The focus of our meeting was to introduce some general topics, and also to trace some general lines of the modernist movement of the Italian Poetry in the early 20th century, although we admit the fact that in-depth study of Modern Italian Poetry deserves more time and concern.
Professor Edoardo Menegazzo is the professor of the Italian language at Azad University, Faculty of Foreign Languages. He has a degree in English literature and is specialized in teaching Italian to foreigners. Before coming to Iran, he taught General English and English literature in Italian secondary schools for many years. He also worked as a teacher of Italian and teacher trainer especially in the field of CLIL. He collaborated with the University of Venice in the formation of teachers.
Throughout the event, Professor Menegazzo attempted to introduce, chronologically, some influential figures of the 20th century Italian poetry by illustrating their well-known poems to familiarize us with the poetic atmosphere and attitude of the time.
Here, we have included a brief introduction to the poets of the time regarding their poetic attitudes, atmosphere and feeling in addition to a quick analysis of one of the poems discussed during the meeting.
The period between the two World Wars, (1915- 1940s), was a period of political and social tumult in Italy, and literature could not be insensitive to such condition. In this period the country was divided both politically and geographically: the industrialized North and the South being more backwards in terms of cultural and economic circumstances of the time. The geographical gaps led to a very animated political debate: the opposition between those who supported the entrance of Italy into the war and those who went against it.
Umberto Saba (1883-1957) was born in North of Italy, Triester, the heart of the conflict between the two political divisions of the time. Saba did not follow the literary debate brought up in the 20th century Italy. While Europeans had already abandoned the traditional forms and structure in favour of the evocative power of words, to Saba the content came secondary to form and structure. His choice of content is very down-to-earth or every-day-life like. By employing objects, animals and events of everyday life, he creates a sort of poetry which in spite of its apparent simplicity has a philosophical undertone: a search for meaning. The meaning, in his poetry, is easily grasped.
The Goat
I spoke with a goat.
It was alone in a field, tethered.
Stuffed with grass, soaked
with rain, it was bleating on.
That monotonous bleat, it answered
my own pain. I responded at first
as a joke - then because sorrow's eternal,
and speaks with one unchanging voice.
That's the voice I heard,
crying in a solitary goat.
In a goat with a Semitic face
every other hurt complained,
that of all creaturely existence.
In “the Goat”, the atmosphere is like that of fairy tales: simple and childish. It develops from an everyday subject to a reflection on the meaning of suffering.
The goat, here, is an archetype, a symbol of universal suffering. (Saba, generally, considers animals as the creatures in contact with the divinity.)
The words “bleating on” and “stuffed” seem to be the key words to the major theme of the poem, conveying the idea of the Existential suffering, not to say the suffering caused by the fulfillment of his primary needs. By saying that his pain was brother to mine, the speaker conveys a sense of sympathy and brotherhood. Here, the goat becomes a symbol of universal suffering. The speaker becomes one with the goat. (Saba was a Jew on his mother’s side. He might have meant to remind us of the Jews being bothered throughout the history).
Saba did not mean to say anything political in his poem. However, only like pressing the thumb on the clay when you are making something out of clay, “Semitic” is a graphic detail giving a visual effect rather than an undertone implication.
Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888-1970) lived in the same period as Saba. So, their social and cultural context is quite the same. But unlike Saba, Ungaretti had a tendency to analyze, reconsider and reform the traditional ways of writing poetry, traditional versification forms and the traditional stylistic devices which he considered outdated and inefficient to express a reality that had drastically changed; a reality disrupted by war and its consequences. In his poetry, the content comes first to the form.
Being born in Egypt, he had some mixed cultural influences. The Egyptian landscape appears in some of his poems. In a period between the two wars, he moved to Paris, the cultural centre of Europe, and was influenced by many literary and philosophical movements of the time mostly Symbolism. His Symbolist tendencies can be traced in his early poems. To Ungaretti, words are not important for their denotative references but for what they evoke connotatively, unlike Saba who relies on archetypes to give these extra meanings. Ungaretti believes that it is through words that one can have glimpses of the truth, but not the whole truth.
