A quintale equals 100 kilograms (about 220 pounds). A rotolo was about 800 grams (about 1¾ pounds). The cereal measure tumolo varied in nature, but was about 15 pounds.

The Individual Stories in This Volume

“Nedda.” This breakthrough work in Verga’s career, which led him to concentrate on the short-story form and on Sicilian subject matter, is said to have been written in Florence in three days’ time during a period of discouragement when Verga was thinking of returning home for good. It was first published in Milan in the June 15, 1874 issue of the Rivista italiana di Scienze, Lettere e Arti. Later that year it was published in book form, as an offprint from the magazine, by Brigola in Milan, with the subtitle “Bozzetto siciliano” (Sicilian Sketch).

The prologue (first paragraph) reflects the author’s actual situation as a Sicilian far from home who is recalling his native soil after some time away. It also provides a sample of Verga’s “fancy” style when he isn’t treating rural subject matter in colloquial terms.

The names of the two main characters are typical Sicilian nicknames derived from the stressed syllables of their full baptismal names. Nedda is short for Bastianedda, which would be (Se)bastianella in standard Italian (Sicilian dd equals Italian ll). Janu would be Sebastiano in its full Italian form (with Sicilian u for Italian o).

Besides a mention of the Plain of Catania (Piana di Catania), which lies south of the city, and Mascali as a source of wine (that town is two-thirds of the way from Catania to Taormina), the towns and villages locatable on a good commercial map of Sicily2 (Viagrande, Pedara, Nicolosi, Trecastagni, Aci Catena, Valverde, and Mascalucia) are all on the southern slope of Mount Etna, very close to Catania.

“Fantasticheria.” First published in Rome in the August 24, 1879 issue of Il Fanfulla della Domenica,3 this became the first story in the 1880 volume Vita dei Campi.

It serves as a manifesto for Verga’s new verismo. Basically a plotless meditation that refers to the decline of a fisherman’s family, it reflects Verga’s own tensions between his Sicilian roots and his deep involvement with the haughty, disdainful, and exploitative high society of northern Italy as embodied in a glamorous sweetheart. He treats the woman here with open sarcasm, his sympathies clearly going to the Sicilian characters.

This dissatisfaction in love and contrast between North and South are picked up in the final story, “Di là del mare” (Beyond the Sea) of his next collection of Sicilian stories, Novelle rusticane (1883), in which he may be referring specifically to Giselda Fojanesi. Thus, the two stories provide a framework for his two greatest story collections, considered as a unit.

“Fantasticheria” is also significant as an unmistakable projection of a great work in progress: the novel I Malavoglia. The fortunes of the fisher family are substantially the same in both works, even down to the lost medlar tree in their yard.

With regard to geography, Aci Trezza is on the coast, slightly northeast of Catania. The small prison island of Pantelleria lies about sixty miles southwest of the westernmost tip of Sicily, and is actually closer to Tunisia than to Sicily.

“Jeli il pastore.” Written in November 1879, this was partially published in Florence in the February 29, 1880 issue of La Fronda, then placed as the second story in the 1880 Vita dei campi.

In his amicable simplicity, coupled with a difficulty in expressing himself that unavoidably breaks out into violent action, Jeli is much like Melville’s Billy Budd. The final story in the original 1880 edition of Vita dei campi, “Pentolaccia,” also concerns a placid cuckold who suddenly erupts.

“Jeli il pastore” is remarkably well observed, and very well written in detail, but a little choppy as a whole, because (1) it covers many years, and with unequal passage of time, (2) its incidents are more strung-along than cogently connected, and (3) at times its point-of-view shifts uneasily between Jeli and Don Alfonso, especially in the amazing long final sentence of the opening paragraph, in the course of which the reader realizes that the shared experiences of the boys are now being perceived solely in the thoughts, and by the standards, of Don Alfonso. (Verga himself was aware of the problem, because he began his next paragraph with: “Jeli himself didn’t suffer from that melancholy.”)

The problem arose from Verga’s close identification of Don Alfonso with himself. The story takes place in Verga’s childhood-and-adolescence vacation area; the Vergas owned the estate near Vizzini called Tebidi (“warm, sunny [houses]”) in the story, and numerous place names too local to appear on commercial maps are identifiable features in the nearby countryside. Besides Vizzini itself, the place names that are on the map include Licodia (Licodia Eubea), Caltagirone, Buccheri, and Marineo, none of them very far from Vizzini.

