Poetry and the Visual in 1950S and 1960S Italian Experimental Writers

The Photographic Eye: Poetry and the Visual in 1950s and 1960s Italian Experimental Writers Elena Carletti Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences The University of Sydney A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2020 This is to certify that to the best of my knowledge, the content of this thesis is my own work. This thesis has not been submitted for any degree or other purposes. I certify that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work and that all the assistance received in preparing this thesis and sources have been acknowledged. I acknowledge that this thesis has been read and proofread by Dr. Nina Seja. I acknowledge that parts of the analysis on Amelia Rosselli, contained in Chapter Four, have been used in the following publication: Carletti, Elena. “Photography and ‘Spazi metrici.’” In Deconstructing the Model in 20th and 20st-Century Italian Experimental Writings, edited by Beppe Cavatorta and Federica Santini, 82– 101. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019. Abstract This PhD thesis argues that, in the 1950s and 1960s, several Italian experimental writers developed photographic and cinematic modes of writing with the aim to innovate poetic form and content. By adopting an interdisciplinary framework, which intersects literary studies with visual and intermedial studies, this thesis analyses the works of Antonio Porta, Amelia Rosselli, and Edoardo Sanguineti. These authors were particularly sensitive to photographic and cinematic media, which inspired their poetics. Antonio Porta’s poetry, for instance, develops in dialogue with the photographic culture of the time, and makes references to the photographs of crime news. Furthermore, his poetry relies on the technique of poetic montage, and juxtaposes photographic and cinematic sequences through the use of percussive meter and frequent punctuation. Amelia Rosselli, on the other hand, refers to photography as a medium to capture and record her life story. Her poetry seems to work like a camera, recording a precise personal experience in both space and time. The still camera and film camera also inspire her metrical system, presented in her manifesto of poetics Spazi metrici. Finally, Edoardo Sanguineti claims to see the world photographically through a camera eye as well as through a cinematic mind. His poetry also borrows formal techniques from other artistic practices – such as collage and montage – and aims to deconstruct normative syntax as a form of resistance to bourgeois hegemony. This thesis intends to provide new and unexplored perspectives on the work of the authors analysed. It also suggests that there is a broader interrelation of literary and photographic cultures beyond the presented case studies. In post-war Italy, experimental and neo-avant-garde writers reshaped their poetry in direct dialogue with both photography and cinema. By recognising that the interactions between literature, photography, and cinema lay at the core of the poetic research of several authors in the 1950s and 1960s, this thesis aims to fill a gap in Italian Studies scholarship on poetry and calls for further research in this area. Acknowledgments Several years ago, as a graduate student, I roamed the corridors of the Italian Department at the University of Syndey looking for someone to discuss my potential PhD topic with. There I met Dr. Giorgia Alù, who listened to my tangled ideas and advised me on the next steps to take. Her supervision unofficially started in those corridors and has since then unfailingly guided me throughout this journey. Giorgia has been a careful thinker, a dedicated supervisor, and a long-lasting mentor. To her go my heartfelt thanks. I would like to equally thank my auxiliary supervisor, Associate Professor Gian Maria Annovi (USC), for his careful reading of my thesis and for passionately sharing his ideas with me. His work was introduced to me by Niva Lorenzini and Stefano Colangelo at the Univeristy of Bologna, and it has been a source of insipiration ever since. I have been lucky enough to have met several academics who directly or indirectly offered me advice and support in these years. I want to first thank Alice Loda, Marco Sonzogni, and Nicola Gardini for the fun conversations on poetry and for the happiness shared. Alice, in particular, has been a caring colleague, a model, a mentor, and the dearest of friends. I thank Jacob Blakesely and Franco Nasi for the informal chats on translation, but most of all for their kind support and their unspoken guidance that led to the publication of two book chapters. I would like to thank Sally Hill for her inspiring thinking on photography and literature. Her work has been an invaluable point of reference for this thesis. I am also profoundly grateful to Eloisa Morra, Beppe Cavatorta, and Federica Santini for taking interest in my research from overseas, and for inviting me to contribute to two volumes on contemporary experimental poets. My sincere thanks go to the many PhD colleagues across disciplines and departments who have worked with me and have improved my thinking, my writing, and my teaching skills. I am grateful to Daria Catulini, for being the best PhD companion overseas. Her ideas have continually inspired my thinking since the day we met at the University of Bologna. I thank Andrew Ward and Luke Cromer for making our reading group fun and exciting, and for the support in organising the Writing, Memory, and Visuality Symposium, held at the University of Syndey in 2018 and funded through an HDR+ grant. I also acknowledge the Work in Progress workshop: Nanda, Emma, Sophia, and Mint have been attentive and generous readers of my work. Thanks to my colleagues in the Italian department: Antonia Rubino and Vincenzo De Carlo for their precious guidance as unit coordinators, Francesco, Daniela, Emma, Mint, Talia, and Antonella, for always being there to help. The production of this thesis has been possible thanks to the funding provided by the University of Sydney: I thank the university for having awarded me the UsydIS scholarship to sustain me for the length of this doctoral project; three rounds of PRSS to attend international conferences overseas; the HDR+ grant to organise a symposium on literature and visuality; and the Merenda scholarship to carry out archival research in Italy. Completing my PhD at this university has been a privilege and an exciting journey. My most heartfelt thanks go to my families in Italy and in Australia. My dearest Italian friends, Anna and Sara, have accompanied me closely even through the largest of distances. I am grateful to the Baratro crowd for keeping me real, and to the Savi group for sharing our journeys throughout the decades. Thank you, Alison, Caro, Elyas, and Fernandito for making my first years in Australia adventurous and for coming with me into the wild. Thanks to my extended Italian family in Sydney (Alice, Francesco, Daniela), and thank you, Josto and Rossella, for being my adoptive brother and sister, for giving me pure joy and wise advice, and for reminding every day to fall in love with life again. Thanks to the Castle Drumming community for teaching me how to love nature and to dance around the fire and under the stars: for the songs, the poems, and the land. Thank you, Alex, for being the best partner one could hope for: for inspiring me with your creative mind, for the music, the travels, the love and laughter that have enriched these years. Thanks to my family in Italy, whom I miss each and every day: my mother and father, my two brothers and my sister, my cats and dogs, my aunts, uncle, and cousin. You are my silent North: I dedicate these years of work to honor you and to love you. Finally, my deepest respect goes to the land that held me and to the landscape I learnt to love profoundly. I want to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, where this thesis was thought and written. Table of C ontents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 1 Structure of the Thesis ................................................................................................................... 10 Chapter One Intermediality, Literary Visuality, Still/Moving Field: An Interdisciplinary Approach . 14 Intermediality ................................................................................................................................. 15 Literary Visuality ........................................................................................................................... 20 Still/Moving Field: Cine-Photographic Media Across Stillness and Motion ................................. 23 Chapter Two Literary and Photographic Cultures in 1950s and 1960s Italy ...................................... 14 The Rise of Experimental Poetry ................................................................................................... 32 Neoavanguardia and the Crisis of Representation: Renewal, Openness and Crossings ................ 36 Italian Photographic Culture Between the Reconstruction Years and the Economic Boom ......... 42 Normalising the Exchanges Between Literature and Photography: Some Precursors ................... 48 Poetry’s Response to Photography: I Novissimi and Visual Poetry ............................................... 57 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................

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