Bodied in five volumes we face the numerous essays on Italian poetry of the twentieth century to the present day, here collected organically and harmonized to the present state, published in the last twenty years in the magazine 'Atelier', among the most quoted magazines of poetry, which was founded by Ladolfi together to student Marco Merlin, with whom he has with the direct-Magazine, surrounding himself with numerous collaborators, mostly young and also coming from the academy, which still help to keep in top form the magazine and the blog to this connected.
Certainly titanic and in some ways not without risks, an operation like this to want to present a talk on organic poetry of the twentieth century. Ladolfi, whatever people may say, test, to try to find some common thread in a particular aesthetic dimension, covering also the historical dimension of our present civilization in a confrontation with the current not only literary but of thought. In fact, the reading of the five volumes emerges a criticism that is not limited only to literary discourse, but that often places this speech in the sphere philosophical, sociological, psychological, religious, theological, etc. In short, the meter Ladolfi has more facets and try to find a measure of possible under-standing in the background of a hermeneutics truthful, fulfilling all in a real cultural holism, pending a new humanism, in contrast to the thought analytical theory and practice has scientizzato to lead to a non-sense on a human level. Operation that in the twentieth century has often been neglected by the majority of intellectuals, writers, poets and critics, to the extent that the contrary goes Ladolfi, who skillfully shifts the focus from works like object-structure, who are likely to lose sight and relocate the artist, refocusing the writer and poet, on the one hand, the man and the person on the other. And I do not want, if I dare say that is a critical Ladolfi "personalist", since, even with the recovery of an aesthetic very close to existential personalism of Louis Pareyson, try to search for the blunders of the twentieth century and through movement antinovecentista try to re-center the person of the poet in a world where the standardization on one hand and on the other solipsist individualism led to a debacle disruptive and world literature. Within the lines of interpretation of the twentieth century, Ladolfi arises in a cognitive dimension, is both an epistemological and ethically, that led him to embrace "an aesthetic and poetic on a human scale." Pending landing a hermeneutic horizon in which finally prevails the concept, -after so much "liquidity" and non-sensor, a literary culture in which they are well imbricated is the work that the author of the work. For Ladolfi, "the value of the work will depend on the possibility of 'bow closure hermeneutical'; if only one segment gives, the whole building will remain involved. Inside the same validity artistic work is an original way that the author has interpreted the period in which he lived and the reality of man unique and unrepeatable. The only formal perfection, if not a sign of a general way, it remains sterile and devoid of meaning. " The true artist, the artist par excellence is, then, for Ladolfi, what in his individuality and uniqueness has been able to "elaborate works of art become witness of the progress of humanity." And then, and only then, criticism, in terms of interpretation gadameriani of a possible dialogue, finds its meaning and sense, because "the critical moment of intelligibility is not only text, but also of those who composed and in this way the critic becomes homo querens, the tireless researcher of meaning and truth. "
In particular, in the first tome, From Decadent today, Ladolfi addresses in general terms the problem of Italian poetry from the twentieth century to arrive to the early twenty-first Century, providing the categories and theoretical paradigms on which will move in later volumes in dealing with individual poets included in its distribution. The crux of the whole excursus on the poetry of the twentieth century is that of the profound crisis of culture and of Western civilization from the classical world to find landing in the historical moment in which it has cognizance of the crisis, the Decadent, when you consume " the greatest revolution of modernity "with the event princeps" divorce between words and reality. " For Ladolfi, the "consumption of the word" causes well-springs on the existential level. And the obscurity in which the poetic word takes the escape from a real possibility of direct communication, leading to the risk of individualism tight ineffable of the word itself, in the very moment in which the theory of knowledge is replaced by the new science epistemological, you He lost the compass from the point of view of existence and gives it to a prevailing relativism alogismo and pushed it into postmodernism lead individualism and solipsism, although even then Wittgenstein he had glimpsed the risk and danger. Through Hermeticism, the Decadent read by Ladolfi horizon of a hermeneutic not only literary, but more broadly cultural and philosophical, it will continue in the twentieth century "in-line avant-garde experimental by Govoni comes to Zanotto".
