Mario Praz

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mario Praz (September 6, 1896, Rome, Italy - March 23, 1982, Rome) was an Italian-born critic of art and literature, and a scholar of English literature. His best-known book, the Romantic Agony, was a comprehensive survey of the erotic and morbid themes that characterized European authors of the late Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.

The House of Life, his autobiography, was praised by Edmund Wilson as a masterpiece. His works of art criticism include an Illustrated History of Interior Decoration, a study on Italian sculptor Antonio Canova, and numerous essays. He taught English literature at the University of Rome from 1934 to his retirement in 1966. In 1962, Queen Elizabeth II made him a Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE). Praz died in Rome in 1982, admired by the French biographer and decadent critic, Philippe Jullian.

[edit] Bibliography

• Praz, Mario. The Romantic Agony (1930). ISBN 0-19-281061-8

[edit] Publication

English Miscelanny: A Symposium of Literature, History and Arts, edited by Mario Praz, Reprint of the Complete Collection of Articles in Englihs and Selected Writings by Mario Praz, in 10 vols., Kyoto: Eureka Press, ISBN 978-4-902454-19-2 www.aplink.co.jp/ep/4-902454-20-3.html