A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick Permanent WRAP URL: http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/103329 Copyright and reuse: This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. For more information, please contact the WRAP Team at: [email protected] warwick.ac.uk/lib-publications Giovanni Raboni and the City: Tableaux of Milan by Maria Belova A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Italian Studies University of Warwick School of Modern Languages and Cultures September 2017 Table of contents List of tables p. 3 Abbreviations p. 3 Acknowledgements p. 4 Declaration p. 6 Abstract p. 7 Introduction p. 8 i. Space and city in literature: mapping Raboni’s geography p. 8 ii. Raboni’s critical reception and critical glossary: ‘inclusività’ and p. 17 ‘architettura’ iii. Spatial representation through its methodology and structure p. 27 Chapter 1. Raboni the poet of Milan p. 36 1.1. Raboni’s roots and formation as ‘il più milanese’ poet p. 37 1.2. Questo e altro: literature and what surrounds it p. 52 1.3. City as a text p. 62 Chapter 2. The fragmented cityscape: walking through Porta Venezia p. 74 2.1. Raboni’s articles about Porta Venezia and Corso Buenos Aires p. 75 2.2. A Critical analysis of Raboni’s ‘Piccola passeggiata trionfale’ p. 84 2.2.1 Structure of Ogni terzo pensiero and ‘Piccola passeggiata trionfale’ p. 84 2.2.2 Time and space dimensions in ‘Piccola passeggiata trionfale’ p. 87 2.3. A Critical analysis of Raboni’s ‘Nell’ora, ormai, della cenere’ p. 112 2.3.1 Structure of Quare tristis and the poem ‘Nell’ora, ormai, della cenere’ p. 112 2.3.2 Time and space dimensions in the poem p. 119 2.3.3 Musicality and prosody of ‘Nell’ora, ormai, della cenere’ p. 121 1 Chapter 3. The transitional cityscape: borders and liminal state in recurrent elements of cityscape p. 133 3.1. Window: between (indoor and outdoor) spaces p. 134 3.2. Erasing spatio-temporal boundaries: visible-invisible p. 145 3.3. Inside the house: indoor elements and their opposition to the outside spaces p. 153 3.4. Outdoor cityscape with its marginal characters: ‘non-places’ such as cinema, squares, and public transport p. 160 Chapter 4. Tableaux of Milan: Raboni as a translator of Baudelaire p. 173 4.1. Raboni-the translator of Les Fluers du Mal and his translation techniques p. 175 4.2. Analysis of ‘La fontana di sangue’ and ‘Il cigno’ p. 187 4.3. Baudelaire in Raboni’s poetry: ‘Nella piazza? sul corso? Chi lo sa’ and ‘La fontaine de sang’, ‘Risanamento’ and ‘Le cygne’ p. 198 Conclusion p. 207 Appendix 2A: Time and space dimension in ‘Piccola passeggiata trionfale’ p. 216 Appendix 2B: Prosodic analysis ‘Nell’ora, ormai, della cenere’ with close reading of each line p. 217 Appendix 3A: The full text of six poems exceeding 13 lines in length analysed in Chapter 3 p. 219 Appendix 4A: The full text of the poem ‘Le Cygne’ by Baudelaire and its translations by Raboni analysed in Chapter 4 p. 224 Bibliography p. 228 2 List of tables Table 1. Prosody in PPT, poem 1 – p. 90 Table 2. Prosody in PPT, poem 2 – p. 93 Table 3. Prosody in PPT, poem 3 – p. 95 Table 4. Prosody in PPT, poem 4 – p. 98 Table 5. Prosody in PPT, poem 5 – p. 100 Table 6. Prosody in PPT, poem 6 – p. 103 Table 7. Prosody in PPT, poem 7 – p. 105 Table 8. Prosody in PPT, poem 8 – pp. 107-108 Table 9. Prosody in PPT, poem 9 – pp. 109-110 Table 10. Elements of sytnax in NOOC – pp. 115-116 Table 11. The lengths of sentences in NOOC – p. 116 Table 12. Sound-connectors in NOOC – pp. 121-122 Table 13. Two versions of the poem ‘Testimoni’– p. 142 Table 14. Three spaces in the the text ‘In una piazza quadrata’ and the elements that belong to each of them – p. 164 Table 15. The poem ‘La fontaine de sang’ and the four (plus one) versions of Raboni’s translation – pp. 189-191 Table 16. The poem ‘Le cygne’ and the four (plus one) versions of Raboni’s translation– pp. 193-194 Table 17. Two versions of the poem ‘Testimoni’– pp. 201-202 Abbreviations Works by Giovanni Raboni: PPT – ‘Piccola passeggiata trionfale’ NOOC – ‘Nell’ora, ormai, della cenere’ 3 Acknowledgements I owe my most profound gratitude to my supervisor Professor Ann Hallamore Caesar for her academic and moral support. This thesis would not have been possible without her guidance and constructive comments. She encouraged me throughout all the stages of my PhD, nurturing my enthusiasm so that after every supervision I wanted to fly and felt full of energy to fulfil the task ahead. I also appreciated the many valuable discussions I had with Dr Katrin Wehling- Giorgi who