Grazia Deledda's Dance of Modernity 9781442688179

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. ‘On the Way’ to Modernity: La via del male
2. The Transgressive Rewriting of the Novel of Formation: Cenere
3. Active Nihilism and Nietzsche’s Uebermensch: Il segreto dell’uomo solitario
4. Passive Nihilism and Schopenhauer’s Contemplator: La danza della collana
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

GRAZIA DELEDDA’S DANCE OF MODERNITY

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MARGHERITA HEYER-CAPUT

Grazia Deledda’s Dance of Modernity

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

www.utppublishing.com © University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2008 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN: 978-0-8020-9831-3

Printed on acid-free paper

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Heyer-Caput, Margherita Grazia Deledda’s dance of modernity / Margherita Heyer-Caput. (Toronto Italian studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8020-9831-3 1. Deledda, Grazia, 1871–1936 – Criticism and interpretation. I. Title. II. Series. PQ4811.E6Z68 2008

853c.8

C2007-907633-5

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and the Division of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies, College of Letters and Science, University of California, Davis. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

A Mamma e Babbo, e a tutte le nostre radici

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Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction

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1 ‘On the Way’ to Modernity: La via del male 1.1 1.1.a 1.1.b 1.2 1.2.a 1.2.b 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.7.a 1.7.b 1.7.c 1.8 1.8.a 1.8.b 1.8.c

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From L’indomabile to La via del male: Social Mission and Positivism 22 A Social (and Literary) Mission 25 The ‘Scuola positiva di diritto penale’ 30 From La via del male (1896) as The Path to Evil to La via del male (1906) as The Path of Evil 36 Linguistic Changes: Against Approximation 37 Linguistic Changes: Against ‘Aulicismo’ 40 From La via del male (1906) to La via del male (1916): Inconsistent Revision or Intellectual Independence? 42 Toward Formal ‘Simplification’ (Herczeg) and Modernity 46 Toward the ‘Unified’ Italian Middle Class 58 Toward the Proliferation of Interpretations 63 Thematic Changes toward Modernity 66 The Journey Theme 66 The Madness Motif 71 The Radical Openness 73 Structural Changes 74 Language, Culture, and Power 78 Female Point of View and Open Ending 82 Language and Open Journey 90

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A Partial Conclusion

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2 The Transgressive Rewriting of the Novel of Formation: Cenere 95 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9

Cenere: Whose Bildungsroman? 97 Cenere as a Male Bildungsroman 98 Intertextuality and Male Bildungsroman 101 Nietzsche’s Moral Critique and Bildungsroman 106 Cenere as a Female Bildungsroman 109 Cenere’s Revisions and the Rewriting of the Bildungsroman Deledda and the ‘Seventh Art’ 135 Duse’s Cenere and the Resymbolization of the Female Bildungsroman 141 A Partial Conclusion 152

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3 Active Nihilism and Nietzsche’s Uebermensch: Il segreto dell’uomo solitario 154 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.3.a 3.3.b 3.3.c 3.3.d 3.4 3.5

Nietzsche Reception in Italy during the Early 1900s 157 Open Narrative Structure and Metaphorical ‘S’ 165 Nietzschean Themes of Modernity 168 Mind and Body 168 The Notion of Truth 171 The Secret of Madness 175 Active Nihilism 177 Nietzsche’s Zarathustra 180 Toward a Morality of Modernity: A Partial Conclusion 185

4 Passive Nihilism and Schopenhauer’s Contemplator: La danza della collana 188 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.3.a 4.3.b 4.3.c 4.4 4.5

The ‘Scarnificazione’ of the Narrative Structure 190 Topoi of Modernity: The Double and the Mask 193 Schopenhauerian Themes of Modernity 195 The Dualism between Phenomenon and Noumenon 195 The Aesthetics of Contemplation and Music 196 The Ethics of Compassion and Asceticism 197 A Step Back: Schopenhauer’s Veil and Deledda’s Colombi e sparvieri 198 Schopenhauer Reception in Italy during the Early 1900s 210

Contents

4.6 4.6.a 4.6.b 4.6.c 4.6.d 4.7

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Schopenhauerian Themes of Modernity and La danza della collana 225 The Oscillation between Phenomenon and Noumenon 225 The Letter Episode and the Liberation from Illusions 227 The Ultimate Liberation through Asceticism 232 The Liberatory Role of Music in Deledda’s Dance of and with Modernity 235 An Open-Ended Conclusion 240

Notes 243 Bibliography Index 291

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Acknowledgments

My first ‘grazie!’ goes to the students of my 2001 Special Topics course, ‘Italian Women Writers between Literature and Cinema,’ with whom I investigated the relationship between Grazia Deledda’s novel Cenere and Eleonora Duse’s homonymous silent film. Preparing my lectures and discussing these works with my students, I began to discover the beauty and depth of Deledda’s narrative, which I had overlooked in my adolescence. Like any other Italian high-school student then and now, I had encountered excerpts from Deledda’s novels in anthologies that mentioned the 1926 Nobel laureate with a veiled condescending tone toward her selfacquired education and her Sardinian identity. While my students and I explored the journey that Deledda’s novel Cenere embarked upon when Duse transposed it into silent images, I undertook a scholarly and personal journey as well. As I retraced the roots, and literary significance, of Deledda’s intertextual dialogue with philosophers, her allegedly ‘marginal’ culture of origin migrated toward the centre of European modernity. At the same time, I began to follow my own cultural roots. Sardinia is the Mediterranean island in which I was born and which I left in my early childhood, when my family and I relocated to Turin, Italy. From there, I moved to Berne, Switzerland, then to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and finally to Davis, California. Two research grants from the University of California, Davis, enabled me to visit the archives of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma and of Deledda’s heirs in Rome. I am deeply grateful to Dr Alessandro Madesani Deledda, Mrs Lucia Fontana Morelli, and Dr Claudia Morelli Cedrone and their families for the generosity and friendliness with which they have supported my endeavour throughout its phases. I wish to thank also Dr Paolo Piquereddu, Director of the Istituto Superiore

