New York Times Book Review, Sunday 1 September, 1935
The Spiritual Father of Fascist Italy
A hundred years ago today Giosuè Carducci was born. Two years later Leopardi died, and that great drama of the Italian Risorgimento, which our American Thayer called ‘the masterpiece of the human spirit’, had no other singer. In 1859, the critical year for Italian unity, Carducci was 24; during the next eleven years, until the annexation of Rome, he felt no need to take up arms, under the plea of having to support his indigent family. Other patriots left their dependents in poverty in order to fight for their country; that the young Tuscan poet did not feel impelled to follow their example has always, to our mind, taken much of the sting from his bitter invective against the lukewarm in patriotism.
These considerations have not, however, dulled the enthusiasm with which official Italy has celebrated the centenary of his birth. It is fit and proper that Fascist Italy should do so, for to whom than to Carducci can be traced the origin of the Fascist spirit in Italy? The veneration for imperial Rome, the respect for martial ardor above all other forms of spiritual energy, the spirit of hate and intolerance for all those who are of a different opinion from one’s own, in no writer can these elements be found in a purer and more complete state than in the author of the Odi Barbare. In d’Annunzio, who owed and acknowledged that he owed much to his predecessor, all this is but a reflection- a pale and unsatisfactory reflection.
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The centenary, besides an unending series of articles and official commemorations in the newspapers and magazines, has culminated in the publication of a new and complete edition of all the literary remains of the poet, the first really complete edition of his works ever published, by the Bolognese Zanichelli, in whose book shop the poet used to pass so many hours during the latter years of his life. The first four volumes contain his poetical output, including all the hitherto unpublished poetry of his youth and a great many poems and fragments of poems of his later years which for one reason or another had not been made known to the public hitherto. We have read all this material very carefully, and with the possible exception of one poem in the third volumes (page 419), which has all the charm of the Greek anthology, we may safely say that not to have published it would hardly have robbed Carducci of any posthumous glory. Twenty-one other volumes will contain all his prose works, including again much unpublished material from his early years.
Of the publications on Carducci the most interesting beyond a doubt is the new volume by Papini, Grandezze di Carducci (Florence, Vallecchi), which, while it in no way supersedes Papini’s previous excellent study L’Uomo Carducci, or even less Croce’s final essay on the poet, is still one of the best and most organic books written by the Florentine critic for many years. How courageous and generous this homage on the part of Italy’s foremost Catholic writer really is will not perhaps be quite apparent to American readers, who do not know, or have forgotten, what a prominent role Carducci played in the anti-Catholic movement of the nineteenth century, due to the hostility of the church to the formation of Italian unity. Papini even goes so far as to say that he does not believe it necessary to be a Catholic to be saved. This is a great step beyond the fanaticism of his early years as a convert, and we take note of it with pleasure.
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The only sign of Papini’s customary lack of balance in the whole volume is where he suddenly goes off the beam-end, in defending Carducci from the frequent accusation of intemperance, over the horrible ingredients that go to make up that wicked foreign concoction, the cocktail, for which the Florentine cannot find words sufficiently indignant. Carducci, he avers with holy ire, was fond of his glass of wine, but would never have condescended to quaff these foul slops. Now, it is well known that, besides vermouth, which is a harmless Italian beverage, the main ingredient of the despised cocktail is gin, unholy gin. And exactly three days after the publication of Papini’s uncontrolled invective appeared the fourth volume of the new edition of Carducci’s works, in which, we read, on Page 298, the hitherto unpublished fragment dedicated to gin, beginning:
How much azure of loves and memories,
Gin, treach’rous liquor, do I now behold…
Which is very much like a playful buffet from the grave from one who was very fond of giving such jests.
All jests aside, it is singularly fitting that Carducci should be celebrated by Papini, for he possesses, if not Carducci’s virtues, still all his faults to a supreme degree. In both the same facility of invective is to be noted, and the same inability to deal with the most peaceful and harmless theme without suddenly going off at a tangent over some quite different subject. (As, for instance, the last lines of one of Carducci’s otherwise most beautiful poems, ‘Idillio Maremmano’, which, in our opinion, comes very near to ruining the entire effect).
For this reason, for this lack of poise and divine indifference, we believe that Carducci’s fame has reached its zenith and will not go down to posterity as one of the truly greatest lyric poets. It is all very well to speak of Dante, but these Titanic outbursts of indignation are in Dante’s epic poem, and never mar the perfect crystal of his lyrics. The distinction, to those who reflect upon it, is no slight one. And, indeed, we have noted that whenever discerning Italians are questioned about the real and enduring merits of Carducci they invariably betray considerable embarrassment. Most of them are ready to admit that their affection for him has a sentimental basis- which has nothing to do with critical appraisal. Those who remember when his poems used to appear, day by day, and seemed so new and wonderful in an Italy which for over half a century had seen no great poetry, can hardly be expected to consider him dispassionately. But already the younger generation regards him with distaste and can scarcely be brought to read him at all. And how many of those who now pay lip-service to his memory really feel a need for his poetry? It is dangerous to prophesy, but we should like to go on record as having wagered that when the fiftieth anniversary of his death comes around in 1957, very few readers beyond students of literature will still be found faithful to his memory.