Pascoli’s Utopia of Sadness in the
Discourse ”L’era nuova”
(The New Age, 1899)
46th Annual NeMLA Convention
Toronto, 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.