Almeno una volta nella nostra fanciullezza ci siamo lasciate ammaliare e conquistare dalla famiglia ideale che questa amabile scrittrice ritrae nelle pagine del suo romanzo ( mi riferisco soprattutto al primo volume, 'Little Women or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy' sicuramente il più affascinante ) pubblicato nel 1868 quando la guerra di secessione che aveva dilaniato, dopo aver diviso in due gli stati del continente nordamericano, si era da poco conclusa.... dico almeno una volta perché non esito ad ammettere che ho letto questi volumi più e più volte e forse, anzi sicuramente, hanno rappresentato il mio primo approccio alla cultura ed alle tradizioni del secolo scorso in America ed in Gran Bretagna, ed al periodo vittoriano, suscitando quel mio primo interesse che mi ha fin qui condotta oggi.
Illustrazione e copertina dalla prima edizione di Little Women
Ebbene, dopo avervi brevemente fatto menzione di alcuni particolari importanti circa Louisa May Alcott ( ella nacque il 29 novembre del 1832 a Germantown in una famiglia di origini modeste con cui si trasferì più volte in differenti dimore per raggiungere definitivamente Concord nel 1840, ricevette un'educazione privata annoverando tra gli altri suoi educatori Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorn, amici del padre, lottò per l'abolizionismo e per l'emancipazione femminile ed a causa delle condizioni economiche in cui gravava la famiglia, fu costretta a lavorare fin da giovane come insegnante occasionale, sarta, governante, aiutante e, in seguito, scrittrice ),
prolifica ed adorabile autrice, che diede vita a ben più di quaranta testi, tra novelle, racconti e romanzi - anche se ciò che consolidò il suo successo fu senza alcun dubbio la 'Saga della famiglia March' pubblicata in tre volumi:
Little Women: or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy (1868) pubblicata a partire dal 1869 con il titolo di
Good Wives (1869), che trattava delle sorelle March dalla adolescenza a Concord, Massachussets, fino alla loro età adulta ed al matrimonio;
Little Men (1871) focalizzato sulla vita di Jo a Plumfield School che fondò con il marito Professor Bhaer in conclusione di Good Wives;
Jo's Boys (1886) -
intendo qui parlarvi oggi della sua vera personalità, e soprattutto della sua reale famiglia che del suo più famoso ciclo di romanzi fu autentica ispirazione e perciò desidero rifarmi alle parole di Herriet Reisen ( Louisa May Alcott, The Woman Behind Little Women, Henry Holt and Co, 2009 ) ovvero alla attenta descrizione che ella traccia del romanzo della Alcott:
Piccole donne è un affascinante, intima storia, che si evolve negli anni, dell'amore di una famiglia, della perdita, e della lotta per sopravvivere che si svolge in una pittoresca ambientazione che è quella della vita di metà Ottocento nel New England. Ciò che la caratterizza è la giovane donna che ne sta al centro. Il suo nome è Jo March, ma il suo personaggio è Louisa Alcott.
Jo March è un'invenzione abbagliante e originale: audace, schietta, coraggiosa, temeraria, leale, irritabile, di principio, e reale. E' una sognatrice ed un'instancabile scribacchina, felicissima nel suo bosco accovacciata accanto ad una vecchia ruota di carro o rintanata in soffitta, assorbita nella lettura o nella scrittura, colmando pagina dopo pagina con storie o drammi. Ama inventare scappatelle passionali, da mettere in scena e recitare in drammi sgargianti. Ama correre. Vorrebbe essere un ragazzo, per più motivi, tutti comprensibili: per esprimere ciò che pensa, andare dove le pare, imparare quello che vuole sapere - in altre parole, per essere libera.
Allo stesso tempo, Jo è devota all'immaginaria famiglia March, che era strettamente modellata sulla famiglia Alcott, composta da una madre saggia e buona, da un padre idealista, e quattro sorelle i cui personaggi sono un esempio dell'adolescenza femminile. Ma mentre Jo March si sposa e rimane all'interno della cerchia familiare, Louisa Alcott ha scelto un percorso indipendente. 1
The Orchard House, il luogo acquistato dai March presso Concord negli anni '40 che vide la 'nascita' di Little Women, in una foto scattata nel 1865 che ritrae Louisa, la sorella maggiore Anna con il suo primogenito Frederick, la mamma Marmee ed il padre Bronson durante una passeggiata in giardino.