In Memoriam
Locvizza, 30 September 1916
He was called
Mohammed Sheab
Descendant of nomad emirs
a suicide
because he no longer had
a country
He loved France
and changed his name
Became Marcel
but was not French
and had forgotten how
to live
in his own people's tent
where they listen to the sing-song
of the Koran
as they sip coffee
He did not know
how to release
the song
of his unconstraint
I followed his coffin
I and the manageress of the hotel
where we lived
in Paris
number 5 rue des Carmes
steep decrepit alleyway
He rests
in the cemetery at Ivry
a suburb that always
looks
like the day
they dismantle a fairground
And perhaps only I still know
he lived
“In Memorian” is a poem dedicated to a friend he met in Paris with whom he shared influences from the Symbolists such as Malarme and Baudelaire. Here, he has developed the theme of exile symbolizing loss of certainty and lack of answers to man’s condition. He suggests that poetry has a healing potential, capable of appeasing the suffering caused by exile of man. It is through poetry that one can heal the injuries of life brought upon man. This idea is shared by all the poets of the time; some only analyze the Existential condition of man, while others suggest a lack of treatment to these conditions, and that poetry can only render, not cure this intimate Existential suffering. In the case of Ungaretti, there is always some room for hope usually given by poetry. He emphasizes that it is through poetry that one can have glimpses of truth.
Modern Italian literature is known to the English speaking world by Eugenio Montale, the war poet, and the winner of Noble Prize of literature in 1975. He has been widely translated outside Italy. He has a lot in common with the prominent modernist of the time T.S. Eliot, and in some aspects Eliot is indebted to Montale.
Montale, never directly showed any political commitment, and avoided any direct reference to the political arena of the moment in his works. It is even hard to believe that he had taken part in the war. He is important in Italian literature because he is the first to make what was called ‘negative thought’. He had a more pessimistic attitude compared to Ungaretti. According to Ungaretti, it is sometimes possible to have a glimpse of the truth; however, according to Montale, we can only have the hope to get a glimpse of the truth but not the truth itself. Moreover, it is in nature of man to look for the answer even if there is this awareness that the truth cannot be reached at all.
As far as the stylistic concerns of this poet are concerned, unlike Ungaretti, Montale is more interested in the search for the meaning of the words as a means to understand something about the meaning of reality. He insisted that there was nothing that man could really understand because this is beyond our achievement. He also believed that through some objects or situations it is possible to render human condition. This is what Eliot later called ‘Objective Correlative’. It was Montale who firstly developed this concept. The Medieval allegory intended to clarify through images difficult or abstract concepts while in case of Objective Correlative we do not have any clarity at the end. Instead we only have feelings which are evoked and sensations which are made stronger. But no answer is suggested at the end. The Medieval allegory is the result of the divine Providence; we know that there is a hidden design of God, and that there is a meaning in everything even if we do not understand them. To Montale and other followers of this concept, there is no divine Providence but only divine indifference; that, the divinity does not care about man and man’s destiny is not a divine design of love. This is what Montale tries to render through his imagery. Therefore, these images, allegories, or the Objective Correlative are not to give answer or to help us understand the meaning of life, but rather to evoke sensations, usually negative ones, connected with the Existential condition of man which is essentially a condition of suffering and anxiety.
EUGENIO MONTALE (1896-1981)
'Don't ask us for the word to frame'
Don't ask us for the word to frame
our shapeless spirit on all sides,
and proclaim it in letters of fire to shine
like a lone crocus in a dusty field.
Ah, the man who walks secure,
a friend to others and himself,
indifferent that high summer prints
his shadow on a peeling wall!
Don't ask us for the phrase that can open worlds,
just a few gnarled syllables, dry like a branch.
This, today, is all that we can tell you:
what we are not, what we do not want.
In the beginning lines by ‘not me but all of us’ he means he and all other poets have no answer to give you. So do not ask us to give order to the universe or to the desolate human condition.
The second stanza refers to what Montale himself called ‘the conformist’: one who is satisfied with his own existence, one who never asks himself questions. The word ‘shadow’ refers to the subconscious, inner desires, the primary needs, or the obscure part of life. It is the mystery of life which is happily ignored by many people. (In many of his poems he criticizes this attitude of most people.)
In the last stanza we have the same suggestion as in the first stanza besides the idea of barrenness and the world being a desert. The parallelism in the last line signifies the fact that there is order and unity but a negative one.
Salvadore Quasimodo (1901-1968) also won the noble prize of literature in 1959, before Montale did. He does not say anything new compared to other poets of his time. He is influenced by the French Symbolist movement especially that of Malarme. His poetry is very concise using complicated words and lines.
SALVATORE QUASIMODO (1901-1968)
And Suddenly It's Evening
Each of us is alone on the heart of the earth
pierced by a ray of sun:
and suddenly it's evening.
Although we are alone, we are not able to communicate. ‘Pierced by a ray of sun’ conveys the idea of suffering and death associated with an idea of life being traditionally a symbol of life. Quite ironically, sun, the life giver, is associated with death. In the last line emphasizes the transience of life, that the passing of man on earth is just a fleeting moment.