Intellectual Communities and Partnerships in Italy and Europe
Studies in Honour of Mark Davie
Bearbeitet von
Danielle Hipkins
1. Auflage 2012. Taschenbuch. XXIII, 182 S. Paperback
ISBN 978 3 0343 0172 5
Format (B x L): 15 x 22,5 cm
Gewicht: 300 g
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Preface
Intellectual dialogue is at the centre of Mark Davie’s book Half-Serious
Rhymes. Firstly, Mark shows how Luigi Pulci’s poem Morgante is the result
of his interaction with an anonymous text (Orlando), re-discovered by Pio
Rajna in 1869, which at times Pulci followed word for word. His was ‘a
creative dialogue with an earlier text’ (p. 18), a fruitful relationship highlighting Pulci’s ‘characteristic ability to derive the verbal stimuli he needs
from a pre-existing text’ which works even with the most unpromising
text (p. 96).
Secondly, Pulci created an original formula, with a mixture of styles
and traditions, ‘a new genre of narrative poetry, characterised by the presence in the text of a self-aware narrator able to exploit his relationship with
his material and with his audience, resulting in a high level of topicality,
verbal humour and parody’ (p. 27). As Mark says, ‘both Boiardo’s Orlando
innamorato and Ariosto’s Orlando furioso, to name only the outstanding
examples of a hugely successful genre, owe a large and conspicuous debt
to the Morgante’ (p. 7). Pulci expected to be surpassed by those coming
after him. His poem was also meant to be a contribution to a collective
enterprise:
Altri verrà con altro stile e canto,
con miglior cetra, e più sovrano artista;
io mi starò tra faggi e tra bifulci
che non disprezzino le muse de’ Pulci.1
We have used the word ‘dialogue’ to indicate so far a marked form
of intertextuality or the mixture of continuity and innovation that characterises a genre. In Half-Serious Rhymes, however, Mark highlights also
1
Luigi Pulci, Morgante ed. by F. Ageno (Milan and Naples: Ricciardi, 1955), p. 1108;
Davie p. 164.
xiv
Preface
direct forms of dialogue. A third way in which he stresses it is by analyzing Pulci’s relationship with his audience, which, Mark notes, was ‘one of
mutual inf luence’. In continuing the composition of his major poem, Pulci
took account of ‘the early reception of the first published version of the
poem’2 whereas, by the later stages, his readers’ ‘expectations were moulded
by what they already knew of the work’.3
Finally, Mark devotes a considerable amount of attention to the friendship that developed between Pulci and Angelo Poliziano. The two poets
might have easily been rivals: they lived in quarrelsome circles, belonged to
dif ferent generations, wrote on similar topics with dif ferent styles (Pulci’s
La giostra di Lorenzo de’ Medici, devoted to a joust taking place in Florence
in 1469, was soon overshadowed by Poliziano’s Stanze per la giostra celebrating another joust which took place in the same city in 1475) and yet
were close friends. After completing canto XXIII of the Morgante, Pulci
was unable to find a new way forward, obtaining rather poor results with
both the composition of Cirif fo Calvaneo and a new canto of the Morgante.
Having embarked ‘on the canonical story of Roncevaux, Pulci meant to
follow it through to its conclusions without further embellishments or
digressions’. It was an approach that frustrated his natural source of inspiration (p. 146). Poliziano’s intervention restored Pulci’s confidence in his
own brand of poetry (‘his personal “accademia”’, p. 146). As Mark says, ‘his
friend’s advice had not only strengthened his resolve to continue the narrative in its own way; it had also encouraged him to maintain the element of
variety which he could now see as one of the poem’s strengths’ (p. 147).
The stress on the cooperative nature of intellectual enquiry appears
repeatedly in Mark’s publications. More than any other scholar, for
example, he highlights how Alessandro Manzoni’s literary activities and
political ideas were inf luenced by events, the necessity of reacting to, and
interpreting, them, and the discussions and interactions that that necessity entailed. Manzoni, Mark notes, wrote poetry supporting unification
2
3
Mark Davie, Half-Serious Rhymes: The Narrative Poetry of Luigi Pulci (Dublin: Irish
Academic Press, 1998), p. 19.
Ibid., p. 27.