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Regionale Etnografico di Nuoro, for welcoming me in Deledda’s hometown of Nuoro, Italy. I owe a considerable debt of gratitude to Raymond Waddington, Professor Emeritus of English at UC Davis, for his wisdom, knowledge, and friendship. I would like to thank also the members of our Women’s Reading Group and Davis colleagues from other disciplines for their helpful comments on my work in progress during our constructive discussions, in particular Liz Constable, Ruth Caston, Claire Waters, and Seeta Chaganti. I have presented preliminary versions of each chapter at the annual conferences of the American Association for Italian Studies, as well as the University of California, Berkeley, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. I am thankful to my hosts, Albert Ascoli, Lucia Re, and Anne Matter, for their invitations, and to my audiences for their stimulating responses. In particular, I am indebted to Paolo Valesio, Dante Della Terza, Luigi Fontanella, Giuliana Sanguinetti Katz, and Anne Urbancic for their insightful and encouraging suggestions in the early stages of my project. One-fourth of chapter 3 appeared in Quaderni d’Italianistica (2001. ‘Per svelare Il segreto dell’uomo solitario di Grazia Deledda,’ 22.2: 121–38), and an early version of a section of chapter 2, ‘Cenere by Grazia Deledda and Eleonora Duse,’ will be published in a volume of collected essays on Grazia Deledda, edited by Sharon Wood and forthcoming with Troubador Press. I wish to thank the committee of the 2005 Premio Letterario Nazionale ‘Grazia Deledda’ for awarding my article on Deledda’s Il segreto dell’uomo solitario the prize in Deleddian Studies. This prestigious recognition and the beautiful ceremony in Nuoro heartened and strengthened me during the completion of the manuscript. I would like to acknowledge the precious help fo the Interlibrary Loan Department of UC Davis, and particularly Gary Clark and Jason Newborn, and Dr Osvaldo Avallone, Director of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, with his welcoming and efficient staff. Thank you also to the Dean’s Office, College of Letters and Science, and the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research at UC Davis for a grant to partially defray the cost of publication. A special thank goes to my editor at the University of Toronto Press, Ron Schoeffel, for his unwavering support, professional guidance, and faith in this project throughout its unfolding. I am also indebted to Judy Williams and Anne Laughlin for their expertise, efficiency, and kindness

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during the production of this book. I am particularly grateful to the anonymous peer reviewers of my manuscript for their thoughtful and constructive criticism. Finally, I thank my husband and best friend, Wolf-Dietrich Heyer, and my children, Tilman and Arianna, who have constantly supported my work with their love and optimism while sharing with me the journey to our Sardinian cultural roots. On this journey, my last ‘grazie!’ goes to my parents, Rosa e Antonello Caput, to whom this book is dedicated. They have infused our lives with an indispensable love for our ‘radici.’

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GRAZIA DELEDDA’S DANCE OF MODERNITY

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Introduction

In a thank-you letter of 1920 to Sardinian artist Mario Mossa De Murtas, who had presented the already renowned writer with one of his paintings portraying a procession of the different traditional trades of their native island, Grazia Deledda wrote: In questa casa tanto lontana dal chiasso e dalla confusione di Roma più che se io non fossi rimasta nella mia lontana casa in Sardegna, vivo tutta dedita alle tanto disprezzate faccende domestiche, curandomi di mio marito e dei miei figli nelle ore non consacrate al lavoro. Perché ho il mio orario di lavoro che osservo. Non mi affido agli impeti dell’improvvisazione ma come la diligente artigiana al telaio siedo davanti al mio tavolo, chiudo gli occhi e aspetto ... e dopo un momento di incertezza, in cui la mente è ancora legata da alcuni fili sottili ai piccoli e grandi problemi della famiglia, di colpo, come per un sortilegio, mi ritrovo nel mondo perduto della mia infanzia e tutti i miei personaggi, addormentati dal giorno prima, si svegliano e mi circondano chiedendomi che presti di nuovo loro il soffio della vita. Sono i banditi perseguitati che si perdettero per sete di giustizia, i giovani preti tormentati dalla carne, e le ragazze flessibili, dagli occhi dolci e la bocca di miele, assetate d’amore, e i vecchi pastori appoggiati ai loro lunghi bastoni, il mento che riposa sulle mani e lo sguardo che si perde nell’infinito. Vecchi biblici, che già sono al disopra del bene e del male, come Zaratustra [sic], e quando tu gli parli tardano a risponderti, come se tornassero da altri mondi in cui pascolano le stelle, e costasse loro adattarsi al nostro tempo ... e quando parlano lo fanno lentamente, per sentenze, e allo stesso tempo senti che sei misurato, pesato, e giudicato da essi ... Ecco la penna corre rapida da un lato all’altro del foglio bianco, come una

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Grazia Deledda’s Dance of Modernity spola porta la trama tra i fili dell’ordito e del tessuto della mia storia. Sì, mi sento un’operaia tessitrice ... Grazie della compagnia che mi fa il suo quadro. (Mossa De Murtas 1971: 840)1 [In this house, so much farther away from Rome’s noise and confusion than my faraway home in Sardinia, I live all devoted to the despised house chores, taking care of my husband and my sons in the hours that are not dedicated to my work. For I have my work schedule, which I respect. I do not adhere to impulsive improvisation but rather, like the diligent craftswoman at the loom, I sit in front of my table, close my eyes, and wait ... and after a moment of uncertainty, in which my mind is still tied by some thin thread with the little and big problems of the family, suddenly, as though in a spell, I find myself in the lost world of my childhood, and all my characters, asleep since the previous day, wake up and surround me while asking that I lend them again the breath of life. They are the dogged bandits who lost themselves because of their thirst for justice, the young priests tormented by the flesh, and the loose girls, with sweet eyes and honey mouth, thirsty for love, and the old shepherds leaning on their long sticks, their chins resting on their hands and their gaze lost in the infinite. Biblical old men, who are already beyond good and evil, like Zarathustra, who are slow in responding when you address them, as if they had come back from other worlds in which they grazed stars, and they had trouble adjusting to our time ... and when they talk, they do it slowly, with maxims, and at the same time you feel that they are measuring, weighing, and judging you ... Now the pen runs swiftly from one side of the white sheet to the other, as a spool takes the weft between the threads of the warp and the fabric of my story. Yes, I feel like a weaver at work ... Thank you for the company that your painting offers me.]

