Roberto Carnero “Silvio D’Arzo: A Critical Evaluation” University College London PhD 2000 1 ProQuest Number: 10797642 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10797642 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 Abstract The main aim of my research was to write a critical monograph on Silvio D’Arzo, a minor but very interesting contemporary Italian novelist (Reggio Emilia, 1920-1952). Although many essays, articles and even some books had been written on D’Arzo (and the proceedings of two congresses were also available), a complete study dealing with the different aspects connected to the life and the activity of this writer was still missing. I prepared an exhaustive and up-to-date bibliography of the creative worksby D’Arzo (this was at times made difficult by the sheer number of periodicals to which the author contributed, often not to be found in most libraries in Italy) and of the critical studies on him. The bibliography is therefore quite an important result of my thesis, and will constitute a fundamental starting point for any future study on D’Arzo. Another problem I had to face was the “ philology” of D’Arzo’s texts: the editorial situation of many of them is complicated, since there are different versions and editions of the same text. I tried to offer an analysis and sometimes a possible solution to these problems. What I then did was to place D’Arzo in the literary context of Italian narrative in the Thirties and Forties (the decades in which he worked most). This study helped to define D’Arzo’s place within the history of contemporary Italian literature. Although D’Arzo did not belong to any particular literary movement, it can be useful to see him in the context of his day in order to evaluate his importance and his influence on the following generations of writers. The other points I focused on in my study include D’Arzo’s life, his narrative production (short stories and novels), his writings for children, his poetry, his critical essays on English and American literature (which testify to his wide literary interests), his correspondence with other writers and with publishers, his critical and editorial “ (s)fortuna” . 2 Table of Contents Abbreviations ... p. 5 0. (Ir)relevance of Silvio D’Arzo ... p. 6 0.1 .Silvio D’Arzo ... p. 6 0.2. Critical (Mis)fortunes ... p. 12 0.3. Aims and Methodology ... p. 17 1. Ezio Comparoni’s Life ... p. 21 2. From Story to N ovel... p. 27 2.1. Maschere ... p. 27 2.2. The Stories of 1940-41 ... p. 30 2.3. L ’uomo che camminava per le strade ... p. 36 2.4. Essipensano ad altro .. .p. 46 2.5. A ll’insegna delBuon Corsiero ... p. 60 2.6. L ’osteria ... p. 81 3. Post-war Narrative ... p. 96 3.1. Un ragazzo d ’altri tempi ... p. 96 3.2. Nostro lunedi di Ignoto delXXsecolo ... p. 108 3.3. Casa d ’altri ... p. 118 3.3.1. The Text ofCasa d ’altri ... p. 118 3.3.2. The Writing of the Story ... p. 120 3.3.3. The Action of the Story ... p. 125 3.3.4. Structure and Style ... p. 131 3.3.5. Interpretation ... p. 136 4. Other Interests ... p. 142 4.1. D’Arzo’s Essays ... p. 142 4.2. D’Arzo’s Children’s Stories ... p. 155 4.3. D’Arzo’s Poetry ... p. 172 5. D’Arzo and the Writers of His Time ... p. 179 5.1. Solaria and Adjacent Currents ... p. 180 5.2. Neorealism and Related Currents ... p. 193 5.3. D’Arzo and the Religious Writers of His Time ... p. 205 3 5.4. The “Loss of Halo” ... p. 212 6. Conclusions ... p. 221 Bibliography ... p. 224 4 Abbreviations The following abbreviations have been used in the notes to indicate the editions of D’Arzo’s texts which have been quoted from: AS L ’aria della sera e altri racconti. Ed. Silvio Perella. Milano: Bompiani, 1995. BC AU’insegna del Buon Corsiero. Introd. Enzo Turolla. Note on text by Anna Luce Lenzi. Milano: Adelphi, 1995. C “ [Silvio D’Arzo - Enrico Vallecchi]: Carteggio 1941-1951.” Ed. Anna Luce Lenzi. Pref. Marino Biondi.Contributi 8.15-16 (1984). CA Casa d ’altri. Firenze: Sansoni, 1953. Cl Contea inglese: Saggi e corrispondenza. Ed. Eraldo Affinati. Palermo: Sellerio, 1987. EP Essipensano ad altro. Milano: Garzanti, 1976. NL Nostro lunedi. Racconti, poesie, saggi. Ed. Rodolfo Macchioni Jodi. Firenze: Vallecchi, 1960. NLI Nostro lunedi di Ignoto del XX secolo. Ed. Anna Luce Lenzi. Modena: Mucchi, 1986. PW Penny Wirton e sua madre. Ed. Rodolfo Macchioni Jodi. Illus. Alberto Manfredi. Torino: Einaudi, 1978. PSF II pinguino senza frac e Tobby in prigione. Illus. Alberto Manfredi. Torino: Einaudi, 1983. RAT Un ragazzo d ’altri tempi. Firenze: Passigli, 1994. USC Una storia cosi. Lagazzi 1992: 105-36. 