Jo March, quello che sembra un personaggio ideale, un po' romanzato, altro non è infatti che la descrizione che Louisa May Alcott ci fornisce di sé stessa:
Le descrizioni di Louisa fornite dai suoi contemporanei ricalcano pienamente la prima descrizione della Alcott di Jo March in Little Women "Aveva quindici anni, Jo, era molto alta, magra e bruna, e ricordava un puledro, perché non sembrava sapere che cosa fare con le sue lunghe gambe, che erano molto particolari. Aveva una bocca decisa, un naso comico, e taglienti, occhi grigi, che sembravano vedere tutto, ed erano di volta in volta feroci, divertenti o pensierosi ". 2
Ma non solo, meno palese, ma non meno reale è la veridicità delle tre sorelle che nel romanzo, come nella vita la affiancano, a rendere il suddetto romanzo un romanzo quasi del tutto autobiografico:
sorella maggiore di Louisa, era amabile, calma, ma amava le belle cose; si maritò con John Pratt, attore dilettante, all'età di 29 anni, ed ebbe due figli, Fred e John; Meg March, che ne rappresenta il parallelo nella finzione romanzata, sposò all'età di 20 anni John Brooke, tutore di professione, ed ebbe due figli gemelli, Daisy e Demi.
soprannominata Louy, era irruenta, ma dolce ed amabile, devota alla recitazione e al teatro, visse a Boston adattandosi a fare qualsiasi lavoro, anche il più umile, per divenire infine facoltosa e vivere da anziana in una grande residenza, circondata da ben 10 servitori; Josephine March, soprannominata Jo, rimase invece sempre povera, legata alla 'volubile' zia March, anch'ella amante del teatro si trovò costretta a vendere i suoi lunghi capelli per ricavarne denaro ( mentre Loiusa lo dovette fare di conseguenza ad una grave malattia ), si sposò ed ebbe due figlioli, mentre Loiusa non si sposò mai, probabilmente per prendersi cura della piccola Lulu, figlia della sorella minore May, morta poco dopo il parto di febbre puerperale.
chiamata in casa “Lizzie,” “Betty,” raramente “Beth” è forse colei il cui personaggio è più aderente alla realtà; amante della musica e della casa, morì prematuramente all'età di 23 anni, mentre la Beth di Little Women lasciò questa vita all'età di 16 anni ( e credo che sia proprio questa l'unica differenza tra realtà e finzione )
Nel suo diario Louisa il giorno in cui la sua amata Lizzie 'volerà' in cielo, annoterà:
La mia cara Beth è morta alle tre del mattino, dopo due anni di paziente sofferenza. La scorsa settimana ha accantonato il suo lavoro, dicendo che l'ago era "troppo pesante"ed averci dato i suoi pochi averi, preparandosi alla separazione nel suo modo, semplice e tranquillo. Per due giorni ha sofferto molto, chiedendo l'etere, ma il suo effetto era svanito. Martedì giaceva tra le braccia del Padre, e ci ha chiamato intorno a lei, sorridendo soddisfatta, come ella stessa ebbe e a dire "Siamo tutti qui!" Penso che così ci fece un dono considerevole allora, mentre teneva le nostre mani e ci baciò teneramente. Sabato dormì, e a mezzanotte perse coscienza, respirando tranquillamente mentre la sua vita si andava allontanando fino alle tre; poi, con un ultimo sguardo dei suoi begli occhi, lei non c'era più. 3
divenne una stimata artista grazie anche al sostegno finanziario della zia Bond che ne fu praticamente mecenate; graziosa e dolce, diede lezioni di arte ed espose per ben due volte al Salon de Paris; si sposò all'età di 37 anni, ma morì a 39, poco dopo la nascita di Louisa May Nieriker ("Lulu") di cui, come vi dicevo sopra, si occuperà fino alla sua morte Louisa; Amy March ebbe nel romanzo le cose forse ben più semplici, poichè con il denaro che volentieri le elargiva la zia March girò l'Europa per diventare anch'ella un'artista, non così famosa come il suo 'parallelo ' nella realtà, e si maritò molto presto, a vent'anni, senza avere figli.
