Italian literature

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Folio 34v of the Cantico delle Creature , (1226)

The Italian literature is in Italian written literature. As such, it came into being relatively late compared to the other Romance languages . Latin , Old French and Provencal were predominant , which were gradually replaced by the popular language , the Volgare . According to smaller and insignificant references, the " Canticle of the Sun " by Francis of Assisi is considered the first piece of Italian literature.

Scuola Siciliana

The Sicilian School of Poetry was a group of poets at the court of Emperor Frederick II in Palermo. In the true sense of the word, it was a question of amateurs, that is, civil servants who were also poets on the side, and Friedrich himself wrote poems. It was there that Giacomo da Lentini invented the sonnet . The Sicilian school of poetry had a great influence on the whole of Italy and continued to have an effect after the Staufer Empire had already perished.

Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio

Dante Alighieri

The centers of lyric poetry shifted to the north (Bologna, Florence). Guido Guinizelli developed the dolce stil nuovo (German: sweet new style), which celebrates a glorified ideal of love. This is how this style was named by one of its representatives, namely Dante Alighieri (1265–1321). With his Divine Comedy, Dante is one of the Italian-speaking poets of world fame.

Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374) was the real founder of humanism . As such, he wrote numerous Latin works. His cycle of poems, Canzoniere , is Italian and is considered to be the most important post-antique collection of poems in European literature. It comprises 317 sonnets , 29 canzons, 9 sestines , 7 ballads and 4 madrigals . Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375) wrote the Decamerone , a collection of 100 short stories that are embedded in a framework. These three, namely Dante, Petrarca and Boccaccio, were also known as the three Florentine crowns ( Le tre corone fiorentine ).

The time between these three and the literary circle around the patron Lorenzo de Medici was described by Benedetto Croce as the "century without poetry" ( Il secolo senza poesia ) because nothing new had developed. This can be explained, among other things, by the fact that Latin predominated during humanism.

Renaissance

Ludovico Ariosto

In the 1450s, the Estonian court in Ferrara became a cultural center. Here Matteo Maria Boiardo (1441–1494) wrote the collection of poems Canzoniere and the epic “Roland in love” ( Orlando innamorato ). The sequel " Der rasende Roland " ( Orlando Furioso ) by Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533) then achieved international significance .

Taking up the ancient bucolic , Jacopo Sannazaro (1458–1530) wrote his prosimetric Arcadia , which was translated very early and became the point of reference for later shepherd and shepherd poetry in the national literature of Europe.

The humanist Pietro Bembo (1470–1547) intervened decisively in the question of the correct use of language ( Questione della lingua ). He took the position that the language of Petrarch and Boccaccio was the best literary language, Castiglione preferred an overarching colloquial language and Machiavelli the Florentine (Tuscan).

The Florentine Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) is best known for his treatise “ The Prince ” ( Il principe , 1532), in which he represents the ideal of an absolutist ruler, but he also created historical (a story of Florence) and literary Works such as the comedy “Die Liebesalraune” ( La Mandragola , around 1518).

The ideal typical Renaissance man was described by Baldassare Castiglione (1478–1529) in the “ Book of the Hofmann ” (1528). He used the popular genre of literary dialogue for this .

Pietro Aretino (1492–1556) was notorious for his erotic literature ("The voluptuous sonnets") and satires.

Torquato Tasso

Matteo Bandello (1485–1561) published an extensive collection of short stories. In contrast to Boccaccio, there is no longer a framework plot. Bandello's novels were very successful internationally; Shakespeare, for example, used them as a literary treasure trove for his dramas.

The painter and architect Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) wrote an important collection of artist biographies.

Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) wrote the knight epic "Rinaldo". His main work is " The Liberated Jerusalem " ( La Gerusalemme liberata 1580). The epic appeared without Tasso's permission and he worked on it to “The conquered Jerusalem” (1593).

The intellectuals of the time also found their way into literary history. Giordano Bruno (1548–1600), usually known as a philosopher, wrote the comedy "The Candle Maker" and masterful dialogues of philosophical content. Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) published a large part of his scientific work not in Latin, as was customary at the time, but in polished Italian.