5 0. (Ir)relevance of Silvio D’Arzo 0.1. Silvio D’Arzo In my introduction to this research I feel obliged from the outset to justify my choice of an author who is so clearly “minor” in the context of Italian twentieth century fiction. For three years I have dedicated the greater part of my days to the study of Silvio D’Arzo’s inconclusive yet fascinating work. I have often asked myself about the reason for this predilection, given the vast number of possible subjects I could have chosen for a doctoral thesis. When I try to answer this question a sentence written by Pier Vittorio Tondelli comes to mind: “Molto spesso non siamo affatto noi a scegliere le nostre letture, i nostri dischi o i nostri amori, ma sono gli accadimenti stessi che vengono a noi in un particolare momento, e quello sara l'attimo perfetto, facilissimo e inevitabile: sentiremo un richiamo e non potremo far altro che obbedire.” 1 I have had this experience of realising that situations, rather than being sought out by us, seek us out, not only in Tondelli, but in the pages of D’Arzo himself. “Galeotto fu il libro e chi lo scrisse,” Francesca da Rimini tells Dante the character. For me, the role of the seneschal Galahad and of the book of the adventures of Lancelot and Guinevere has been taken by Tondelli, when in a passage of the novel Camere separate, on the protagonist Leo’s bedside table he made me find “alcuni volumi di Antonio Delfini e Silvio D’Arzo.”2 While the first name was familiar, I had never even heard of the second. Another warning bell rang when I came across D’Arzo’s name again in a different Tondelli text, Weekend postmoderno to be precise, where in the final section, entitled Giro in provincia, I found the title of the masterpiece of this writer from Reggio Emilia who died in 1952 at the age of only thirty-two, the long shortCasa story, d ’altri. 1 Tondelli 1993a: 28. 2 Tondelli 1991: 117. 6 What finally convinced me of the value of reading D’Arzo was another work by Tondelli, a posthumous volume entitledL ’abbandono. This contains a text calledUna conferenza emiliana, in which the author speaks to a group of students about several writers from their region including once again Silvio D’Arzo. I go over these personal memories not only to account for my discovery, but also because Tondelli has had some very interesting things to say about Silvio D’Arzo. For example he grasped a factor which is extremely important for understanding D’Arzo’s relevance and modernity: his provincial quality (in that he is linked to his own city, area and roots) but at the same time his receptiveness to encounters with the Other (one thinks for example of D’Arzo’s interest in English and American literature which in his case is in no way a consequence of the fashion of the time). That also applies in the case of Tondelli where this dialectic between periphery and centre, Italy and the world, in other words between the desire to escape and the call of one’s origins, is a real and fertile presence from a poetic point of view. It must be for this similarity of approach that Tondelli managed to grasp this aspect which is so fundamental in any reading and understanding of D’Arzo. In a page which also illustrates the former’s deliberately antiphilological, and all the more for this, postmodern, capacity to approach apparently unrelated phenomena, he states: E forse un caso cheCasa d'altri, il racconto piu celebrato di Silvio D’Arzo (pseudonimo del reggiano Ezio Comparoni), sia ambientato proprio in un piccolo borgo appenninico dove, a una certa ora, ‘i calanchi ed i boschi e i sentieri ed i prati dei pascoli si fanno color ruggine vecchia, e poi viola, e poi blu’? Deve esserci una ragione. Nella storia della vecchia montanara che chiede al prete la dispensa per potersi suicidare, c'e tutta la solitudine, una certa arguta follia, una malinconia—ecco la parola giusta—tipiche del carattere emiliano che sia D’Arzo, sia il modenese Antonio Delfini, hanno saputo, in modi diversissimi, raccontare.