This epistolary passage offers the iconic frame for my analysis of Deledda’s narrative as poiesis, as artistic creation that weaves the texture of her writing by intertwining the threads of Sardinian culture and European philosophy, the ‘vecchi biblici’ and Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, thus articulating a dance of and with modernity. My book intends to redesign the interpretative and narrative canon of Italian writer and 1926 Nobel-Prize laureate Grazia Deledda (Nuoro, 1871–Rome, 1936). A contemporary of canonical writers of Italian modernity, such as Gabriele D’Annunzio, Luigi Pirandello, and Italo Svevo, Deledda has been generally viewed as one of the most significant women writers of the turn of the century, suspended between regional

Introduction

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‘Verismo’ and ‘Decadentismo’ (Aste 1990; Della Fazia Amoia 1992; De Michelis 1938; Leone 1996; Magistro 1988). Deeply rooted in the Sardinian landscapes, traditions, and social customs, which she explored explicitly in her early ethnic writings,2 Deledda’s narrative focuses upon sin and expiation, love and duty, irrational forces and rational aspirations. Because of a recurring pattern of transgression, guilt, repentance, punishment, and redemption, Deledda’s works were often faulted for their repetitiveness (Croce 1957; Sapegno 1971). In spite of her popularity with the reading public in the first half of the century and the aura of the Nobel award, Deledda’s critical reception was in general scarce and not very well founded until the 1970s (Della Terza 1989). In 1971, a symposium celebrating the hundredth anniversary of her birth drew new attention particularly to the anti-realistic narrative technique and structure of Deledda’s novels (Bàrberi Squarotti 1972), and to the linguistic awareness that defined Deledda’s choice to meet the demands of a national and international audience on the one hand and of a specifically Sardinian identity on the other (Pittau 1972; Herczeg 1973; Mortara Garavelli 1991). Subsequently, Dolfi’s monographic study (1979) explored in depth the sociological and psychoanalytical frame of the Deleddian narrative, whereas Ramat’s essays (1978) analysing the complexities of her prose contributed noticeably to the liberation of Deledda’s work from superficial categorization. In the 1990s, Mario Aste’s monograph on Grazia Deledda: Ethnic Novelist (1990) proposed a re-evaluation of Deledda as a specific regional writer, while in 2001 Neria De Giovanni linked Deledda’s ethnic dimension to the mythical archetypes of Sardinian culture. A renewed interest in Deledda’s work and interpretation in North America has resulted in the long-needed versions in contemporary English of major novels such as Marianna Sirca (2006), Ashes (2004), and The Church of Solitude (2002). In Grazia Deledda’s Eternal Adolescents (2002), Jan Kozma analysed the subtext of Deledda’s narrative in the psychoanalytical terms of the syndrome of male arrested maturation. Most recently, Martha King’s biography, Grazia Deledda: A Legendary Life (2005),3 cast new light on the biographical and literary paths that led Deledda to the construction of her ‘legendary life,’ crowned by the Nobel Prize ceremony in December 1927. However, King continues to emphasize the role of Sardinia as ‘the unifying force’ (103) of Deledda’s allegedly best writings. In the wake of canonical Deleddian criticism, from Cecchi to Sapegno, from De Michelis to Momigliano, Deledda’s biographer and translator contends that,

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‘when [Deledda] did try to describe modern urban life, as in Nostalgie or La danza della collana, her work lacked the authenticity and coherence found in her best efforts’ (King 2005: 140). On the contrary, my study anchors Deledda’s work in the philosophical discourse of modernity. Therefore, it redesigns the Deleddian interpretative and narrative canon in order to dismantle the corrosive labels of ‘Regionalismo,’ ‘Verismo,’ and ‘Decadentismo’ under which the richness of Deledda’s work has been constantly impoverished. Throughout Deledda’s work, writing itself arises as the transgressive activity par excellence, for – as I will demonstrate – it is anchored in the inter-textual discourse with the literary and the philosophical canon. I chart the unfolding of Deledda’s significance in the light of modernity through a metonymical reading of her vast corpus (thirty-five novels, three hundred and fifty short stories, several poems, plays, and journal contributions).4 In chronological order, I analyse four novels that have not been the object of detailed investigations: La via del male [The Path of Evil (1896)], Cenere [Ashes (1903)], Il segreto dell’uomo solitario [The Secret of the Solitary Man (1921)], and La danza della collana [The Dance of the Necklace (1924)]. With the exception of Ashes, these novels have never been translated into English. I provide my own translations of all passages quoted from Deledda’s novels not available in English and from her correspondence, thus making them accessible for the first time to an Englishspeaking reader. My selection of Deledda’s works emphasizes the author’s ability to metabolize extremely diverse and complementary cultural discourses, ranging from Positivism to nihilism, from Cesare Lombroso to Friedrich Nietzsche. In this capacity, Deledda emerges as a European writer and intellectual of modernity, far beyond the critical labels that have stigmatized her narrative. The title of this book has a twofold source. First of all, Grazia Deledda’s Dance of Modernity refers to La danza della collana, the last and chronologically latest of Deledda’s works taken under scrutiny, which witnesses the strongest presence of the modern crisis of the subject. Secondly, Grazia Deledda’s Dance of Modernity mimics the dancing or fluctuating meaning of the cluster modern/modernity/modernism as explored in Susan Stanford Friedman’s article ‘Definitional Excursions: The Meanings of Modern/Modernity/Modernism.’ The not only different but even opposite meanings, as exemplified in DeKoven 1991 and Hassan 1982, point out ‘the contradictory dialogic running through the historical and expressive formations of the phenomena to which the

Introduction

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terms allude’ (Stanford Friedman 2001: 510). The vexed question of terminology and periodization of modernism/modernity consistently confirms the premise of Marianne DeKoven’s intriguing study, Rich and Strange: Gender, History, Modernism: ‘Modernist writing is “rich and strange:” its greatness lies in its density and its estranging dislocations’ (1991: 3). Because of this ‘density and estranging dislocations’ modernity/modernism can encompass opposing characterizations. On the one hand, it is identified with ‘(1) aesthetic self-consciousness; (2) simultaneity, juxtaposition, ... (... “fragmentation”); (3) paradox, ambiguity, and uncertainty; and (4) “dehumanization” (...) and the demise of the integrated unified subject’ (DeKoven 1991: 6). On the other side, modernism/modernity is associated with ‘Form (conjunctive, closed), Purpose, Design, Hierarchy, Mastery/Logos, Art Object/Finished Work, ... Creation/Totalization, Synthesis, Presence, Centering, Genre/Boundary ... Hypotaxis, Metaphor ... Interpretation/Reading, Signified, Narrative/Grande Histoire ...’ (Hassan 1982: 267–8). These definitional variations trace the inherent fluctuation of a meaning that can be produced only liminally and between margin and centre, hypotaxis and parataxis, and text and intertext. It is this fluctuation that characterizes Deledda’s modernity, that is, Deledda’s ‘dance of modernity’ between determinacy and indeterminacy, Positivism and nihilism, Verism and Decadentism, active and passive nihilism. I have opted to use ‘modernity’ and ‘modern’ in place of ‘modernism’ and ‘modernistic’ for two intertwined reasons of philosophical and historical nature. In the context of Italian literature, the cluster modernity/ modern appears to be less subject to historical and literary limitations than the cluster modernism/modernistic. The latter resounds with the markedly chronological and ideological literary identity of the term ‘Modernismo.’ Defined in its eclectic positions in the 1907 Programma dei modernisti and ferociously condemned by Pope Pius X in his encyclical De modernistarum doctrinis (also entitled Pascendi Dominici Gregis), Italian Modernism aimed at reconciling Christian faith and scientific thought by suggesting an ‘“evolutionary” view of dogma’ (Somigli 2004: 5). In the context of Italian Modernism, faith was conceived as an extra-rational faculty of the mind through which the human subject attains the divine while accepting the unknowable of the transcendent and, therefore, the not supernatural but rather historical source of the church and its dogmas. Modernism played an influential role in the Italian culture of the early twentieth century, particularly for ‘Catholic intellectuals who

