Abba Abba

Abba Abba is a short novel published in 1977 by the English writer Anthony Burgess (his 22nd novel). The theme is the last months in the life of John Keats. In Part One, the poet has various adventures, meeting up with the great Roman (dialectal) poet Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli in the Sistene Chapel, and Pauline Bonaparte, sister of Napoleon, in the Pincio.

Related Topics:
Anthony Burgess - John Keats - Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli - Pauline Bonaparte - Napoleon

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Part Two consists of about seventy (from a total of 2279) amusingly blasphemous sonnets by Belli, purportedly translated by one "Joseph Joachim Wilson", a descendent of the Roman man-of-letters Giovanni Gulielmi (a character in Part 1). An elaborate passage describes how the Italian Gulielmis were transformed into English Wilsons, "during a wave of anti-Italian feeling occasioned by alleged ice-cream poisoning in the 1890's in the Lancashire coastal resorts of Blackpool, Clevelys, Bispham and Fleetwood". But AB is simply having fun; "J. J. Wilson" is a thinly-veiled "John Anthony Burgess Wilson".

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~