To understand what happened in the twentieth century, Ladolfi argues that there is a crucial point, as I said above, related to the crisis of Western culture, which comes to consciousness in Decadent, which causes "a divorce between words and reality is revealed in line, it called Second Decadent or nine hundred, which Corrado Govoni comes to Zanotto ". Poets Novecento (Volume II) are Michelstaedter Govoni, Corazzini, Gozzano, Palazzeschi Sbarbaro, Bell, Quasimodo, Ungaretti, Montale, Door, Rosselli, Judges, Zanotto.
Ladolfi argues that "while Prime Decadent allowed escape from reality in a shelter in search of a 'minimum of liveability', the According to resign in the face of realization that the crisis of Western culture is destroying any possibility of finding a way to ' existence and therefore to understand the real, so that the artist can only represent "what we are and what we do not want" (E. Montale) or play with words, with forms and colors. " We are in the climate Existentialism, where insecurity, instability ethical and epistemological with the fall of certainties, along with the concept of "being thrown into" Heidegger, place man, and in this case the poet, in a world without logic away, enemy, in some ways even unpleasant, where dwells the meaning and purpose and where the existence seems drowned in anything, in that nothingness from which he came, where you are and where you are destined to return . It follows the Sartrean nausea and anxiety, which leads to the development of all existentialist thinkers beginning with Kierkegaard. In this situation, "the word is no longer able to 'tell' the world and flees or nell'iperuranio, as is Hermeticism, or the autonomy of the signifier, as in the Vanguards".
The poets, who do not recognize this distinction and will not re-know on this line, are so-called antinovecentisti (Volume III): Saba, Rebora, Betocchi, Bunting, Caproni Pen Scotellaro, Pasolini, Fortini and Bertolucci, who attempt follow different paths from the Novecento and, albeit with some differences among them, trying to mend the breach and make up to poetry, who have faith in a word that is able to "tell" the world.
For Ladolfi, however, with these poets' work to weld the word with reality it does not come to fruition, because it is limited to work on the style, ignoring the shocks the foundations of Western civilization. "
The twentieth century had, instead, for Ladolfi, his teachers recognized, "which accounted for the deep crisis of Western culture and have shown outcomes": Vittorio Sereni, Bartolo Cattafi, Pier Luigi Bacchini, Mario Luzi (IV tome ). The "teachers" are those who "have been able to bring the Italian poetry beyond the" twentieth century "by a two-fold work of the foundation and of prophecy." Vittorio Sereni is the contemporary man as "prisoner" of the entire system, political, economic and cultural, that borders on camusiano "absurd". Bartolo Cattafi is, according Ladolfi, a poet wrongly overlooked, "one of the most important poets of the twentieth century According to the fact that he represented the poetic parable of Western civilization, has explored the nihilism and has hinted the lines of breakthrough" . Pier Luigi Bacchini, in turn, "presages the formation of a new synthesis speculative able to envisage an interpretation of reality that can overcome the aporias dualistic thinking greek and Christian and to end the crisis of modernity." In fact, with his last poetic production, she tries to shelter to the aporias of contemporary culture, leaving the thought "expressive" to tap into the thinking "revelatory" (Pareyson), in order to seize new instances existential, cultural, social and political dell 'Globalized Age. But who knew how to "settle deep word and reality was Mario Luzi, who managed in an enterprise, attempted in vain by many, because it has" rebuilt "a meaning for existence, for the world, for the history, for the problem of evil and pain, for nature, overcoming the fragmentation and "liquidity" postmodern ".