Preface
xv
and published these poems in 1848, after a crowd gathered outside his
house acclaiming him as a national champion and asking him to write
something supporting Italy’s right to independence (p. 848).4 In the last
months of his life, he responded enthusiastically to an invitation of the city
of Turin ‘by embarking on an account of the events of 1848–49 and the
progress they represented towards Italian unification’ (p. 853). Mark pays
much attention to Manzoni’s letters and the way in which they record the
development of his political choices in a close dialogue with friends such
as Antonio Rosmini and Massimo D’Azeglio and acquaintances such as
Giorgio Briano. Rosmini, a devout man inspired by a desire to renew the
church, still believed that ‘il Sommo Pontefice dee adempire i doveri ad
un tempo di Principe temporale e Capo della Chiesa’.5 Manzoni kindly
objected to that, reminding his friend and favourite contemporary philosopher that other Catholics might believe ‘che la soluzione definitiva, e
probabilmente lontana, possa portare la separazione del poter temporale,
per vie e con compensi preparati dalla Provvidenza, e con l’assentimento
dello stesso Pontefice’.6
Both Pulci and Manzoni lived in major cultural centres (Renaissance
Florence, Milan when it was the capital of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy); they interacted with the major cultural circles of their times. And
yet the stress on so many forms of intellectual collaboration does not only
4
5
6
Mark Davie, ‘Manzoni after 1848: An “Irresolute Utopian”?’, The Modern Language
Review 87 (1992), n. 4, pp. 847–57 (848).
Carteggio fra Alessandro Manzoni e Antonio Rosmini, ed. by G. Bonola (Milan:
Cogliati, 1901), p. 96; Davie, p. 856.
Alessandro Manzoni, Lettere, 3 vols, ed. by Cesare Arieti (Milan: Mondadori, 1970),
II, p. 462; Davie, p. 856. In one of these letters Manzoni writes a beautiful political self-description, from which Mark draws the title of his work: ‘un utopista e un
irresoluto sono due soggetti inutili per lo meno in una riunione dove si parli per
concludere; io sarei l’uno e l’altro nello stesso tempo. Il fattibile le più volte non mi
piace, e dirò anzi, mi ripugna; ciò che mi piace, non solo parrebbe fuor di proposito
e fuor di tempo agli altri, ma sgomenterebbe me medesimo, quando si trattasse, non
di vagheggiarlo o di lodarlo semplicemente, ma di promoverlo in ef fetto, e d’aver poi
sulla coscienza una parte qualunque delle conseguenze’ (Lettere, II, p. 462; Davie,
p. 847).
xvi
Preface
come from them. It is also their interpreter’s, and it is from this consistent
emphasis on dialogue and collaboration in Mark’s scholarship that our
idea comes to celebrate Mark’s retirement with this volume on intellectual
partnerships and communities.
The importance of combining collegiality (or friendship) and scholarship has been central to Mark’s professional career. A senior colleague
told us that in his entire career he has not worked with anyone more collegiate, more generous or more loyal to others than Mark. As an Italianist
at Liverpool (1971–87), and Exeter (1987–2010), Mark has been one of the stalwart (often behind-the-scenes) supporters of Italian (and Modern
Language) studies in the UK and in his own institutions. From 1997 to
2003 he was the honorary treasurer of the Society for Italian Studies – a
role that is crucial to the survival of an Italianist community in the UK.
In the sometimes thankless area of management roles, Mark took more
than his fair share, initially as Director of Education and Deputy Head of the School of Modern Languages at Exeter, and later as Head of the same
School during a dif ficult period of restructuring (from 2003 to 2006).
Even in that period, despite his demanding role, he would always make
time to listen to anybody.
Mark was also Italian editor of Modern Languages Review, from vol.
99 (2004) to vol. 105 (2010). In this role, we are told, he provided a regular supply of good articles and reviews, encouraged potential (including
younger) authors and nudged tardy reviewers where necessary (as it often
was), was gently firm but also very polite, tactful and ever discreet in dealing
with contributors and colleagues, showing a nice sense of humour. Helping
younger colleagues has been a defining feature of Mark’s career, as evidence
from several contributors to this volume suggests. Younger colleagues speak
of the care Mark, often together with his wife Grace, showed them, from
reading their work, to of fering them accommodation in his own home,
when they had had too much of the local B&B. In honour of Mark’s support and collegiality towards colleagues at every stage in their career, we
decided to include research contributions from scholars at an advanced
stage of their career, and from younger scholars, and ref lections on their
work from other professionals with academic connections.