La scelta di vita differente, di cui anche la Reisen fa menzione, che nella realtà Louisa compì, a divaricarla infine del tutto dal personaggio di Jo March, fu quella per il nubilato; ma leggiamo come ne parla ella stessa in un'intervista rilasciata a Louise Chandler Moulton, "Sono più che certa di essere l'anima di un uomo messo da qualche scherzo della natura in un corpo di donna ... perché mi sono innamorata molte volte della beltà di alcune ragazze senza essere mai stata minimamente conquistata da un uomo". Tuttavia, la romantica storia della Alcott mentre si trova in Europa con il giovane polacco Ladislao "Laddie" Wisniewski è stata descritta con grande dovizia di particolari nei suoi diari, ma poi venne eliminata dalla Alcott stessa prima della sua morte; possiamo però quasi certamente pensare che ella identificò Laddie nel Laurie di Little Women, e che fu questa la più significativa relazione sentimentale della sua vita.
La piccola Louisa May - 'Lulu'
Inutile dire che già al suo tempo Little Women venne accolto favorevolmente dalla critica che vi vedeva un esempio da seguire per ogni età, ed è questo che rende tali romanzi così freschi ed ancora attuali, leggibili ed esemplari ai giorni nostri, in questo va vista la grandezza della Alcott, quello di aver stigmatizzato dei modelli quasi statuari che avranno un sempiterno valore e significato per ogni generazione, anche a venire.
Mi piace infine concludere proprio con le sue parole, sulle quali vi invio il mio più caloroso saluto ed il mio più sentito abbraccio, parole che esprimono così pienamente il valore che per me hanno le aspirazioni su cui si regge la mia vita:
Lontano, là, sotto la luce del sole, giacciono le mie più alte aspirazioni.
Non le posso raggiungere, ma posso guardare in alto e vedere la loro bellezza, credere in loro, e cercare di seguire dove conducono.
Non le posso raggiungere, ma posso guardare in alto e vedere la loro bellezza, credere in loro, e cercare di seguire dove conducono.
Louisa May Alcott
A presto ♥
Bibliografia:
Louisa May Alcott, HER Life, Letters, and Journals, EDITED BY EDNAH D. CHENEY, BOSTON, LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, 1898
Louisa May Alcott, HER Life, Letters, and Journals, EDITED BY EDNAH D. CHENEY, BOSTON, LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, 1898
Louisa May Alcott, The Journals of Louisa May Alcott, Joel Myerson, Daniel Shealy, Madeleine B. Stern Editors, University of Georgia, 1997
Frederick Llewellyn Hovey Willis and Henri Bazin, Alcott memoirs, Nabu Press, 2010
Herriet Reisen, Louisa May Alcott, The Woman Behind Little Women, Henry Holt and Co, 2009
Citazioni:
1 - 2 : Herriet Reisen, Louisa May Alcott, The Woman Behind Little Women, Henry Holt and Co, 2009, Prologue;
3 - Louisa May Alcott, HER Life, Letters, and Journals, EDITED BY EDNAH D. CHENEY, BOSTON, LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, 1898, pag. 98.
At least once in our childhood we broke fascinate and conquered by the ideal family that this amiable writer portrays in the pages of her novel (I refer especially to the first volume, 'Little Women or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy' certainly the most fascinating) published in 1868 when the Civil War that had torn, after splitting in two parts the States of the North American continent, had just ended .... I say at least once because I do not hesitate to admit that I read these books over and over again and perhaps, indeed certainly, they have represented my first approach to the culture and traditions of the last century in America and in Britain, and to the Victorian period, arousing that interest that first have so far conducted me today.