Finally we come to our own time, the most recent, from the seventies to 2014, the one that defines Ladolfi Globalized Age (Volume V), which includes the authors of Postmodernism, including "have reported several young people who lead us to hope for a future thriving season of Italian poetry, "who are trying to go beyond the avant-garde experimentalism and through new ways. The poets are considered in Part One: In search of the lost word, Magrelli, Viviani, De Angelis, Buffoni, Pontiggia, Cucchi, Raboni, Earl, Oldani, Angiuli, D'Elia, Mesa, Deidier, Ritrovato, Riccardi, Ceni , Anedda; Part Two: The vertigo of the word "saying", Flowers, Franzin, Temporelli, Zuccato, Pusterla, whirlpool and Beck, Lucarini, Ielmini, Rivals, Cattaneo, Piccini, Italian, Barren, Fantuzzi, Note. Ladolfi no way seeks to "draw a canon" of the present moment, everything in the making, but "look at a number of poets as bearers of a particular instance in the difficult attempt of Italian poetry to attach the word to reality" at a time like our devastated by social, political, economic and, let me, moral, since we are faced with a real moral question, from which it seems impossible to get out. Even in the world of literature and nothing changes on the ethical, much, of reflection, and individualism and solipsism, as recently pointed out Alberto Asor Rosa, in his essay writers and mass (2015), they have eroded more and more possibilities box, above the writers, who can no longer talk to each other and are dispersed in a "molecular atomism" annihilating the mass. But writers, referred to by Asor, are mostly novelists and storytellers, as these at one point, putting trust in the poem says: "You can respond to the mass, lowering, rather than raising, the tone of voice? There are those who test: the poem ".
Also according to Giuliano Ladolfi in our world "battered" poetry bodes well, since he is having a breakthrough "realistic", as the poets present, including many young people, "refusing a conception of self and playful poetry" and , in the face of all skepticism, conceive poetry as "original interpretation of reality", in unison with the teaching of the "masters", to try to permanently close the twentieth century, with a word finally hung up to reality, reopen spaces veritativi re-placing man in the world, while waiting to restore their sense of existence.
Certainly, this monumental work of Giuliano Ladolfi, despite his own extension in five volumes, totaling 1,434 pages, is unable to provide, and this is aware of the author himself, the whole panorama of contemporary Italian poetry. Undoubtedly, the choices have been made and there are many omissions regarding individual poets. For all I care, but this counts for little, if not as good example to every player, which you can find discrepancies with their own way of seeing and perceiving and interpreting and to include or exclude individual poets, I think it was given little room for poets of the Roman school, and generally the southern line, compared to the poets of the school of Milan, where also some names missing, as for example, that of Roberto Mussapi. And they are absent so many other poets like David Swifts, who also works among young people, and Umberto Piersanti with his romance-Enlightenment inherited from fellow Leopardi, from whom he took the baton as the main singer of the contemporary natural and existential of the Marches. To return to poor analysis of the poets of the Roman school, just to name a few such as Dario Bellezza, Elio Pecora, Renzo Paris, Gabriella Sica, Claudio Damiani, Dante Maffia, etc.
It should be said that the titanic of a work such as this is also in the bet to be subject to criticism and Ladolfi of this it is more than aware. But I would like to strike a blow against him, while not sharing some things, to the fact that the choices he made were all mostly functional speech base with which he tried to bring out the poetry of the twentieth century has been characterized by the "escape" from the word and its meaning and its search for meaning, determined by a deep crisis of Western culture, to arrive at a turning point with "the pursuit of reality" he wants to put an end to an Age to go " over the twentieth century "to the extent that the word is hooked again to the reality in a hermeneutic dimension veritative. In some ways, we can say that the basis to search, with all the difficulties of the case, is that of a knowledge again intended, according to Thomas Aquinas, as adaequatio rei et intellectus. And not for nothing, it seems to me that he had grasped, as I said even earlier, in the pages of the poetry of the twentieth century: in search of escape from reality, the attempt by Ladolfi to identify any need, that you are somehow making in recent years, to re-center in the world of literature, where there had been a relocation of the subject, the person with its logos and its ethos. So much so that the word may go back to "fly high" as he taught the poetry of one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century, what for Ladolfi is the "master" par excellence, Mario Luzi.
In short, Giuliano Ladolfi gave us an impressive work on contemporary Italian poetry, a work that can not miss on the shelves of the experts, poets, critics and still those who love poetry and literature. A monumental work with which we deal to stay in the present while looking to the past and tradition, work in which Ladolfi offered us his interpretation personalistic (the reference is to the philosophical personalism of the twentieth century) literature and in particular the contemporary poetry, which I believe both now and in the future, through its Wirkungsgeschichte, will not bear fruit in the development of both poetic and critical approach is that, although the author if they have looked good for modesty say, it will allow us to speak with greater certainty than a possible fee for the present and for the future.
Maurizio Soldini
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