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Baudelairism and Modernity in the Poetry of Scapigliatura Alessandro Cabiati PhD The University of Edinburgh 2017 Abstract In the 1860s, the Italian Scapigliati (literally ‘the dishevelled ones’) promoted a systematic refusal of traditional literary and artistic values, coupled with a nonconformist and rebellious lifestyle. The Scapigliatura movement is still under- studied, particularly outside Italy, but it plays a pivotal role in the transition from Italian Romanticism to Decadentism. One of the authors most frequently associated with Scapigliatura in terms of literary influence as well as eccentric Bohemianism is the French poet Charles Baudelaire, certainly amongst the most innovative and pioneering figures of nineteenth-century European poetry. Studies on the relationship between Baudelaire and Scapigliatura have commonly taken into account only the most explicit and superficial Baudelairian aspects of Scapigliatura’s poetry, such as the notion of aesthetic revolt against a conventional idea of beauty, which led the Scapigliati to introduce into their poetry morally shocking and unconventional subjects. Furthermore, these studies have not focused on drawing a detailed and systematic picture that portrays the connections not only between Baudelaire and the poets of Scapigliatura, but also among the Scapigliati themselves. As a result, the true extent of Baudelaire’s influence has not been acknowledged. This study strives to fill the gaps in the existing scholarship. My thesis posits that Baudelaire’s influence on the poetry of Scapigliatura, almost exclusively related to the first two editions of the verse collection Les Fleurs du Mal, is more profound and substantial than scholarship has heretofore recognised. The thesis consists of three chapters, each dedicated to one of the three most important poets of Scapigliatura, namely Arrigo Boito, Emilio Praga, and Giovanni Camerana. The investigation of Baudelaire’s influence on the Scapigliati is conducted both iii individually, searching for Baudelairian features in their work, and comparatively, contrasting differences and aiming to locate similarities. The main focus is on the major poetic works that are strictly related to the phases in these poets’ careers when they were associated with Scapigliatura: Boito’s Il libro dei versi and Re Orso; Praga’s Tavolozza and Penombre; and Camerana’s poems written between 1863 and 1869. My aim is to establish if there was what can be called a ‘Baudelairian school’ within Scapigliatura. Ultimately, I argue that the relationship between Baudelaire and the poetry of Scapigliatura is more complex than has previously been understood. I demonstrate a vast and wide-ranging influence – on a conceptual, lexical, and stylistic level – on the three poets discussed in this work, which can be traced back to the very beginning of their careers in the early 1860s. Far from being simply an element of aesthetic and moral rebellion in order to épater le bourgeois, the Baudelairism of Boito, Praga, and Camerana in their Scapigliatura years accomplished two ends: on the one hand, it preserved some of the more traditional aspects of Baudelaire’s poetry, which have been largely overlooked by Italian literary scholarship on Scapigliatura; on the other hand, it introduced a thematic and formal modernity into Italian poetry, paving the way for the Decadent movement as well as the twentieth- century avant-gardes. iv Declaration I hereby declare that this thesis was composed by myself, that the work contained herein is my own except where explicitly stated otherwise in the text, and that this work has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification except as specified. Alessandro Cabiati v To Ambra, for the confidence you have in me when mine falters tra altre mani bollenti come arenaria in luglio imponenti come grattacielo sull’orizzonte glauco vi Acknowledgments I would like to take this opportunity, first and foremost, to thank my supervisors Davide Messina and Peter Dayan for their guidance, confidence, support, and invaluable feedback over the last four years. I also want to deeply thank my family, who has always believed in me; my friends throughout the UK, as well as those in Italy (soprattutto Teo e la Sabry!), who show their love every time I go back; the many people I met here in Edinburgh; and of course Ambra, whose love and support kept me going even in the most difficult times. It’s been a ride! vii Contents List of Abbreviations …………………………………………………………………... x INTRODUCTION Writers of Transition …………………………………………………………………... 