cctm collettivo culturale tuttomondo dizionario del diavolo confidente
confidente (s.m.) – Chi viene messo a conoscenza da A dei segreti di B che gli sono stati a sua volta confidati da C.
confidant, n. One entrusted by A with the secrets of B, confided by him to C.
Ambrose Bierce, Dizionario del Diavolo, 1906
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opera: Norman Rockwell, The Gossip, 1948
Un dizionario originale e unico nel suo genere, caustico, cinico, infernale. Nulla è risparmiato dagli strali ironici e dissacratori di Ambrose Bierce, uno fra gli autori più celebrati e controversi della letteratura americana.
Il Dizionario del Diavolo è un irriverente e cinico vocabolario scritto da Ambrose Bierce, giornalista e scrittore statunitense.
La prima pubblicazione risale al 1906, il titolo originale era The Cynic’s Word Book, ossia Il vocabolario del cinico, e rinominato poi nel 1911 The Devil’s Dictionary.
Attraverso le definizioni e gli aforismi contenuti nell’opera, l’autore punta il dito contro i difetti e l’ipocrisia della società statunitense della fine del XIX secolo, verso la religione la politica e la morale del tempo.
L’autore si rivolge al pubblico “verso” il quale il dizionario è destinato: Anime illuminate che preferiscono i vini secchi a quelli dolci, la sensibilità al sentimento, lo spirito all’umorismo e l’inglese corretto al gergo.
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AUTHOR’S PREFACE
The Devil’s Dictionary was begun in a weekly paper in 1881, and was continued in a desultory way at long intervals until 1906. In that year a large part of it was published in covers with the title The Cynic’s Word Book, a name which the author had not the power to reject or happiness to approve. To quote the publishers of the present work:
“This more reverent title had previously been forced upon him by the religious scruples of the last newspaper in which a part of the work had appeared, with the natural consequence that when it came out in covers the country already had been flooded by its imitators with a score of ‘cynic’ books—The Cynic’s This, The Cynic’s That, and The Cynic’s t’Other. Most of these books were merely stupid, though some of them added the distinction of silliness. Among them, they brought the word ‘cynic’ into disfavor so deep that any book bearing it was discredited in advance of publication.”
Meantime, too, some of the enterprising humorists of the country had helped themselves to such parts of the work as served their needs, and many of its definitions, anecdotes, phrases and so forth, had become more or less current in popular speech. This explanation is made, not with any pride of priority in trifles, but in simple denial of possible charges of plagiarism, which is no trifle. In merely resuming his own the author hopes to be held guiltless by those to whom the work is addressed—enlightened souls who prefer dry wines to sweet, sense to sentiment, wit to humor and clean English to slang.
A conspicuous, and it is hoped not unpleasant, feature of the book is its abundant illustrative quotations from eminent poets, chief of whom is that learned and ingenius cleric, Father Gassalasca Jape, S.J., whose lines bear his initials. To Father Jape’s kindly encouragement and assistance the author of the prose text is greatly indebted.
A.B.
cctm collettivo culturale tuttomondo dizionario del diavolo confidente