mary Everest Boole was a self-taught mathematician who is best known as an author of didactic works on mathematics, such as Philosophy and Fun of Algebra, and as the wife of fellow mathematician George Boole. Her progressive ideas on education, as expounded in The Preparation of the Child for Science, included encouraging children to explore mathematics through playful activities such as curve stitching. Her life is of interest to feminists as an example of how women made careers in an academic system that did not welcome them.
Reilly, Ace of Spies is a 1983 British television programme dramatizing the life of Sidney Reilly, a Russian-born adventurer who became one of the greatest spies ever to work for the United Kingdom and the British Empire. Among his exploits, in the early 20th century, were the infiltration of the German General Staff in 1917 and a near-overthrow of the Bolsheviks in 1918. His reputation with women was as legendary as his genius for espionage.
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Events from the year 1864 in Ireland.
The Gadfly is a 1980 Soviet drama film directed by Nikolai Mashchenko based on the novel by Ethel Lilian Voynich. Its screenplay was written by Yuli Dunsky and Valeri Frid.
Ovod is a Russian word meaning Gadfly. It may refer to several films based on Ethel Lilian Voynich's 1897 novel The Gadfly:
The Gadfly is a 1955 Soviet historical action film based on the novel by Ethel Lilian Voynich and directed by Aleksandr Faintsimmer. In 1955 the film was third in attendance in the Soviet Union, collecting 39.16 million ticket sales.
Krazana is a 1928 Soviet-Georgian black-and-white silent film directed by Kote Marjanishvili. It is based on the 1897 novel The Gadfly by Ethel Lilian Voynich.
Mikhail Nikolayevich Zhukov was a Soviet and Russian conductor and composer.
Antonio Emmanuelovich Spadavecchia was a Soviet composer of Italian descent. He was awarded National Artist of the RSFSR in 1977.
The Gadfly is a 1958 Russian-language opera by the Soviet composer of Italian descent Antonio Spadavecchia based on the novel The Gadfly. An earlier opera based on the book, also called The Gadfly, had been composed by Mikhail Zhukov in 1928.
The Gadfly or The Son of the Cardinal (1897-8) is a dramatic adaptation by George Bernard Shaw of Anglo-Irish writer Ethel Lilian Voynich 's novel The Gadfly. It was written as a favour to the author, who was a friend of Shaw's.
Tatiana Grigorievna Solomakha was a Russian revolutionary of Cossack origin, a Bolshevik and a participant in the Russian Civil War and the establishment of Soviet power in the Kuban. Solomakha was captured by the White Guards and killed along with 19 others on 7 November 1918, making her one of the victims of the White Terror.