17th century

Argutia (ingenuity / ingenuity) becomes the most important term of the era. One tries to embellish texts in baroque splendor, whereby metaphors come into question above all. Instructions for this can be found in Emanuele Tesauros (1592–1675) Cannocchiale Aristotelico ("Aristotelian Telescope"), which is one of the most widely read poetics of the time. Antiquity is no longer an absolute benchmark, but a role model that can be expanded and expanded. Alessandro Tassoni (1565-1635) established with the stolen bucket (1615/1622), a Persiflage conventional Epics , the heroic-comic epos.

The most important figure of the era is Giambattista Marino (1569–1625), who received both great admiration and harsh criticism. He found numerous imitators in Italy, the so-called "Marinists" (e.g. Giovanni Francesco Loredano ), and also gave the Marinism its name. For its part, Italian marinism exerted a great influence on German baroque literature (e.g. Hoffmannswaldau and Lohenstein ). The discussion as to whether Marino also had an influence in Spain or whether Spain influenced him is still pending. Marino worked mainly in Paris, where he wrote poetry and the great epic Adone ("Adonis").

With Giovanni Battista Basile (Giambattista Basile) (approx. 1575–1632) and his pentamerone , Italy can boast of the first great fairy tale collector and storyteller in Europe.

18th century

Carlo Goldoni

As a countermovement to Marinism, the Accademia dell'Arcadia was founded in Rome in 1690 , a group of writers that soon spread throughout Italy. During his second stay in Italy, Goethe was also appointed a member of the Accademia . The most important representative was Pietro Metastasio (1698–1782), who was court poet in Vienna from 1730. Metastasio wrote poetry and opera libretti, with which he contributed to the international spread of Italian as an operatic language.

Carlo Goldoni (1707–1793), Venetian librettist and playwright, reformed the Italian comedy , the Commedia dell'arte , which used traditional masks and improvisations by the actors. His opponent, who wanted to keep the old theater, was Carlo Gozzi (1720-1806). He successfully brought fairytale-like subjects onto the stage and was admired for this by German Romanticism .

Vittorio Alfieri (1749–1803) wrote 19 tragedies, which thematically often revolve around the fight against tyranny. This made him a popular poet representing the Risorgimento (see below).

19th century

In the 19th century, Italy was shaped by the Risorgimento , the movement that strove for the national unification of Italy. The Risorgimento naturally also found its echo in literature. The second major tendency of the century was apparently the opposite, namely that towards regionalism, that is, the literary description and appreciation of individual Italian regions.

Ugo Foscolo (1778–1827) wrote the epistolary novel “ Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis ”.

Alessandro Manzoni

The most important representative of Italian Romanticism was Alessandro Manzoni (1785–1873). The lyric poet Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1837) is also counted as part of the Romantic period . His form-rigorous poems, which are based on antiquity, are permeated by a deep, melancholy mood.

In contrast to Manzoni's romanticism, Giosuè Carducci (1835–1907) was based on classic fabrics and shapes. Carducci was the first Italian to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1906 . Another important representative of poetry was Giovanni Pascoli (1855–1912).

The Sicilian Giovanni Verga (1840-1922) began with novels accommodating the taste of the time, populated by eccentric protagonists, and only then turned to verism ( verismo ). This calls for a simple, true language and topic (ital. Vero ; "true"). Verga wrote the Sicilian Novellas (ital. Vita dei campi) about rural Sicily, he was best known for the dramatic adaptation of the novella Sicilian Peasant Honor (ital. Cavalleria rusticana) . Other representatives of Verism are Luigi Capuana (1839–1915) and Federico De Roberto (1861–1927), both Sicilians. Grazia Deledda (1875–1936) also falls into this trend . She was one of the most important authors of naturalism in Italian literature. In her works she describes the hard life of the people of Sardinia , she received the Nobel Prize for Literature for 1926.

Fin de siècle and the interwar period

The most outstanding figure of this time was Gabriele D'Annunzio (1863–1938). He tried his hand at all literary genres and knew how to put himself in the limelight in literary and social life. D'Annunzio received Friedrich Nietzsche and took over his superman cult , he was politically very agile and had a close relationship with fascism and Benito Mussolini personally. His "praises of heaven, sea, earth and heroes" are well known.