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sought a closer relationship with the social reality of their time’ (Somigli 2004: 5). I prefer, though, to avoid the risk of constraining Deledda’s intertextual discourse with the philosophical voices of modernity within the frame of the ethical and intellectual renewal of Catholicism that characterized Italian Modernism. Although I am well aware of the advantage of the term ‘modernism’ as ‘more clearly distinguished from modernity, a term loaded with historiographical and sociological implications’ (Somigli 2004: 12), I have opted for ‘modernity’ to underline that Grazia Deledda, not unlike Svevo or Pirandello and beyond the reductive ‘isms’ of Italian canonized cultural history, is an integral part of the critical debate on the cultural crisis of modernity. Remo Ceserani has recently underscored the necessity of reinterpreting nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Italian novelists in the wake of De Man’s rereading of the Romantics as the first voices of modernity that lived and expressed ‘the epochal leap and the interior rupture’ (2004: 39). In this spirit, I reconsider Deledda’s work as a powerful expression of the distinctive cognitive and existential experiences of modernity, which Giacomo Debenedetti identified with the crisis of the subject. In the fragmentation of the modern character ‘i frantumi dell’esplosione raggiungono ... un’identità più intensa di quella che si è dissolta’ [the fragments of the explosion reach ... a more intense identity than the one that disintegrated (Debenedetti 1999: 1289)]. It is no wonder that even Debenedetti and Ceserani neglect to mention Deledda among the authors of Italian literature that ought to be revisited in light of the interior laceration of modernity.5 Because of her dual marginality, as a woman writer and an allegedly regional writer, both critics overlook details that they highlight for other authors of modernity, such as Svevo, Moravia, or Tozzi. For instance, they fail to mention that Deledda’s novel Il segreto dell’uomo solitario, the focus of my attention in chapter 3, was published precisely in 1921, i.e. in the chronological cluster 1921–2 that, according to Debenedetti, marked the beginning of the history of the ‘modern’ novel in Italy (Ceserani 2004: 53, Debenedetti 1971: 13). However, in Deledda’s literary journey to modernity Il segreto dell’uomo solitario represents the attempt to ‘svincolarsi a fatica’ [painfully disengage (Debenedetti 1971: 112)] from the schemes of Verism through the intertextual dialogue with Nietzsche’s Zarathustra. Deledda’s marginalization from the critical notion of modernity confirms, paradoxically, the true core of the contradictions inherent to the notion of ‘modernità letteraria’ [literary modernity], as has been articulated in its philosophical

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and psychoanalytical ramifications in Fausto Curi’s La poesia italiana d’avanguardia (2001: 84–112). Particularly pertinent to Deledda’s case is the metamorphic relationship between literature and philosophy that runs across her narrative and expresses, in as powerful a way as Svevo’s narrative, central issues of the European culture of that time, such as: ... The relationship between the artist and tradition and the question of cultural memory; the role of the sacred, the mythical, and the metaphysical visà-vis the positivist discourses of modernity ... the tensions between the homogenizing power of modernity and the persistence of local cultural traditions ... the rejection of realism and the emergence of new modes of representation. (Somigli 2004: 12)

Moreover, Deledda’s marginalization from ‘literary modernity’ represents a new, locally grounded case of the global phenomenon of ‘the presence of women in modernism [having] been vastly underestimated’ (Scott 1990: 7). My investigation of intertextuality in Deledda’s works as a narrative strategy drawing on the philosophical and existential atmosphere of European modernity will bring to the fore one further voice of the polyphony that characterizes ‘modernism as caught in the mesh of gender’ (Scott 1990: 4), although I do not approach Deledda’s narrative from a Gender Studies perspective.6 Inspired by Paolo Valesio’s advocacy of a ‘long-view of the texts’ (2004: xvi), I attempt rather to interpret each one of the four novels in a nearly Schopenhauerian ‘contemplative attitude,’ aimed at foregrounding the ontology of the work through the unveiling of the philosophical intertextual discourse. Chapter 1 follows extensively the multilayered metamorphosis that Deledda’s early novel La via del male underwent through its three volume editions in 1896, 1906, and 1916. I hope that textual analysis and study of variations on the formal, thematic, and structural levels will highlight the rich texture of this neglected novel, which was never translated into English. La via del male charts Deledda’s textual journey from late Romanticism and Verism to the poetics of modernity. A text in fieri per definition, from its title to the conclusive utterance, La via del male embodies a narrative structure ‘in cammino,’ ‘on the way’ to modernity, and enables the postmodern reader to unwind the threads of multiple interpretation embedded in the open structure of the revised work. Chapter 2 examines one of the most intriguing novels of Deledda’s