- picture 1 and picture 2 - Illustration and cover by the first edition of Little Women
Although, after having briefly made mention of some important details about Louisa May Alcott's life ( she was born on November 29th, 1832 in Germantown in a family of modest origins with which she moved several times in different houses to reach definitivly Concord in 1840, received a private education counting among his other educators Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorn, his father's friends, she struggled to abolitionism and women's empowerment and because of the economic conditions in which weighed the family, was forced to work as a young man as occasional teacher, seamstress, governess, aide and later, as a writer )
- picture 3
prolific and adorable author, who gave birth to well over forty books, including novels, short stories and tales - although what consolidated her success was undoubtedly the 'Saga of the March family' published in three volumes:
Little Women: or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy (1868) published in 1869 with the title
Good Wives (1869), which dealt with the March sisters from their adolescence in Concord, Massachusetts, until their adulthood and marriage;
Little Men (1871) focused on the life of Jo at Plumfield School which she founded with her husband Professor Bhaer in conclusion of Good Wives;
Jo's Boys (1886) -
I mean here to talk to you today of her true personality, and above all of her real family which of her most famous cycle of novels was the genuine inspiration and therefore I want to refer to the words of Harriet Reisen ( Louisa May Alcott, The Woman Behind Little Women, Henry Holt and Co., 2009) for the careful description she traces of the Alcott's novel:
Little Women is a charming, intimate coming-of-age story about family love, loss, and struggle set in a picturesque rendering of mid-nineteenth-century New England life. What sets it apart is the young woman at its centre. Her name is Jo March, but her character is Louisa Alcott.
Jo March is a dazzling and original invention: bold, outspoken, brave, daring, loyal, cranky, principled, and real. She is a dreamer and a scribbler, happiest in her woodsy hideout by an old cartwheel or holed up in the attic, absorbed in reading or writing, filling pageafter page with stories or plays. She loves to invent wild escapades, to stage and star in flamboyant dramas. She loves to run. She wishes she were a boy, for all the right reasons: to speak her mind, go where she pleases, learn what she wants to know - in other words, to be free.
At the same time, Jo is devoted to the fictional March family, which was closely modeled on the Alcott family. a wise and good mother, an idealistic father, and four sisters whose personalities are a sampler of female adolescence. But while Jo March marries and is content in the family circle, Louisa Alcott chose an independent path. 1
- picture 4 - The Orchard House, the place bought by the Marchs at Concorde in the 40s which saw the 'birth' of Little Women, in a photo taken in 1865 that portrays Louisa, her older sister Anna with her eldest son Frederick, their mother Marmee and their father Bronson during a walk in the garden.
Jo March, whose character seems almost ideal, a bit fictionalized, she's nothing else thet the description that Louisa May Alcott gives us about herself:
Descriptions of Louisa by her contemporaries matched Alcott's first description of Jo March in Little Women. "Fifteen-yer-old Jo was very tall, thin and brown, and reminded one of a colt, for she never seemed to know what to do with her long limbs, which were very much in her way. She had a decided mouth, a comical nose, and sharp, gray eyes, which appeared to see everything, and were by turns fierce, funny or thoughtful". 2
But not only, less obvious, but no less real, is the veracity of the three sisters in the novel, who like in her life, here too are by her side, to make the aforementioned novel a novel almost entirely autobiographical:
- picture 5 - ANNA ALCOTT, Louisa's older sister, was amiable, calm, but loved the beautiful things; was married with John Pratt, amateur actor, at the age of 29, and had two sons, Fred and John; Meg March, which is her parallel in the novel, married at 20 yeras old John Brooke, tutor of profession, and had two twins children, Daisy and Demi.
- picture 6 - LOUISA ALCOTT, nicknamed inside her family Louy, was impetuous, but sweet and lovable, devoted to acting and theater, did any kind of work, even the most humble, subsequently becoming wealthy and live in a big old house, surrounded by as many as 10 servants; Josephine March, nicknamed Jo, however, in the novel will remain poor for her whole life, linked to the 'fickle' Aunt March, also a lover of the theater found herself forced to sell her long hair to get money (while Loiusa had to do it as a result of a serious illness) , married and had two children, while Loiusa never married, probably to take care of the littlel Lulu, daughter of her younger sister May, who died shortly after giving her birth due to puerperal fever.