co-supervised my first year of research and who, at an early stage shifted my focus from intertextuality to the urban representation. I am particularly indebted to Patrizia Valduga, poet, translator and Raboni’s partner and custodian of his private archive, who gave me access to valuable documents and unpublished materials, including Raboni’s manuscripts and handwritten corrections of his translations of Baudelaire. However Patrizia Valduga also extended her support in many other ways. Our conversations about different aspects of Raboni’s poetry and their life in Raboni’s last house resulted into two interviews. She attended several conferences where I presented a paper and gave me valuable constructive feedback, without imposing her own opinion. She made herself available to me every time I went to work in the Milanese libraries and even accompanied me on a journey through Raboni’s favourite area of Milan, mapping his topography for me. I offer my grateful thanks to all of Raboni’s relatives whom I met during my journey and who were very kind in sharing with me their memories of Giovanni Raboni, especially his daughter Dr Giulia Raboni, his son Lazzaro Raboni and his first wife Bianca Bottero. Special mentions go to the whole department of Italian Studies within the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at Warwick, particularly to Dr Jennifer Burns, Dr Fabio A. Camilletti, Dr David Lines and Dr Eliana Maestri. I am grateful to my friends and colleagues Valentina Abbatelli, Elio Baldi, Gioia Panzarella, Goffredo Polizzi, and Paola Roccella who helped me to test my ideas 4 and discussed with me some ambiguous or strictly contextual Italian recurrences. I am appreciative to Rocco Di Dio for helping with the materials from the Italian library in Turin. I would like to thank Giulia Brecciaroli and Sara Boezio for co- organising the conference ‘Milan: Crossroad of Cultures’ at the University of Milan and our adventurous formative academic stay in Milan and Sara Miglietti, Giacomo Comiati, Martina Piperno and Kate Willman who gave me support at the beginning of my thesis. Thanks are also due to the following people from Italian and Russian academia for their support during various stages of my thesis: Rodolfo Zucco, Arnaldo Soldani, Fabio Magro, Luca Daino, Anna Chella in Italy and Roman A. Govorukho, Galina D. Muravieva, Mila Saburova and Olga Gurevich in Moscow. I am also indebted to Frances Cutts for her attention to detail and especially for her invaluable support with the English language. Last, but by no means least, thanks to my mum and all my family, including my husband Stefan Von Pfefer and other members of Von Pfefer family namely Louise, Rolf, Zoe, Alexis and Christian for their encouragement and for giving me hope in my moments of self doubt. 5 Declaration I declare that this thesis is my own work and has not been submitted for a degree at another university. Revisited sections of Chapter 4 have been published in the following articles: Belova, Maria, ‘Raboni traduttore di Baudelaire’, in Questo e altro. Giovanni Raboni dieci anni dopo (2004-2014), ed. by Antonio Girardi, Arnaldo Soldani and Alessandra Zangrandi (Macerata: Quodlibet, 2016), pp.281-290 Belova, Maria, ‘Alcuni esempi di intertestualità nella poesia di Giovanni Raboni’, in Traduttori come mediatori culturali, ed. by Sergio Portelli, Bart Van den Bossche and Sidney Cardella (Florence: Franco Cesati Editore, 2016), pp.135-141 6 Abstract This thesis sets out to analyse the image of the city in the writings of Giovanni Raboni, in both his own poetry and his translations of Baudelaire. Raboni makes frequent references to Manzoni, not as the author of I promessi sposi, but of Storia della colonna infame, showing particular interest in the plague and the Lazzaretto. While Raboni’s writing looked to the future, it was firmly rooted in every aspect of post-war Milan, which he compared to the Milan of the preceding generation. The thesis investigates the theme of cityscape in three different ways, focusing on the cross-fertilisation seen in Raboni the critic, Raboni the poet and Raboni the translator of poetry. It explores Raboni’s poetry and the evolution of the cityscape, drawing on the interaction of translation and urban studies and approaching the poetry through the lens of Russian formalism. Chapter 1 provides the context for a detailed analysis establishing Raboni as a Milanese poet and highlighting the importance of the urban setting and architecture through the framework of critics including Benjamin, Certeau, and Augé.