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maturity, Cenere. My interpretation of Cenere as a transgressive rewriting of the Bildungsroman delves into the analysis of narrative structures, of formal and thematic variations between journal and volume editions (1903, 1904, and 1910), and of intertextual presences. In her journey to modernity, after coming to terms with the theoretical issues of Positivism in her early writings and particularly La via del male, Deledda instils for the first time in Cenere Nietzsche’s subversive thought on the crisis of the modern subject and its moral values. In Cenere, Deledda’s rewriting of the Bildungsroman uncovers the novel of formation of the female protagonist as the narrative force underneath the novel of formation of the male protagonist. The subsequent discussion of the relationship between the novel and the homonymous film, directed and interpreted by Eleonora Duse in 1916, with the reticent support of Deledda, further highlights Cenere’s significance in its openness to the modern contamination of different artistic codes and cultural discourses. My analysis of Il segreto dell’uomo solitario (1921), to which I devote chapter 3, indicates a remarkable maturation of Deledda’s early receptiveness to themes and forms of modernity already detected in her early novels. Far from establishing a causal correlation, I read Il segreto’s specific structural and thematic features in the context of Nietzsche’s philosophy of active nihilism and moral critique. I argue that, in order to penetrate the ‘secret’ of Deledda’s ‘solitary man,’ it is necessary to open an intertextual dialogue with Thus Spoke Zarathustra. A brief overview of Nietzsche’s reception in Italy around the turn of the century underlines how Deledda independently and critically absorbed the most controversial aspects of Nietzsche’s philosophy, in particular the overturning of logical and moral hierarchies expressed by the fragmentation of truth and the epistemological assessment of madness. In contrast to Gabriele D’Annunzio’s influential interpretation of Nietzsche as the initiator of the superhuman mythology, Cristiano, the protagonist of Deledda’s Il segreto, hints at the destabilizing elements of Nietzsche’s thought that hermeneutic and postmodern interpretations have mapped. In her narrative rendition of the prophet Zarathustra through Cristiano, Deledda anticipates the most disquieting elements of modernity. Through the contamination of diverse philosophical and cultural suggestions, Deledda ingrains Nietzsche’s moral philosophy ‘beyond good and evil’ in her narrative. Not unlike Svevo and his peripheral vantage point of Middle-European Trieste, Deledda reverses the marginality of her Sardinian roots into the most radical openness to modernity. The dialectic between the margins and

Introduction

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the centre of unified Italian culture enables Deledda, like Svevo, to reflect upon the crisis of the modern Western subject within a critical perspective that expresses the multifaceted texture of European culture of the early twentieth century. It is precisely in Svevo’s sense of the relationship between philosophy and literature as a ‘fondamento di scetticismo’ [foundation of scepticism (1968a: 686)] that Deledda’s openness to the thought of modernity emerges in La danza della collana (1924), which is the focus of my attention in chapter 4. In contrast to the overt dialogue with Schopenhauer’s philosophy that takes place in Colombi e sparvieri [Doves and Sparrow Hawks (1912)], in La danza Deledda subtly devises intertextuality to allude to Schopenhauer’s passive nihilism in conjunction with Nietzsche’s active nihilism. In particular, Schopenhauer’s aesthetics of music and ethics of asceticism become the threads of reflection that weave the fabric of the narrative with the crisis of the modern subject. A synopsis of Schopenhauer’s reception in Italy during Deledda’s time underscores the same intellectual independence that I noticed in her articulation of Nietzsche’s active nihilism in Il segreto. Moreover, the crucial role of music and contemplation, compassion and asceticism in the quest for lasting freedom from illusions and false values, which constitutes the thematic texture of La danza, underlines Deledda’s modernity in anticipating the spirit of later existentialist interpretations of Schopenhauer’s aesthetics and ethics. As is the case for the intertextual dialogue with Nietzsche’s philosophy in Cenere and Il segreto, Deledda’s narrative embodiment of Schopenhauerian themes in La danza indicates her openness to the most destabilizing expressions of philosophical modernity. Thus, La danza della collana subsumes Deledda’s dance of and with modernity, the fluctuation and contamination of the most representative expressions of the epochal crisis that defines European culture at the turn of the century, from Nietzsche to Schopenhauer, from Wagner to Pirandello. In other words, my study offers a reassessment of Deledda’s work within the philosophical culture of modernity through the analysis of four particularly representative novels. Deledda’s belonging to European modernity emerges through the lens of difference, that is, not in spite of but because of her Sardinian vantage point. As Deleuze and Guattari theorized, ‘minor literatures’ subvert the hierarchy between the margins and the centre, as the complex relationship between Kafka and the German literary and linguistic canon witnesses (1986: 16–18). In the Italian context, an allegedly ‘minor,’ ‘deterritorialized,’ peripheral

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Grazia Deledda’s Dance of Modernity

writer, such as Deledda, becomes a powerfully expressive voice that opens Italian literature to the most disquieting elements of modernity. Within the spatial and temporal coordinates of Italian literature, Deledda’s significance as a literary voice of modernity confirms Carlo Dionisotti’s pioneering rereading of Italian literary history in the terms of diversified cultural geographies. My interpretation of the Sardinian writer in the light of European modernity highlights the significance of the peculiar dual cultural citizenship of any writer of the Italian literary canon from Dante and Petrarch to Verga and D’Annunzio, to mention only two of the authors that Dionisotti examines: ‘due nazionalità, municipale l’una e nativa col suo dialetto incongruo ma aderente alle cose, agli interessi, agli affetti della vita quotidiana; italiana l’altra e tutta ideale, conquistata a prezzo di una industriosa e delicata trasposizione linguistica’ [two citizenships, the one local and native, with its dialect insufficient but true to the things, interests, and affections of daily life; the other, Italian and all ideal, conquered at the price of an industrious and delicate linguistic transposition (Dionisotti 1967: 44)]. It is in this dual cultural citizenship, which corroborates the reversed hierarchy of the margins and the centre in the ‘minor literatures’ of modernity, that Deledda’s ‘sardità’ – the rootedness of her work in the geographical and historical landscapes of Sardinia – becomes more and more clearly a narrative metaphor for the moral and epistemological crisis of the modern European subject (Di Pilla 1982: 98). This is precisely the paradoxical advantage offered to an author who, for reasons of cultural geography and gender politics, has forged her own literary voice at the margins of the literary canon. As young Deledda wrote to anthropologist and distinguished scholar Angelo De Gubernatis early on in their collaboration, ‘[d]al mio angolo silenzioso e selvaggio io, parte per esperienza, parte per intuizione, vedo una grande, infinita tristezza dilagare per il mondo, vedo le diseguaglianze, le inutilità, le vanità della vita, e sono conquisa a mia volta da questa perenne e invincibile tristezza, da questo misterioso pessimismo’ [from my silent and wild corner, partially because of my experience, partially because of my intuition, I see a vast, infinite sadness spread through the world. I see the inequality, the uselessness, the vanity of life, and then this perennial and invincible sadness and this mysterious pessimism conquer me as well (letter, 22 June 1893, Di Pilla 1966: 416)]. It is this critical vantage point from the insularity and self-determination of her Sardinian childhood and youth that the young writer values as the source of her psychological self-consciousness, as the same letter indicates: ‘Del resto ho giorni anch’io di felicità e di speranza. In fondo

