Archivio d’Annunzio | 2019 | N. 6

Between ca. 1885 and 1927, Gabriele d’Annunzio and Matilde Serao became friends and contributed to journals in Rome and Naples; they met authors in Europe (especially in France), exchanged opinions about their works and also about their private life. She has been a vibrant constant on Vate’s experience: she gave him advices and protected his affair with Eleonora Duse, who was also Matilde’s friend. Serao’s collection of letters, kept by Fondazione Il Vittoriale degli Italiani in Gardone Riviera, explains some contours of a crucial friendship.

Setting out from a poem that will be published as part of Elettra, this paper deals with the close relationship that exists among d’Annunzio’s Laudi since their first appearance in 1899. As a case study, I will focus on Ferrara, Pisa, Ravenna, later published as Città del silenzio.

Starting from the affirmations of Marziano Guglielminetti, the study intends to reread the autobiography of the Notturno by Gabriele d’Annunzio. Subsequently, It proposes an analysis on the poetics inside this peculiar literary work, in particular on the dignity of the conception of ‘sorrow’ that the Notturno expresses, comparing with other interpretations of ‘grief’ in Italian literature (Giovanni Pascoli and Guido Gozzano); and also reflecting on the d’Annunzio repertoire in general with respect to the Notturno.

The present work traces an hermeneutic line between the poem «La morte del cervo» in Alcyone and some Faville del maglio, prose texts in which d’Annunzio experiences a form of autobiography and the celebration of poetic self. Starting from the Favilla, dated 1907, celebrating the sculpture of Clemente Origo, this essay establishes links with some texts, written much later, in which the poet turns poetic creation into a mythical ‘event’. In the last favilla, the symbolic act of the poet, who becomes a centaur, can be read allegorically as a poetic act.

The contribution analyses the influence of the Ovidian work, especially the Metamorphoses, on Giovanni Pascoli and Gabriele d’Annunzio, emphasising how the ancient poet is understood in different ways. In the diversity of interpretation and reformulation of the myths of the Latin poet, both Pascoli and d’Annunzio come to the creation of narratives and figures that reflect central aspects of their poetic world, often far from the original inspiration.

In the European culture between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries there is a denunciation of the decline of Western civilization, with the expectation of a ransom. The new Caesarism is the dream of many intellectuals. D’Annunzio and Spengler are protagonists in this cultural phase. The Italian writer anticipates the German philosopher. In fact, works like Le vergini delle rocce confirm the many convergences with Der untergand der Abendland, published in 1918. In this essay we analyse the analogies between the Weltanschauung of the two authors.

The paper traces some general reflections on the problems, methods and perspectives of authorial philology applied to d’Annunzio’s work and in relation to some recent scientific contributions. Following Contini’s philological sensitivity, the d’Annunzio variant studies have dealt with a peculiar processing method that manifests itself almost instantly, in currenti calamo interventions. In critical editions, they are given an adequate representation through multilayered apparatuses and through the distinction between text’s prehistory and protohistory. The critical applications of these studies have since been the most attractive prospects for an investigation into the elaboration of d’Annunzio’s text.