Vila Rubein: roman iz tirolskog života
Villa Rubein (1900) is an early novel by John Galsworthy. It depicts the love between a young Englishwoman, Christian, and a poor Austrian painter in Tyrol, and the conflict between artistic ideals and civic conventions.
John Galsworthy (1867–1933), English Nobel Prize laureate (1932) and author of the famous Forsyte Saga, published the novel Villa Rubein in 1900. The work is set in the picturesque Tyrolean town and villa Rubein, where the English Dawney family lives. The young Christian Dawney falls in love with the talented but poor and rebellious painter of Austrian-German origin, Harz. Their love story unfolds in an atmosphere of conflict between artistic ideals and civic security, passion and convention, individualism and family expectations.
Galsworthy has not yet reached the full maturity of Forsyte Saga here, but the novel already shows his main thematic preoccupations: class differences, money versus art, the clash of generations and the opposition of the English pragmatic spirit to the continental romantic temperament. The style is still somewhat romantic and lyrical, with beautiful descriptions of Tyrolean nature.
Although considered an early and lesser-known work by Galsworthy, Vila Rubein is a highly readable and enjoyable novel that heralds the great themes of his later work. It was popular among the Croatian literary audience of the 1930s as a light but quality foreign fiction. Today it is read as an interesting introduction to Galsworthy's world and as a subtle study of youthful love in the face of social barriers.
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