Introduction

13

in fondo ho una vena caustica che mi fa ridere delle piccolezze umane – mie e degli altri – e ad ogni modo sono superiore alla moltitudine e sono felice dei miei stessi sconforti perché essi appunto mi fanno fede della mia superiorità’ [Besides, I also have days of happiness and hope. Deep inside I have a caustic vein that makes me laugh about human pettiness – my own and other people’s – and in any event I am superior to the multitude and I am happy even about my own dejection, because this is precisely what proves to me my superiority (letter, 22 June 1893, Di Pilla 1966: 417)]. Deledda’s awareness of the tension between the margin and the centre, which nurtures her own existential and cultural novel of formation, encompasses the tension between her European and Sardinian selftaught literary identities, suspended in her youth between the French Naturalism à la Zola, the psychological novel à la Bourget, and the Decadentism à la D’Annunzio on one side, and oral poetic traditions of her native Nuoro region on the other: ‘Mio fratello, che mi lascia ampia libertà di leggere, scrivere e ricevere ogni cosa, mi ha ceduto subito i mutos del Bellorini. Io leggo ogni cosa, che sia artistica e utile ai miei studi, ed ho letto quasi tutti i romanzi di Zola e di Bourget e i versi di D’Annunzio, molto peggiori di questi mutos’ [My brother, who allows me ample freedom to read, write, and receive everything, has passed Bellorini’s mutos (Sardinian traditional poetic songs) on to me right away. I read everything that could be artistic and useful to my studies, and I have read almost all of Zola’s and Bourget’s novels and D’Annunzio’s poems, which are much worse than these mutos (letter to A. De Gubernatis, 22 June 1893, Di Pilla 1966: 418]. The oscillation between self-consciousness and crisis of the subject is markedly present in all epistolary correspondences of Deledda’s years of formation. Interestingly, though, this fluctuation receives a philosophical connotation in the late novels, such as Il segreto and La danza, in which Deledda’s intertextual dialogue with voices of modernity, specifically Nietzsche and Schopenhauer as we shall see, oscillates between the active nihilism of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra and the passive nihilism of Schopenhauer’s contemplator. Thanks to the deepening of the philosophical discourse of and with modernity that weaves together Deledda’s narrative, the elderly writer constructs her autobiographical novel of formation, Cosima, quasi Grazia,7 around the significance of writing.8 The third-person narrative emphasizes that the ‘bisogno fisico’ [physical need (1971: 763; trans. King, 78)] of writing expresses in young Cosima ‘una forza sotterranea’ [some subterranean power (1971: 744; trans. King, 58)] that

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Grazia Deledda’s Dance of Modernity

defines writing as the transgressive activity par excellence (1971: 745). At the biographical conclusion of her astonishing Bildungsroman, GraziaCosima illuminates her modernity by embedding it in her Sardinian roots, which, for their tragic conflict between the old and the new in the aftermath of Italian unification, become the metonymical expression of the crisis of modernity.9 On the one hand, Deledda points out that her autobiographical-fictional character Cosima develops through the sentimental and intellectual experiences of her limited surroundings, the awareness of having ‘un’intelligenza superiore alla comune e soprattutto una coscienza limpida e profonda come l’acqua nella quale si vede ogni filo di luce e ombra, per guidarsi da sola nella strada della verità’ [an above average intelligence, and most of all a conscience as clear and deep as water where every streak of light and shadow can be seen, to be her own guide on the road of truth (1971: 776; trans. King, 92)]. On the other hand, though, the omniscient narrator of the autobiographical novel underscores that precisely because of her empowering Sardinian roots Cosima ‘decise di non aspettare più nulla che le arrivasse dall’esterno, dal mondo agitato degli uomini; ma tutto da se stessa, dal mistero della sua vita interiore’ [decided to expect nothing that might come from outside herself, from the world agitated by men; but to expect everything from herself, from the mystery of inner life (1971: 794; trans. King, 113)]. The ‘mistero della sua vita interiore’ is what, in her early letter to Andrea Pirodda, Deledda defined with a resounding existential question that echoes Baudelaire’s ennui: Oh, che noja, che noja! ... La mia percezione è inquieta ... Io sono orrendamente triste, io sono stanca e annojata ... Perché sono stanca di una esistenza senza scopo, senza meta, senza strada ... Cosa, cosa dunque c’è nelle intime manifestazioni della mia idea, cosa c’è in fondo al mio spirito tenebroso, nell’abisso sconfinato del mio io? (Letter to Andrea Pirodda, 22 March 1893, Di Pilla 1966: 350–1; emphasis in the text) [Oh, what a bore, what a bore! ... My perception is restless ... I am horribly sad, and I am tired and bored ... Because I am tired of a life without a goal, an aim, a way ... What, what is then in the inner manifestations of my idea, what is deep inside my gloomy spirit, in the boundless abyss of my I ?]

Through her philosophical growth into modernity, Deledda defines ‘l’abisso sconfinato’ of the modern subject of disgregation and deterror-

Introduction

15

ialization in terms of diversity. More precisely, she alludes to the quintessential diversity that triggers the bourgeois label of madness, which stigmatizes the most disquieting voices of modernity and, even more evidently, the female voices. In a letter to her epistolary lover and journalist, Stanis Manca, young Deledda acknowledges her sense of superiority toward her provincial environment and her diversity, which is based upon il sogno della gloria: sogno folle per qualsiasi donna e tanto più per me che sono un nulla, che non potrò mai innalzarmi al di sopra delle nostre piccole montagne sarde. Alle volte finisco per ridere di questa strana pazzia, ma sempre, vista la noia e l’inutilità della mia vita, ricado a capofitto nel mare delle visioni ... (Letter to Stanis Manca, 4 August 1891, Scano 1938: 246) [the dream of glory; an insane dream for any woman and even more so for me, because I am nothing, and I will never be able to overcome our small Sardinian mountains. Sometimes I end up laughing about this strange madness, but then I always fall back headlong into the sea of visions.]