- picture 7 - ELIZABETH PEABODY / SEWALL ALCOTT, called at home "Lizzie," "Betty," rarely "Beth", is perhaps the one whose character in the novel is closer to reality; lover of music and of the home, died prematurely at the age of 23, while Beth in Little Women departed this life at the age of 16 (and I think this is really the only difference between reality and fiction); Louisa in her journal, on the day that her beloved Lizzie 'flyes' in the sky, will write down:
My dear Beth died at three in the morning after two years of patient pain. Last week she put her work away, saying the needle was "too heavy" and having given us her few possessions, made ready for the parting in her own simple, quiet way. For two days she suffered much, begging for ether, though its effect was gone. Tuesday she lay in Father's arms, and called us round her, smiling contentedly as she said, "All here!" I think she bid us good-by then, as she held our hands and kissed us tenderly. Saturday she slept, and at midnight became unconscious, quietly breathing her life away till three; then, with one last look of her beautiful eyes, she was gone. 3
- picture 8 - ABIGAIL MAY ALCOTT (MAY), became a respected artist thanks to the financial support of the Aunt Bond who was practically her patron; pretty and sweet, gave art lessons and exhibited twice at the Salon de Paris; married at age 37, but died aged 39, shortly after the birth of Louisa May Nieriker ("Lulu"), of which, as I said above, will, until her death, take care Louisa; perhaps Amy March had in the novel an easyier life, because with the money of the wealty Aunt March she toured Europe to become an artist, not as famous as his 'parallel' in reality, and married very soon, when she was 20 years old, without having any children.
The different choice of life, which also Reisen mention, that in reality Louisa did to 'separate' her finally entirely from the character of Jo March, was that for the hen; but as we read where she talks about herself in an interview with Louise Chandler Moulton, "I am more than certain to be the soul of a man put, for some freak of nature, in a woman's body ... because I fell in love many times the beauty of some girls without ever being minimally conquered by a man. " However, the romantic story of Alcott while she was in Europe with the young Polish Ladislao "Laddie" Wisniewski has been described with great wealth of detail in her diaries, but was eliminated by her same before her death; but we can almost certainly think that she identified Laddie in Little Women's Laurie, and that this was the most significant romantic relationship of her life.
- picture 9 - The little Louisa May - 'Lulu'
Needless to say, already in its time, Little Women was welcomed by critics who saw it as an example to follow for all ages, and it is this that makes these novels still so fresh and current, readable and of example even to the present day, this should be seen in the greatness of Alcott, that of having stigmatized almost statuesque models that will have an everlasting value and meaning for every generation, even to come.
Finally, I like to conclude my writing with her words, on which I send you my warmest greetings and my heartfelt hug, words which express so fully the value that for me have the aspirations on which rests my life:
See you soon ♥
Herriet Reisen, Louisa May Alcott, The Woman Behind Little Women, Henry Holt and Co, 2009
3 - Louisa May Alcott, HER Life, Letters, and Journals, EDITED BY EDNAH D. CHENEY, BOSTON, LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, 1898, pag. 98.
At least once in our childhood we broke fascinate and conquered by the ideal family that this amiable writer portrays in the pages of her novel (I refer especially to the first volume, 'Little Women or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy' certainly the most fascinating) published in 1868 when the Civil War that had torn, after splitting in two parts the States of the North American continent, had just ended .... I say at least once because I do not hesitate to admit that I read these books over and over again and perhaps, indeed certainly, they have represented my first approach to the culture and traditions of the last century in America and in Britain, and to the Victorian period, arousing that interest that first have so far conducted me today.
