Pascoli’s Utopia of Sadness in the Discourse ”L’era nuova”

(The New Age, 1899)

46th Annual NeMLA ConventionToronto, Ontario:

April 30 – May 3, 2015

Marja Härmänmaa, University of Helsinki, Finland

Giovanni Pascoli (1855-1912)

• Born in San Mauro di Romagna (1855)

• Died in Bologna (1912)

Pascoli’s academic life

• Latin and Greek teacher – in high schools (1882->)

• Professor of literature (1895->) – At the Universities of Bologna, Messina, Pisa

• Won 13 times the gold medal in Certamen Hoeufftianum– poems in Latin

Sociopolitical engagement

• Politically active– anarcho-socialist (1877->)– humanitarian socialist (1900->)– freemason (1882->)

• Collaborator with the Ministry of Education (1894)

• Collaborator with the journal Convito (1894->)

Pascoli’s production

• Poems – Myricae (1891)– Canti di Castelvecchio (1903)– Odi e inni (1906)

• Essays on poetry, humanity, politics

”L’era nuova” (1899)

• Speech delivered in Messina in a conference at the end of the year / century

• Incoherent and contradictory• Contains Pascoli’s basic ideas

Disappointment with the 19th century

• Disappointment with humanity• Disappointment with science• Disappointment with poetry / poets

Science

• In youth a positivist• Science made great progress in the 19th

century• It ultimately failed

The Failure of Science

• It destroyed the Christian religion without offering any other consolation– Not happiness but sadness

• Science only serves war• It did not abolish death

Science and War

”Ma se ella, con altri suoi mirabili e benefici ritrovati, ha pur fabbricato i battelli aerei, per cui deve piovere la distruzione dal cielo, e i battelli sottomarini, per cui dal fondo del mare la distruzione ha da erompere, di che, di che mai ella può vantarsi?” [”L’era nuova”]

Science and War

“But if science, with all its wonderful and beneficial inventions, has nonetheless built aircraft which will cause destruction to rain from the heavens, and submarines which will cause destruction to burst forth from the bottom of the sea, whatever does it have to boast about?“ [“L’era nuova”]

Science and death

• “Il morire doveva essere tolto dalla scienza; ed ella non l’ha tolto.” [«L’era nuova»]

• «Science was supposed to abolish death, but it did not.»

Disappointment with Humanity

• “socialista dell’umanità” – (socialist of humanity)

• The world ˝atomo opaco di Male” – (an opaque atom of Evil, «X Agosto» Myricae)

• Family tragedy? – Loss of parents and 2 brothers (1867-1876)

Humanity wants to forget death

• “Oh! voi voleste dimenticare la infelice scoperta; e sempre, ad ora ad ora, vi stordite e dimenticate; e così vi rifate simili ai bruti e, nell’oblio della morte, de la morte.” [«L’era nuova»]

• "Oh! you wanted to forget the unhappy discovery; and now, you dull your senses and forget; thus you remake yourselves into brutes, and in the oblivion of death, of death"

Humans believe they are born to fight

• “Come il gigante della favola, nel toccar terra cadendo, riprendete la vostra forza pugnace; e non vi ricordate se non di essere bruti, e credete di non essere nati, come essi, se non a combattere.” [«L’era nuova»]

• «Like the giant of the fairy tale, in touching the ground after falling, you regain your pugnacious strength; and you only remember that you are brutes, and you believe you were only born to fight.”

Hatred reigns in the world

• “eccovi là per terra, rotolare, ansimare, bramire nello spasimo dell’odio! Questa è l’antica ascensione!” [«L’era nuova»]

• “There you are, rolling on the ground, gasping, bellowing in the agony of hatred! This is the ancient ascension!”

Poet and society

• No social or political role• Yet moral and civil meaning– Poet as a priest (sacerdote, ”L’Era nuova”)

Disinterested poetry

• « Il poeta è poeta, non oratore o predicatore, non filosofo, non istorico, non maestro, non tribuno o demagogo, non uomo di stato o di corte.» [«Il Fanciullino» 1903]

• "The poet is a poet, not an orator or a preacher, not a philosopher or an historian, not a teacher or a magistrate, not a demagogue or a courtier."

Poetry makes the world better

• He excludes the unpoetic from humanity• Unpoetic ≠ evil• Unpoetic = morally bad and aesthetically ugly• Not a philosophical evaluation• The inner child (il fanciullino) rejects them

Solution in poetry

• Così la poesia, non ad altro intonata che a poesia, è quella che migliora e rigenera l'umanità, escludendone, non di proposito il male, ma naturalmente l'impoetico. Ora si trova a mano a mano che impoetico è ciò che la morale riconosce cattivo e ciò che l'estetica proclama brutto. Ma di ciò che è cattivo e brutto non giudica, nel nostro caso, il barbato filosofo. È il fanciullo interiore che ne ha schifo. [Il fanciullino 10.1.]

Solution in poetry

"So poetry, not attuned to anything else but poetry, is the thing that improves and regenerates humanity, not by excluding the overtly evil from it, but by excluding the unpoetic. Now we are gradually discovering that the unpoetic is what morality calls evil and what aesthetics proclaims as ugly. But what is bad and ugly is not judged, in our case, by the bearded philosopher. It is the inner child in us that is disgusted by them.”

Science and Poetry

• Poet = priest• Poetry must collaborate with science• It must find what is poetical in the new

world that science has discovered.

Science and Poetry

• “Io ho fornita la verità; ma tu non ne hai nutrite le anime.” (I have provided the truth; but you have not nurtured the souls, “L’era nuova”)

• “la poesia è ciò che della scienza fa coscienza.” (poetry is what turns science into consciousness, “L’era nuova”)

Idea of death during the fin de sièlce

• Central• ‘the emotional epicenter, the inspiring matrix,

and the constitutive foundation’ of the culture of Italian decadentismo (Elio Gioanola)

• Also related to the idea of cultural and societal decay– Mass society, French defeat in 1870

The idea of death in Pascoli

• Central• Family tragedy?• Death = separation, cancellation of the human

being• No afterlife• Sorrow and loneliness of the survivors

Humans, Brutes and Death

• The awareness of mortality distinguishes human beings from brutes (Schopenhauer)

• The reason for human sadness that equally differentiates humans from brutes

• The failure of humans to respect destiny• The negation of death and innate will to kill

transforms human brutes

Recognition of Human Destiny

• In accepting death, humans will be all the more sad

• The progress of humanity = a descent into sadness

• In sadness humans will recognize others as brothers

• Abolition of war and class struggle

Thank you!I wish to than professor Christopher Nissen for the translations and the proofreading.