At the end of her life, though, after Deledda’s philosophical opening to Nietzsche and Schopenhauer that I highlight in my analysis of La via del male, Cenere, Il segreto dell’uomo solitario, and La danza della collana, GraziaCosima recalls her Nonno Andrea, the mysterious grandfather and dreamer from far away, ‘che conosceva altre terre e altri mari’ [who had known other lands and other seas (1971: 810; trans. King, 129)], and elucidates that ‘la gente diceva che era un po’ matto; ma con questo nome la gente spiega il mistero degli uomini diversi dalla solita comunità’ [people said he was a little mad, but that’s how people explain the mystery of those men who are different from the ordinary community (1971: 810; trans. King, 129)]. The female and male protagonists of the four novels that I have chosen to analyse establish an intertextual discourse with philosophical expressions of modernity that epitomize the contradictory meanings of this concept, since they range from the anthropological Positivism of Orano and Niceforo to the active nihilism of Nietzsche and the passive contemplation of Schopenhauer. I do not intend to establish any causal correlation between philosophical Weltanschauungen and Deledda’s works, but rather to enhance Deledda’s belonging to European modernity because of her openness to those groundbreaking philosophical

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Grazia Deledda’s Dance of Modernity

representations of modernity. Her philosophical receptiveness articulates Svevo’s intriguing definition of the relationship between literature and philosophy: Noi romanzieri usiamo baloccarci con grandi filosofie e non siamo certo atti a chiarirle: le falsifichiamo ma le umanizziamo ... [Come nel caso della teoria della relatività di Einstein] l’artista, voglio dire l’artista letterato, e l’illetterato, dopo qualche vano tentativo di avvicinarsi, la mette in un cantuccio di dove essa lo turba e l’inquieta, un nuovo fondamento di scetticismo, una parte misteriosa del mondo, senza della quale non si sa più pensare. E’ là, non dimenticata ma velata, e ad ogni istante accarezzata dal pensiero dell’artista. (Svevo 1968a: 686) [We novelists are used to toying with grand philosophical theories and we are certainly not apt to clarify them: we falsify them but we humanize them ... [As in the case of Einstein’s theory of relativity] the artist, I mean to say the literate artist, and the illiterate one, after some unsuccessful attempts to come closer to it, puts it in a little corner, from where [this theory] troubles and worries him, because it becomes a foundation of scepticism, a mysterious part of the world, without which one can no longer think. It is there, not forgotten but veiled, and every moment stroked by the artist’s thought.]

I have supported my interpretation of Deledda’s modernity with documentation of her philosophical interests made possible through my research in the Biblioteca Nazionale di Roma and in the private family archives of her heirs. However, my first and foremost aim has been to draw the readers’ attention to the multilayered significance of Deledda’s texts. As the author underlined in the letter that opens this introduction, her weaving pen ‘come una spola porta la trama tra i fili dell’ordito’ [as a spool takes the weft between the threads of the warp and the fabric of my story] and textures characters ‘che già sono al di sopra del bene e del male, come Zaratustra [sic]’ [who are already beyond good and evil, like Zarathustra]. As Deledda noticed, not many critics had read her works and followed her literary evolution: Invece io credo che non vi sia stato uno solo dei critici italiani che abbia letto tutti i miei libri dal primo all’ultimo rendendosi conto della lenta ma innegabile evoluzione del mio pensiero. Tutti mi hanno costantemente e monotonamente lodato, come autrice regionale, ed hanno parlato della

Introduction

17

Sardegna e dei sardi più che dei personaggi da me creati. (Letter to Pirro Bessi, 20 May 1907, Bessi 1945: 711) [On the contrary, I believe that there has not been a single Italian critic who has read all of my books, thus noticing the slow but undeniable evolution of my thinking. All have constantly and monotonously praised me as a regional author, and have talked about Sardinia and Sardinians more than about the characters that I have created.]

I hope to have contributed to disclosing what Deledda meant when she declared ‘through my literary works the picture of my life may seem full of events. At times it also seems a legend to me’ (as quoted in King 2005: 8). If etymologically ‘legend’ refers to what ‘has to be read,’ my study aims at enhancing the fact that Deledda’s texts ‘have to be read,’ and reread, in the light of modernity in order to appreciate the different threads that weave together her significance as a Sardinian, Italian, and European woman writer of the twentieth century who has constructed her literary and gender identity by intertwining the margin and centre. In other words, this study unravels the different threads of Deledda’s writing as entrenched in the philosophical discourse of and with modernity. Thus, it promotes a fuller understanding of Deledda’s openness to European modernity not in spite but because of her Sardinian rootedness. As Deledda suggests in Cosima through the fictional construction of the autobiographical self, her writing embodies the oscillating or ‘dancing’ meaning of modernity through the constant tension between a centripetal and centrifugal force. On the one side, the third-person narrator of Cosima repeatedly insists on the power of writing as a ‘forza sotterranea’ and a ‘bisogno fisico’ that the sacred intensity of Sardinian landscapes10 and mythical resonance of Sardinian oral traditions11 have nurtured. On the other side, the inherent power of cultural and geographical roots creates a centrifugal force, which enables Deledda to infuse her writing with a transgressive energy that opens it to the philosophical discourse of modernity. In the terms of cultural topography, the author of the autobiographical novel connects the experience of writing with the discovery of the open horizon and the fluid dimension of the sea during the field trip to the mountains, which represents the turning point in her creative life and reveals to her the freeing potential of writing: ‘Il mare: il grande mistero, la landa di cespugli azzurri, con a riva una siepe di biancospini fioriti; il deserto che la rondine sognava di tra-

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Grazia Deledda’s Dance of Modernity