- picture 1 and picture 2 - Illustration and cover by the first edition of Little Women
Although, after having briefly made mention of some important details about Louisa May Alcott's life ( she was born on November 29th, 1832 in Germantown in a family of modest origins with which she moved several times in different houses to reach definitivly Concord in 1840, received a private education counting among his other educators Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorn, his father's friends, she struggled to abolitionism and women's empowerment and because of the economic conditions in which weighed the family, was forced to work as a young man as occasional teacher, seamstress, governess, aide and later, as a writer )
- picture 3
prolific and adorable author, who gave birth to well over forty books, including novels, short stories and tales - although what consolidated her success was undoubtedly the 'Saga of the March family' published in three volumes:
Little Women: or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy (1868) published in 1869 with the title
Good Wives (1869), which dealt with the March sisters from their adolescence in Concord, Massachusetts, until their adulthood and marriage;
Little Men (1871) focused on the life of Jo at Plumfield School which she founded with her husband Professor Bhaer in conclusion of Good Wives;
Jo's Boys (1886) -
I mean here to talk to you today of her true personality, and above all of her real family which of her most famous cycle of novels was the genuine inspiration and therefore I want to refer to the words of Harriet Reisen ( Louisa May Alcott, The Woman Behind Little Women, Henry Holt and Co., 2009) for the careful description she traces of the Alcott's novel:
Little Women is a charming, intimate coming-of-age story about family love, loss, and struggle set in a picturesque rendering of mid-nineteenth-century New England life. What sets it apart is the young woman at its centre. Her name is Jo March, but her character is Louisa Alcott.
Jo March is a dazzling and original invention: bold, outspoken, brave, daring, loyal, cranky, principled, and real. She is a dreamer and a scribbler, happiest in her woodsy hideout by an old cartwheel or holed up in the attic, absorbed in reading or writing, filling pageafter page with stories or plays. She loves to invent wild escapades, to stage and star in flamboyant dramas. She loves to run. She wishes she were a boy, for all the right reasons: to speak her mind, go where she pleases, learn what she wants to know - in other words, to be free.
At the same time, Jo is devoted to the fictional March family, which was closely modeled on the Alcott family. a wise and good mother, an idealistic father, and four sisters whose personalities are a sampler of female adolescence. But while Jo March marries and is content in the family circle, Louisa Alcott chose an independent path. 1
- picture 4 - The Orchard House, the place bought by the Marchs at Concorde in the 40s which saw the 'birth' of Little Women, in a photo taken in 1865 that portrays Louisa, her older sister Anna with her eldest son Frederick, their mother Marmee and their father Bronson during a walk in the garden.
Jo March, whose character seems almost ideal, a bit fictionalized, she's nothing else thet the description that Louisa May Alcott gives us about herself:
Descriptions of Louisa by her contemporaries matched Alcott's first description of Jo March in Little Women. "Fifteen-yer-old Jo was very tall, thin and brown, and reminded one of a colt, for she never seemed to know what to do with her long limbs, which were very much in her way. She had a decided mouth, a comical nose, and sharp, gray eyes, which appeared to see everything, and were by turns fierce, funny or thoughtful". 2
But not only, less obvious, but no less real, is the veracity of the three sisters in the novel, who like in her life, here too are by her side, to make the aforementioned novel a novel almost entirely autobiographical:
- picture 5 - ANNA ALCOTT, Louisa's older sister, was amiable, calm, but loved the beautiful things; was married with John Pratt, amateur actor, at the age of 29, and had two sons, Fred and John; Meg March, which is her parallel in the novel, married at 20 yeras old John Brooke, tutor of profession, and had two twins children, Daisy and Demi.
- picture 6 - LOUISA ALCOTT, nicknamed inside her family Louy, was impetuous, but sweet and lovable, devoted to acting and theater, did any kind of work, even the most humble, subsequently becoming wealthy and live in a big old house, surrounded by as many as 10 servants; Josephine March, nicknamed Jo, however, in the novel will remain poor for her whole life, linked to the 'fickle' Aunt March, also a lover of the theater found herself forced to sell her long hair to get money (while Loiusa had to do it as a result of a serious illness) , married and had two children, while Loiusa never married, probably to take care of the littlel Lulu, daughter of her younger sister May, who died shortly after giving her birth due to puerperal fever.