1 1. Scapigliatura: a Movement in Transition ……………………………………………... 1 2. Baudelaire: ‘écrivain en retard’ or the First Poet of Modernity? ……………………... 13 3. Baudelaire, Father of ‘Realismo Scapigliato’? ……………………………………….. 24 4. Scapigliatura and Baudelaire: Aims of Research …………………………………….. 31 CHAPTER I ‘Quand j’étais jeune et Baudelairien’: Arrigo Boito and Baudelaire’s Lesson.…….. 41 1. Irregularity and Modernity in ‘Il libro dei versi’.…………………………………….. 41 1.1 Stylistic Irregularities: Oxymora and Juxtapositions in Boito’s ‘Realismo’.…… 41 1.2 The Aesthetics of Baudelaire’s Modern beauté and Boito’s ‘Quasimodi’.…….. 49 1.3 An Ill and Decadent Art: Boito and the Irregular Forms of Contemporaneity..... 55 1.4 A Baudelairian (De)Idealisation of the Muse: ‘Lezione d’anatomia’.…………. 68 2. An Allegory of Excess: ‘Re Orso’.…………………………………………………….. 76 2.1 Rotten Worlds, Bestial Vices: the Allegorical Menagerie of ‘Antiche storie’.… 84 2.2 Sloth, Ennui, and Images of Death.…………………………………………….. 88 2.3 Gluttony and the Worm: Allegories for Moral and Physical Corruption.……… 93 2.4 A Perversion of Religious Liturgies: Boito’s and Baudelaire’s Satanic Litanies..103 2.5 Eroticism and Piousness: the Double Characterisation of the Woman.………… 105 CHAPTER II Emilio Praga, Reader of the Fleurs du Mal: For a Redefinition of Praga’s Baudelairism……………………………………………………………………………. 127 1. Approaching the Model: on the Development of Praga’s Baudelairism …………….. 127 1.1 Baudelairian Beginnings: 1850s Paris and the Schizzi a penna.……………….. 127 1.2 Tavolozza: Idyllic Realism and Feeble Baudelairian Echoes?.………………… 131 1.3 The Curious Case of ‘La libreria’.……………………………………………… 135 1.4 Baudelairism and ‘Maledettismo Scapigliato’: a More Complex Relationship… 144 1.5 ‘Suicidio’: Corpses, Paintings, and Bohemian Artists………………………….. 156 1.6 The Poet Against Society: the Fleurs and Praga’s Ideas on Nature and the Arts..166 1.7 Music, Synaesthesia, and Intoxicating Visions: Investigating ‘Il poeta ubbriaco’ and ‘Orgia’.…………………………………………………………………………... 173 viii 2. Praga’s Multidimensional Baudelairism in ‘Penombre’.…………………………….. 190 2.1 In the Shadow of Baudelaire: Reviews of Penombre.…………………………. 190 2.2 ‘Meriggi’: a Baudelairian Idyll?.……………………………………………….. 197 2.3 Indoor Seclusions and Idealistic Introspections.………………………………. 209 2.4 An Anticatholic and Antipositivist Polemic: ‘A un feto’.……………………… 218 2.5 In Search of Modernity: Towards a Subjective Idea of Beauty..………………. 229 CHAPTER III Cultivating Indefiniteness: Baudelaire’s Role in Giovanni Camerana’s ‘Scapigliatura’ Years.…………………………………………………………………………………….. 257 1.‘Natura e pensiero’: Camerana’s Baudelairism before Scapigliatura?.………………... 257 2. Interpretation not Imitation: Camerana and the Natural Scenery..……………………. 271 3. Woman and Landscape: a Baudelairian Analogy.…………………………………….. 288 4. Visions of Modernity: Sensual Sacredness and Sacred Sensuality..…………………... 302 5. Visions of Modernity II: Splenetic Landscapes and Sepulchral Dreams.……………... 313 CONCLUSIONS.……………………………………………………………………….. 333 Bibliography……..……………………………………………………………………… 349 ix List of Abbreviations Charles Baudelaire OC I Œuvres complètes, vol. I, ed. by Claude Pichois (Paris: Gallimard, ‘Bibliothèque de la Pléiade’, 1975) OC II Œuvres complètes, vol. II, ed. by Claude Pichois (Paris: Gallimard, ‘Bibliothèque de la Pléiade’, 1976) Corr. I Correspondance, vol. I: 1832-1860, ed. by Claude Pichois and Jean Ziegler (Paris: Gallimard, ‘Bibliothèque de la Pléiade’, 1973) NHE Edgar Allan Poe, Nouvelles histoires extraordinaires, trans. by Charles Baudelaire, ed. by Tzvetan Todorov (Paris: Gallimard, 2006) Arrigo Boito OL Opere letterarie, ed. by Angela Ida Villa, 4th edn (Milan: Otto/Novecento, 2009) TS Tutti gli scritti, ed. by Piero Nardi (Verona: Mondadori, 1942) Lett. Lettere, ed. by Raffaello de Rensis (Milan: Lampi di stampa, 2004) Emilio Praga PP Poesie, ed. by Mario Petrucciani (Bari: Laterza, 1969) SP Schizzi a penna, ed. by Ermanno Paccagnini (Rome: Salerno, 1993) MP Memorie del presbiterio: scene di provincia (with Roberto Sacchetti), ed. by Giuseppe Zaccaria (Turin: Einaudi,