Strumenti critici | 2024 | N. 164

The essay explores recent studies and critical work on Alberto Arbasino, elucidating the primary elements of his writing, including encyclopedism and the fusion of various genres. Furthermore, it underscores the importance of delving into the author’s archive and employing a philological approach to his oeuvre.

The article analyzes the practice of rewriting in the work of Alberto Arbasino according to his idea of a “classicµ, that is a work open to contamination and based on the rejection of perfectionism.

Alberto Arbasino thought Bouvard and Pécuchet was «the greatest book ever written» and Flaubert’s influence can indeed be perceived throughout his oeuvre, especially in his civic writings published between the Seventies and the Nineties. The essay examines Arbasino’s encyclopedic dedication to the bêtise comparing four of his texts (Fantasmi italiani, In questo Stato, Un paese senza, Paesaggi italiani con zombi) with Flaubert’s last project for the Sottisier and the Dictionnaire des idées reçues, with a particular focus on Arbasino’s debt to Ennio Flaiano’s aphorismatic style.

In Certi romanzi (1964, republished with revisions in 1977), Alberto Arbasino described the elaborative process that led him to write his novel-essay Fratelli d’Italia. Among his reference models, Petronius’ Satyricon stands out within the stylistic category of the Menippean satire. This article analyzes the central Petronian motifs in Fratelli d’Italia by using the analytical tools offered by Certi romanzi.

The present contribution focuses on Arbasino’s eccentric position within Italian Proustism. By taking into account the importance of the author’s linguistic pastiche, the analysis focuses on the homage paid by Arbasino to Proust in the two editions of Parigi o cara and in the three editions of Fratelli d’Italia. The aim is to outline the way in which Arbasino describes Proust’s biographic and artistic experience and to classify the different kinds of textual references and quotations that he borrows from the Recherche.

This article aims to establish the unique contribution of Arbasino as an art critic, drawing upon examples from both his published works and private writings. It explores the clarity of Arbasino’s insights and the formative influence of his judgments within the realm of art criticism. Through a comparative analysis with other esteemed Italian critics, it delineates the characteristics of Arbasino’s organic vision of artistic phenomena in relation to his style of writing.

This essay traces the history of the Alberto Arbasino Fund (including the writer’s archive, library, paintings, and original furniture) donated by the author to the Gabinetto Vieusseux of Florence and kept since 2021 in the “Alessandro Bonsantiµ Archive. The Sala Arbasino, a special room on the ground floor of Palazzo Corsini Suarez, headquarters of the Archive, has been dedicated to the Fund; it was inaugurated in 2022.

Alberto Arbasino’s letters held at the Archivio Urbinate of the Carlo and Marise Bo Foundation testify the intellectual vivacity but also the ironic manner of his confrontation with Carlo Bo, which lasted more than thirty years. The first letter, sent by the young Arbasino to Bo in June 1948, presents the image of an adolescent who is sure of his culture but in need of confirmation about his future as a writer. The other letters, dating from 1969 to 2000, attest to the constant and mutual attention between the established writer and one of his most assiduous critics, who frequently reviewed Arbasino’s books. The six letters and the postcard published here show how Arbasino understood his own responses to Bo’s criticisms as opportunities to practice the genre of self-commentary.

«Si quidem deus est, unde mala? Bona vero unde, si non est?» (“If indeed God exists, whence evil? And if He does not, whence good?µ), pondered Boethius in De Consolatione Philosophiae. This existential quandary often plagues believers, particularly in the wake of catastrophes like the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. The solution proposed by theodicy – ex malo bonum – fails to offer a satisfying resolution. Similarly, even the penetrating gaze of phenomenology, as seen through the eyes of a devout believer like Alessandro Manzoni, struggles to provide one. This essay delves into Manzoni’s nuanced perspective on this matter. Furthermore, given the multifaceted nature of evil, particularly within historical contexts, it examines various manifestations: the trial of alleged plague spreaders in Milan in 1630, the reflection on evil during Christmas in 1833 following the loss of his beloved wife, and the portrayal of malevolent tyranny in I promessi sposi. The overarching conclusion is that the origin of evil remains shrouded in mystery; while its effects can be mitigated, eradication remains elusive.

The essay comprehensively analyzes the presence of Proust’s work in Eugenio Montale’s oeuvre. After taking into account the previous critical work on the topic, the essay highlights both the problematic position of Montale as a literary critic towards Proust and the implicit hermeneutics of the Recherche detectable within a few decisive poems.

The essay examines some of Giorgio Bassani’s engagés texts, in particular those relating to the Second World War. It focuses on an article from 1944, Le leggi razziali e la questione ebraica, and on a series of poems that reveal the close relationship that Bassani established between art, morality, and politics. The analysis specifically considers two texts that Eugenio Montale considered among the best European poems of the Resistance: Non piangere compagno, dedicated to a young man who fell during the Neapolitan days of September 1943, and Retrovia, portraying an unknown German soldier buried near Lake Albano. Both poems show the attitude of pietas with which Bassani approaches even the death of his enemies. A French source, Apollinaire’s Calligrammes, is used for the interpretation of Retrovia.

This essay begins with a concise examination of the presence of animals in Elsa Morante’s initial two novels, subsequently delving into the poem Il mondo salvato dai ragazzini and the novel La storia (1974). It explores how animals serve to unveil a worldview grounded in precise and consistent philosophical coordinates within both works. Furthermore, it delves into Morante’s perspectives on animals, drawing upon Giorgio Agamben’s thesis as articulated in La festa del tesoro nascosto (1993), which originates from a footnote in Spinoza’s Ethics. Additionally, it examines a similar marginal note by Morante found in a passage from Daisetsu T. Suzuki’s Buddismo Shin (Astrolabio 1972), alongside her indepth study of foundational texts in Oriental wisdom. These analyses shed new light on Morante’s engagement with philosophical and religious sources, most notably with Spinoza’s thinking.

After a brief history of the origin of the elzeviro, i.e., the cultural feature in Italian newspapers, the article highlights the continuity between the traditional elzeviro, born on the printed paper, and the elzeviro read on the radio in the first half of the 1950s. Through a concise analysis of some texts written by Franco Antonicelli, but also by Giani Stuparich and Antonio Baldini, first written for radio broadcast and only subsequently published by the Edizioni della Radio Italiana, the article also aims to underline the commitment which pervades those pages, contrasting in this sense with a vision of the elzeviro as a disengaged and self-referential genre.