- picture 7 - ELIZABETH PEABODY / SEWALL ALCOTT, called at home "Lizzie," "Betty," rarely "Beth", is perhaps the one whose character in the novel is closer to reality; lover of music and of the home, died prematurely at the age of 23, while Beth in Little Women departed this life at the age of 16 (and I think this is really the only difference between reality and fiction); Louisa in her journal, on the day that her beloved Lizzie 'flyes' in the sky, will write down:
My dear Beth died at three in the morning after two years of patient pain. Last week she put her work away, saying the needle was "too heavy" and having given us her few possessions, made ready for the parting in her own simple, quiet way. For two days she suffered much, begging for ether, though its effect was gone. Tuesday she lay in Father's arms, and called us round her, smiling contentedly as she said, "All here!" I think she bid us good-by then, as she held our hands and kissed us tenderly. Saturday she slept, and at midnight became unconscious, quietly breathing her life away till three; then, with one last look of her beautiful eyes, she was gone. 3
- picture 8 - ABIGAIL MAY ALCOTT (MAY), became a respected artist thanks to the financial support of the Aunt Bond who was practically her patron; pretty and sweet, gave art lessons and exhibited twice at the Salon de Paris; married at age 37, but died aged 39, shortly after the birth of Louisa May Nieriker ("Lulu"), of which, as I said above, will, until her death, take care Louisa; perhaps Amy March had in the novel an easyier life, because with the money of the wealty Aunt March she toured Europe to become an artist, not as famous as his 'parallel' in reality, and married very soon, when she was 20 years old, without having any children.
The different choice of life, which also Reisen mention, that in reality Louisa did to 'separate' her finally entirely from the character of Jo March, was that for the hen; but as we read where she talks about herself in an interview with Louise Chandler Moulton, "I am more than certain to be the soul of a man put, for some freak of nature, in a woman's body ... because I fell in love many times the beauty of some girls without ever being minimally conquered by a man. " However, the romantic story of Alcott while she was in Europe with the young Polish Ladislao "Laddie" Wisniewski has been described with great wealth of detail in her diaries, but was eliminated by her same before her death; but we can almost certainly think that she identified Laddie in Little Women's Laurie, and that this was the most significant romantic relationship of her life.
- picture 9 - The little Louisa May - 'Lulu'
Needless to say, already in its time, Little Women was welcomed by critics who saw it as an example to follow for all ages, and it is this that makes these novels still so fresh and current, readable and of example even to the present day, this should be seen in the greatness of Alcott, that of having stigmatized almost statuesque models that will have an everlasting value and meaning for every generation, even to come.
Finally, I like to conclude my writing with her words, on which I send you my warmest greetings and my heartfelt hug, words which express so fully the value that for me have the aspirations on which rests my life:
Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations.
I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.
Louisa May Alcott
See you soon ♥
Bibliography:
Louisa May Alcott, HER Life, Letters, and Journals, EDITED BY EDNAH D. CHENEY, BOSTON, LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, 1898
Louisa May Alcott, HER Life, Letters, and Journals, EDITED BY EDNAH D. CHENEY, BOSTON, LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, 1898
Louisa May Alcott, The Journals of Louisa May Alcott, Joel Myerson, Daniel Shealy, Madeleine B. Stern Editors, University of Georgia, 1997
Frederick Llewellyn Hovey Willis and Henri Bazin, Alcott memoirs, Nabu Press, 2010
Quotations:
1 - 2 : Herriet Reisen, Louisa May Alcott, The Woman Behind Little Women, Henry Holt and Co, 2009, Prologue;
3 - Louisa May Alcott, HER Life, Letters, and Journals, EDITED BY EDNAH D. CHENEY, BOSTON, LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, 1898, page 98.
3 - Louisa May Alcott, HER Life, Letters, and Journals, EDITED BY EDNAH D. CHENEY, BOSTON, LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, 1898, page 98.
This post is linked up to:
%2C%2BLe%2BReve.jpg)
%2B-%2BSoap%2BBubbles.jpg)