Jeli is short for some name ending in -ele (in standard Italian; -eli in Sicilian), most likely Raffaele, but possibly Gabriele. Mara is short for Maria; Menu, for Carmelo.

“Rosso Malpelo.” This story was first published (as “Scene popolari”) in Rome in the August 2 and 4, 1878 issues of Il Fanfulla. It appeared as a separate small book in 1880, published by Forzani, Rome, under the imprint Patto di Fratellanza. Then it became the third story in the 1880 Vita dei campi.

The literal translation of the hero’s name is Red Evil-hair. The story is a perfect exemplification of the English saying, “Give a dog a bad name, and then hang him.” As far as plot cohesion and continuity are concerned, this may be Verga’s most successful story; the sandpit locale, which even has a mythology of its own, creates a microcosm symbolic of human existence, while the author employs detached irony perfectly to cloak his enormous sympathy with his main character. As elsewhere, but with especial artistry here, Verga associates the fate of animals with that of people, not only manifestly, as with the donkey Gray, but even in such details as the nickname of Rosso’s father, “Bestia” (only an insensitive translator would totally disguise that connection with the animal world).

The name Misciu is a nickname for Domenico; Mommu might stand for Domenico, Girolamo, or Romolo. The locality Monserrato is now within the city limits of Catania. Plaja, the seashore slaughterhouse, is either at the mouth of the river Simeto, somewhat south of the city, or else corresponds to the present-day Lido di Plaia, to the immediate south of the city. Cifali, now called Cibali, is very close to Catania.

“Cavalleria rusticana.” This story, the one most closely associated with Verga’s name (but largely because of its later adaptations), was originally an offshoot of his work on the novel I Malavoglia; the basic plot appears in an early sketch for the novel, circa 1875. The story as we have it was first published in Rome in the March 14, 1880 issue of Il Fanfulla della Domenica, and then became the fourth story in the 1880 Vita dei campi.

This brief story about the blustering but vulnerable knave and fool Turiddu (= [Salva]torello) bears a surprising amount of weight and intensity when “primitive” passions of jealousy and revenge are unleashed.

Licodia (Alfio’s birthplace, not far from Vizzini) and Sortino (the birthplace of his mules; about fifteen miles east of Vizzini) are the only place-names mentioned that can be found on a commercial map, but it is almost axiomatic that the story takes place in Vizzini itself (where “Cavalleria” tours are currently available). The Canziria where the duel is fought among the prickly pears is said to be the Cunzirìa (“tanners’ district”) just outside of town.

This story inspired numerous adaptations. Verga himself wrote a play version (his best stage work) in 1883. Its first performance, on January 14, 1884, at the Teatro Carignano in Turin, with the superb actress Eleonora Duse in the leading feminine role (now called Santuzza), was a spectacular success. When the pioneering French producer-director André Antoine mounted a French translation at his Théâtre Libre in 1888, the Parisians didn’t take to it; but in Italy the play was already inspiring musical works. A tone poem by Giuseppe Perrotta was performed in Catania in 1886. The opera Mala Pasqua (Evil Easter), based on Verga’s play, with music by Stanislao Gastaldon, was performed at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on April 8, 1890. May 17 of the same year, at the same house, was the date of the premiere of Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana, a tremendous success and the breakthrough work of operatic verismo. (It wasn’t until 1893 that Verga obtained a payment of 143,000 lire from Mascagni and the music publisher Sonzogno.) In 1902 another opera based on the play, this one by Domenico Monleone, was performed in Amsterdam. (In 1907 it was Sonzogno who won a lawsuit after Monleone’s opera was illegally performed in Italy.) In 1910 the important French film director Emile Chautard did a screen version of the play, and two different Italian film versions appeared in 1916 (just to mention the versions of Verga’s play in his own lifetime).

“La Lupa.” First published in the February 1880 issue of the Rivista nuova di Scienze, Lettere e Arti, probably in Milan,4 this subsequently became the fifth story in the 1880 Vita dei campi.

Like “Cavalleria rusticana,” this story is brief and passionate, a study in monomania.