Massimo Bontempelli

Massimo Bontempelli (* 12. May 1878 in Como , † 21st July 1960 in Rome ) was an Italian writer who along with his friends Alberto Savinio and Giorgio de Chirico is for trying the experiments of the surrealist avant-garde of France to the Italian art to transfer.

biography

After graduating from the University of Turin with a degree in philology in 1903, Bontempelli worked as a journalist (for Il Marzocco , La Nazione and Nuova Antologia ) and as a teacher. He first belonged to the traditionalist circles of Carducci followers and then to those of the Futurists . In the first phase he wrote for the magazine La Voce under the pseudonym "Minimo Maltempelli" and published his first works ( Socrate moderno, 1908, and I sette savi, 1912), which he immediately rejected. After the First World War, in which he participated as an artillery officer and correspondent for Il Messaggero , he approached futurism , under whose influence the poetry book Il purosangue. L'ubriaco (1919) and the novels La vita intensa (1920) and La vita operosa (1921) were written.

His stays in Paris in 1921 and 1922, which brought him into contact with circles of the French avant-garde, were decisive for a profound change in his artistic self- image. The short novels of these years ( La scacchiera davanti allo specchio, 1922, and Eva ultima, 1923) reveal a completely new style that is based on an irrational arbitrariness and the apparent arbitrariness of dreams - a spelling that meets the demands of André Breton's Premier Manifest du Surréalisme (1924) largely corresponds.

He made a close friendship with Luigi Pirandello , who encouraged him to write dramas as part of his work at the “ Teatro d'Arte ”. His plays Nostra Dea (1925) and Minnie la candida (1927), both of which Pirandello and his drama troupe premiered, are thanks to this stimulus .

With Curzio Malaparte he founded the international magazine '900 in 1926 . Cahiers d'Italie et d'Europe , which appeared in French until 1927 and addressed all cosmopolitan intellectuals of the so-called “ Novecentismo ” or “ Stracittà ”. In this forum, Bontempelli published his innovative poetics of " realismo magico ", which, following the French model, called on the modern artist to discover the magic of the unconscious or unpredictable adventure, without, however, relinquishing the control of his human mind. As a “mythographer” (“mitografo”) the artist should show the “magical meaning discovered in the everyday life of people and things” by simplifying the complex, problematic reality in mass society , ie by translating it into new fairy tales and Myths . The complete edition of this program of the young avant-garde movement appeared in 1938 under the title L'avventura novecentista.

While the first stories and novels of his “magical-realistic” approach - including the volume of short stories La donna dei miei sogni e altre avventure modern published in 1925 - still testify to an imaginative originality, Bontempelli's storytelling wears increasing wear towards the end of the twenties and degenerates into an intellectualist constructivism that seems too abstract and artificial. The novels Il figlio di due madri (1929) and Vita e morte di Adria e dei suoi figli (1930), but all the more the later Gente nel tempo (1937) and Giro del sole (1941), are subject to this tendency towards a mechanical one mannered implementation of his stylistic innovation.

In addition to literature, Bontempelli cultivated a keen interest in contemporary architecture of the New Objectivity , which is why he and Pier Maria Bardi were appointed head of the Quadrante magazine from 1933 onwards . Accompanied by his partner, the writer Paola Masino , he often traveled abroad to take part in lectures, discussions and cultural events.

He was a staunch supporter of fascism , which he considered to be the most appropriate political means to promote the emergence of a modern society in Italy. In 1930 he was therefore accepted into the Accademia d'Italia , which had been launched a year earlier by Benito Mussolini as a prestige cultural project. Due to his aversion to the provincialism of the opposing current of the " Strapaese ", however, he increasingly represented opinions that contradicted the official views of the regime, which in 1939 led to his exclusion from the fascist party. He spent the war years in exile in Venice , where he fundamentally reconsidered his political convictions. In 1948 he was elected to the Senate on the list of the " Fronte Popolare " ; however, because of his fascist past, the election was declared invalid.

With his last book L'amante fedele he won the Premio Strega in 1953 . In the last years of his life, a serious illness prevented him from continuing his multifaceted engagement and increasingly isolated him. He died on July 21, 1960 in Rome at the age of 82.

Works

Novels and short stories

• Socrate moderno (1908; The modern Socrates 1993)
• Sette savi (1912)
• La vita intensa - Romanzo dei romanzi (1920; The intense life 1992)
• La guardia alla luna (1920)
• La vita operosa (1921; The busy life 1991)
• Nuovi racconti d'avventure (1921)
• Viaggi e scoperte (1922)
• La scacchiera davanti allo specchio (1922)
• Ultime Avventure (1922)
• Eva ultima (1923)
• La donna dei miei sogni e altre avventure modern (1925)
• L'eden della tartaruga (1926)
• Donna nel sole e altri idilli (1928)
• Il figlio di due madri (1929; the son of two mothers 1930; son of two mothers 1998)
• Il neosofista (1929)
• Vita e morte di Adria e dei suoi figli (1930)
• Mia vita, morte e miracoli (1931)
• Stato d grazia (1931)
• La famiglia del fabbro (1932; The Fabbro family 1941)
• <<522>> Racconto di una giornata (1932; 522nd A Day in the Life of an Automobile 1996)
• Valoria (1932)
• Galleria degli schiavi (1934)
• Gente nel tempo (1937)
• Giro del sole (1941)
• Viaggio d'Europa (1942; cruise of the Europa 1956)
• Le notti (1945)
• L'acqua (1945)
• L'ottuagenaria (1946)
• L'amante fedele (1953)

Dramas

• Guardia alla luna (1916)
• Siepe a Nordovest (1919)
• Nostra Dea (1925)
• Minnie la candida (1927)
• Bassano padre geloso (1934)
• Cenerentola (1942)
• Venezia salva (1947)

Poems

• Il purosangue. L'ubriaco (1919)

Essay volumes

• La donna del Nadir (1924)
• Pirandello, Leopardi, D'Annunzio (1938)
• L'avventura novecentista (1938)
• Sette discorsi (1942; Italian profiles. 8 speeches 1943)
• Introduzione e discorsi (1944)
• Opere scelte (Ed .: Baldacci, Luigi; 1978)

literature

• Luigi Baldacci: Massimo Bontempelli . Turin, 1967
• Fernando Tempesti: Massimo Bontempelli . Florence, 1974
• B. Nuciforo Tosolini: Il teatro di Parola - Massimo Bontempelli . Padua, 1976
• Fulvia Airoldi Namer: Massimo Bontempelli . Milan, 1979
• A. Saccone: Massimo Bontempelli - Il mito del '900 . Naples, 1979
• Luigi Fontanella: Il surrealismo italiano . Roma 1983, pp. 139-155
• Luigi Fontanella: Storia di Bontempelli: Tra i sofismi della ragione e le irruzioni dell'immaginazione Ravenna 1997
• Fabriano Fabbri - I due novecento: gli anni venti fra arte e letteratura: Bontempelli versus Sarfatti , prefazione di Renato Barilli; San Casciano di Lecce, Manni, 2008.

Web links

• Literature by and about Massimo Bontempelli in the catalog of the German National Library
• Scuolaromana (Italian)  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )
• Digilander (Italian)