The Domain
Italo Calvino was an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels. He was highly appreciated in foreign countries, becoming the most-translated contemporary Italian writer at the time of his death. So it is not surprising that he was asked in 1985 to give a cycle of lectures at the Harvard University. Unfortunately, he died some months before, but he did complete 5 out of 6 of the lectures, that were later published in 1988 with the title “Six Memos for the Next Millennium”:
"We are in 1985, and barely fifteen years stand between us and a new millennium. For the time being I don't think the approach of this date arouses any special emotion. However, I'm not here to talk of futurology, but of literature. The millennium about to end has seen the birth and development of the modern languages of the West, and of the literatures that have explored the expressive, cognitive, and imaginative possibilities of these languages. It has also been the millennium of the book, in that it has seen the object we call a book take on the form now familiar to us. Perhaps it is a sign of our millennium's end that we frequently wonder what will happen to literature and books in the so-called postindustrial era of technology. I don't much feel like indulging in this sort of speculation. My confidence in the future of literature consists in the knowledge that there are things that only literature can give us, by means specific to it. I would therefore like to devote these lectures to certain values, qualities, or peculiarities of literature that are very close to my heart, trying to situate them within the perspective of the new millennium."
The lectures provide insights about the future of literature in the “era of technology” and suggest some values to be followed: Lightness, Quickness, Exactitude, Visibility, Multiplicity. Overall, these virtues reflect and explain the leitmotifs of Calvino’s previous production: briefness or conciseness, speed of thought and language, exactitude in terminology, use of suggestive images inspired by popular literature and fairy tales, multiplicity of reading levels. His style gives way to a sharp ability to represent reality, with the purpose of unveiling the combinatorial mechanisms of narration to the readers. To provide a precise and satisfying investigation of concepts, our project analysed the first chapter only, the one that expresses the values of lightness. In the end, it is defined in absentia by its negation “heaviness”, often identified as substance of the world. The act and the result of writing for Calvino emerges as a removal of weight from the structure of stories and from language. When literature strives for this value, it becomes a way to knowledge that is able to enliven and comprehend other disciplines (for example, it borrows from science precision and exactitude of language). Interestingly, lightness is never defined openly and clearly, but it is introduced to the reader as a puzzle made of textual references of western literature, from Medieval to contemporary works. The most powerful description of lightness might be the visual scene evoked by Boccaccio where the poet Cavalcanti jumps out of a cemetery, commented by Calvino as follows:
“Were I to choose an auspicious image for the new millennium, I would choose that one: the sudden agile leap of the poet-philosopher who raises himself above the weight of the world, showing that with all his gravity he has the secret of lightness, and that what many consider to be the vitality of the times— noisy, aggressive, revving and roaring—belongs to the realm of death, like a cemetery for rusty old cars.”
- Calvino, I. (1993) Six memos for the next millennium. New York: Vintage.
In her so-called Nature poems, Emily Dickinson looks her own relationship with earth and its elements. Dickinson’s feminine vision of Mother Nature also represents a radical form of spiritualism, nurtured from her keen observation of her surroundings – in strong opposition with the image of an austere Puritanical God. Her private garden becomes the space of a renewed sacredness that encompasses all its primitive inhabitants (Her Voice among the Aisles / Incite the timid prayer / Of the minutest Cricket – / The most unworthy Flower –). The impossible task of capturing the beauty of Nature is committed to the use of a vivid and aerial language. One of the typical rhetorical figures used by Dickinson is the personification: sun, stars, crickets, squirrels, flowers, bees – all the elements of Nature become evangelists that carry the tidings of the creation. If “God is here” – in a Spinozian sense –, if Nature possesses the arcane power to compel and awe, then “[Dickinson] devotion is not to God, her mission not to achieve heaven; instead her loyalties lies with this life and this earth” (The Cambridge Introduction to Emily Dickinson, 2007).
The whole Dickinson production about Nature (and the poem presented on this site isn’t an exception) is infused with a fleeting sense of lightness. As a matter of fact, her typical themes revolve around the cycle of life and death, the internal and endless movement of Nature.