The Trieste Italo Svevo (1861-1928) wrote novels that are not sold. It was only through the mediation of James Joyce that he became known to a wider public.

Ada Negri (1870–1945), who came from a poor background, became well known in 1892 when her socially committed poems were first published in a book - also beyond Italy's borders; her first three volumes of poetry appeared immediately in German transmissions.

Luigi Pirandello (1876–1936) wrote short stories and novels, but he became known for his dramas, which are often adaptations of his own short stories. They have been listed worldwide. Six people are looking for an author e.g. B. 1921 in Rome, 1922 in London, 1923 in Paris and New York and 1924 in Berlin.

During the 1930s and the Second World War, neorealism ( Neorealismo ) emerged in both film and literature . This anti-fascist movement wanted to bring in a "realistic" view, in contrast to the cocky fascist propaganda. One of his representatives is Elio Vittorini (1908–1966) with the novel “Conversation in Sicily” (1938/39), later title: “Names and Tears” (1941).

Literature after World War II

The most important poets of the century include Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888–1970), Eugenio Montale (1896–1981) and Salvatore Quasimodo (1901–1968). Ungaretti's collected work was published in 1969 as “The Life of a Man”. Montale was demonstratively against D'Annunzio and his style. He refused to join the fascist party . Quasimodo thematized his homeland Sicily with references to antiquity. Later he also wrote political poetry and was Pablo Neruda's translator .

1906 Giosuè Carducci
1926 Grazia Deledda
1934 Luigi Pirandello
1959 Salvatore Quasimodo
1975 Eugenio Montale
1997 Dario Fo

Alberto Moravia (1907–1990) wrote a large number of short stories and novels that often revolve around sexual obsessions, the best known being the novel “Die Römerin” (1947) and the “Roman Stories” (1954 and 1959).

Giorgio Bassani (1916–2000) wrote the “Romanzo di Ferrara”, his main work in several volumes on the fate of Italian Jews under fascism. Out of this stand out the “Ferrares Stories” and “The Garden of the Finzi Contini”.

Cesare Paveses (1908–1950) poetry, short stories and novels are often about loneliness and inescapable fate .

Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–1975), known as a director in the German-speaking world, also wrote a large number of lyrical, narrative, dramatic and essayistic works. Special mention should be made of the novel “Halbstarke” (1955) and the volume of poetry “Gramscis Asche” (1957).

By Giovanni Guareschi (1908-1968) originate among others, the popular "Don Camillo" novels.

Giuseppe Tomasi , Duke of Palma and Montecchio, Prince of Lampedusa (1896–1957) wrote only one novel, namely “ The Leopard ”, which was published posthumously in 1958 and made him world famous. In it he wistfully resurrects Sicily at the time of Garibaldi .

Italo Calvino (1923–1985) wrote playful, fantastic novels such as “ The Baron in the Trees ” (1957) as well as essayistic works. He is certainly one of the most important Italian writers of the second half of the 20th century.

Primo Levi (1919–1987) was first in exile and survived the Auschwitz concentration camp and processed these experiences in “ Christ only came to Eboli ” and “ Is that a person? "(1947).

Dario Fo

Dario Fo (1926–2016) works closely with his wife Franca Rame (* 1929). In 1997 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature “for his popular political agitation theater” .

Umberto Eco (1932–2016), professor of semiotics in Bologna, landed a worldwide bestseller with “ The Name of the Rose ” (1980), which was followed by other historical novels.

Other names in Italian post-war and contemporary literature are Paolo Giordano and Susanna Tamaro as well as the late authors Stefano D'Arrigo , Carlo Emilio Gadda , Natalia Ginzburg , Giorgio Manganelli , Luigi Malerba , Elsa Morante , Antonio Pizzuto and Antonio Tabucchi .

Italian-speaking authors from Switzerland

Outstanding Italian-language poets outside Italy are the Swiss Fabio Pusterla , Alberto Nessi , Giorgio Orelli and Giovanni Orelli .

See also

literature

  1. From the beginnings to the renaissance , 1992
  2. From baroque to romantic , 1993
  3. From Verism to the Present , 1993

Web links