The Wind is presented here as a personification, tapping her window. The first stanza is symmetrical to the last (tapped like a tired Man; like a timid Man […] / He tapped), expanding the poem with an inner sense of movement.
Wind is also identified through a series of features that don’t give hints about its body (Rapid; footless; No Bone had He; His Speech; His Countenance; His Fingers). Dickinson built a mesmerizing in absentia representation of her host.
- Dickinson, E. (1960) The complete poems of Emily Dickinson. Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown.
- Martin, W. (2007). The Cambridge Introduction to Emily Dickinson (Cambridge Introductions to Literature). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI 10.1017/CBO9780511611025
The poems collected in La terra e la morte, written in Rome between 27 October and 3 December 1945, mark a break with Pavese’s previous production.
Cesare Pavese published this collection for the first time in «Le tre Venezie» (Padua – 1947), a literary magazine directed by the Italian writer Antonio Barolini. These poems will then converge in a posthumous volume titled Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi (1951) after the suicide of the author.
La terra e la morte and Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi are inspired by a similar biographical circumstance: the struggle for love and the loss of a loved one. Both collections follow the identity of love and death, investigated through leitmotifs in continuity with the Mediterranean mythology of Dialoghi con Leucò. Metaphors and rhetorical figures are obsessively brought back to primordial elements such as earth, sea and blood. The eyes of the loved one recall the presence of death.
In the untitled poem discussed in this site, sorrow and melancholy are obtained using conservative stylistic choices. Meter and rhythm are brief and heavy and exhale the inevitability of death. The loved one is a sort of mythological creature, defined by a symbology of ruin and alterity (Hai viso di pietra scolpita / sangue di terra dura, sei venuta dal mare). Her origins – that is, a sense of existence – are unknown and forbidden to the desire of the poet. The metaphor of silence and darkness are recurring, placing the object of desire as the climax of an apophatic or gnostic theology. The central stanza is overwhelmed by a series of figures that express inertia and gravity (l’urto / della secchia nel pozzo, / la canzone del fuoco, / il tonfo di una mela; / le parole rassegnate / e cupe sulle soglie;).
The last verse, flooded in light (dove s’apriva l’alba), is nothing but an illusory hope: the past tense crushes the future, enclosing love in a distant memory.
- Pavese, C. (1984). Verrà la morte e avrà tuoi occhi. Torino: G. Einaudi.
The poem La pioggia nel Pineto by Gabriele d'Annunzio is of great importance for the italian literature. Written between 1899 and 1903, La pioggia nel Pineto belongs to Alcyone, a collection of 88 poems published in 1903. Although d'Annunzio's language is generally articulated and complex to understand, this composition is not so difficult to be understood by the reader, at least on a literal level. For first reason, we located the poem close to Calvino's recommendations and we highlighted several cathegories after a deeper textual analysis. The author focus on the connection between nature and human life brings with it a particular language. All along the poetry we can sense that everything changes, becoming light and impalpable in the nature image. The most relevant categories were mutability and dustiness, detected in some specific passages even if all the poem seems quite light and immersed in the natural environment. Finally, d'Annunzio used a great amount of rhetorical effects, specifically anaphora. All together, they help to better convey the sense of lightness of the poem.
- D'Annunzio, G., & Roncoroni, F. (2003). Poesie. Milano: Garzanti.
Movesi il vecchierel canuto e bianco is a sonnet from Francesco Petrarca, one of the "Three Crowns" of Italian tradition. The composition comes from Il Canzoniere (Rerum vulgarium fragmenta), a huge collection created and edited by the author several times before its publication. Movesi il vecchierel canuto e bianco belongs to "In vita di Madonna Laura" section and was probably composed around 1337. It makes a comparison between an old and tired pilgrim and the poet looking for his beloved one face during a voyage. We chose this poem because we detected a sense of lightness opposed to one of heaviness. The lightness identified by Calvino is expressed in this sonnet mainly through movement. Even if his body is old and heavy, the old pilgrim still moves thanks to its will ("Desio") to see the face of God. Even if some heaviness is still present, lightness seems to prevail and make the image of the old pilgrim light and sweet to the reader.
- Petrarca, F., & Bettarini, R. (2005). Canzoniere: Rerum vulgarium fragmenta. Torino: Einaudi.