svolare verso le meravigliose regioni del Continente’ [The sea: the great mystery, the moor of the blue thickets with a hedge of hawthorn along the shore; the desert that the swallow dreamed of flying across [literally: trans-flying] toward the marvelous regions of the Continent (Cosima 1971: 749; trans. King, 62)]. Writing becomes the centrifugal force that enables Cosima-Grazia to ‘fly across,’ literally to trans-fly, the liquid desert between the island and the ‘Continent,’ between Sardinian traditions of antiquity and European culture of modernity, between the margin and the centre or, in other words, ‘minor’ and ‘major’ literatures. In the retrospective construction of the literary self, writing identifies with the journey of ‘e-ducation’ that, for reasons of cultural geography and gender, Deledda had not been allowed to undertake at the institutional level (King 2005: 15–16). The etymology of ‘e-ducation’ (from Latin ‘exducere,’ literally ‘to take and lead out of’) alludes to a journey out of ignorance toward a spiritual and intellectual growth. Deledda underlines the creative essence of this e-ducational journey when she writes in her fictional autobiography that first-grader Cosima ‘voleva, voleva sapere : più che i giocattoli l’attiravano i quaderni; e la lavagna della classe, con quei segni bianchi che la maestra tracciava, aveva per lei il fascino di una finestra aperta sull’azzurro scuro di una notte stellata’ [yearned, she yearned to know. Her notebooks attracted her more than toys; and the classroom blackboard with those white marks made by the teacher had for her the charm of a window open onto the dark blue of starry night (Cosima 1971: 721; trans. King, 32; emphasis in the text)]. Grazia-Cosima’s writing, kindled through the dynamic tension between centripetal and centrifugal forces, opens up the closed window of geographical, societal, and gender marginalization toward the culture of modernity. As in Leopardi’s ‘L’infinito,’ the limit triggers the most pervasive poetic, intellectual, and existential journey in an intriguing passage of Cosima. In her exploration of the patriarchal home, little Cosima is particularly attracted by a large window, segnata ma non aperta sull’alto della parete che finiva sul soffitto. Chi aveva segnato quell’apertura che non si apriva, quel rettangolo scavato sul muro che, se sfondato, avrebbe lasciato vedere un grande orizzonte di cielo e di lontananze? ... [A]d ogni modo, Cosima si incantava ogni volta a guardarla; l’apriva con la sua fantasia, e mai in vita sua vide un orizzonte più ampio e favoloso di quello che si immaginava nello sfondo di quel segno polveroso e pieno di ragnatele. (1971: 706–7)

Introduction

19

[marked out but unfinished, high on the wall near the ceiling. Who had made that space that didn’t open, that rectangle carved out of the wall that, if opened, would have allowed one to see a great expanse of sky and distance? ... In any case, Cosima was enchanted every time she looked at it; she opened it in her imagination and never in her life saw a wider, more fabulous horizon than the one she imagined beyond that dusty indentation full of cobwebs. (trans. King, 15–16)]

In the Italian original, the semantic emphasis on the ‘segno’ that the mere indentation of a window represents opens up an intellectual journey that intertwines knowledge and imagination. This is the intellectual journey that sparks Deledda’s writing, as little Cosima understands on her ‘viaggio’ [journey, travel (1971: 719; trans. King, 30: ‘trip’)] to the former convent that hosts her elementary school. The centre of Cosima’s attention on her way to school is ‘la libreria del signor Carlino, dove si vendono i quaderni, l’inchiostro, i pennini; tutte quelle cose magiche, insomma, con le quali si può tradurre in segni la parola, e più che la parola il pensiero dell’uomo’ [Signor Carlino’s bookstore where notebooks, ink, little pen nibs are sold; all those magic things, in short, with which one can translate a word into signs – and more than a word, human thought (1971: 719; trans. King, 30)]. The magical spell that writing tools cast on the little girl and avid learner lies in their enabling the writer to transpose into signs human thoughts more than words, ‘concepts’ more than ‘acoustic images,’ to refer back to Saussure’s seminal definition of the linguistic sign. It is this philosophical density of Deledda’s writing as poiesis, as creative production nurtured by a centripetal and a centrifugal force, which my study investigates. By following the interweaving of some of the most representative philosophical threads of modernity in Deledda’s narrative, such as Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, I will highlight the fluctuation between Positivism and Nihilism, Verism and Decadentism, active and passive nihilism, which defines Deledda’s dance of and with modernity. As Robert Scholes reminded us in his 2004 MLA ‘Presidential Address’ about the meaning of ‘The Humanities in a Posthumanist World,’ ‘[o]ur lesson must be that there are no sacred texts that are beyond interpretation – for interpretation is at the heart of the humanistic enterprise’ (2005: 732). Deledda appears to suggest precisely this hermeneutical approach to her narrative in a letter of 1907 that triggered my analysis of her work in the light of philosophical modernity: ‘Io credo di esser nata, più che artista, pensatrice. Nella mia mente, fin da bambina, è stato un

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Grazia Deledda’s Dance of Modernity

continuo svolgersi di idée, di intuizioni, di domande e di spiegazioni’ [I believe that I was born, more than an artist, a thinker. In my mind, since childhood, a continuous unfolding of ideas, intuitions, questions, and explanations has taken place (Bessi 1945: 710)].

1 ‘On the Way’ to Modernity: La via del male

This chapter is devoted to an in-depth-analysis of La via del male [The Path of Evil (1896, 1906, 1916)], a novel often defined by critics a ‘spartiacque’ [watershed (Turchi 1994: 9; Dolfi 1984: 10; Capuana 1973 [1898]: 97)] between Deledda’s early writings, imbued with late Romanticism and provincial feuilleton heroes, and the mature productions, acclaimed for the intense folkloric atmosphere and the deeply moral conflicts of their characters. However, a close reading of the text will highlight its significance not as a divide but as a bridge between Romanticism, Verism, and modernity in Deledda’s literary journey. The focus of our attention will be the text and its own journey into modernity through three different volume editions that truly define this novel as a ‘laboratorio’ [laboratory] of Deledda’s literary and cultural apprenticeship.1 Textual analysis and the study of variations on the formal, thematic, and structural planes will shed new light on the rich texture of a novel that marks Deledda’s conscious steps into literary modernity through a progressive opening of structure and interpretations. First, though, I would like to provide a brief synopsis of La via del male in its final edition of 1916. Pietro Benu is a capable and reliable servant in the prominent Noina family of Nuoro, but he is ‘fatally’ attracted by Maria, his master’s beautiful and disdainful daughter. Aware of a rising affection between Pietro and Sabina, a poor cousin of hers, Maria shows Pietro a jealous reaction, which encourages him to abandon his relationship with Sabina. Both Pietro and Maria are equally aware of the sociological gap that divides them. Yet, Pietro is determined to pursue his dream of conquering Maria, the object of his erotic desire, through social ascent. For this reason, Pietro makes a promise to Maria that he will become rich in order to render their marriage acceptable in a class-

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conscious society, but he is sent to a distant, rural estate of the Noina family. During his absence, Francesco Rosana, a wealthy, cultivated, but ugly landowner, captivates Maria’s attention and then asks her to marry him. Maria, torn between her ‘irrational,’ socially subversive love for her servant Pietro, and her ‘rational,’ materialistic desire for social and familial acceptance, eventually agrees to marry Francesco and meet the expectations of her environment. In the meantime, Pietro is unjustly accused of cattle theft and sent to prison for three months. While in jail, Pietro is enraged at the news of Maria’s breach of faith, but he also learns how to read and write. His mentor and fellow inmate, Antine, provides Pietro not only with the cultural tools indispensable for social ascent, but also with an evangelic-socialist credo, which channels Pietro’s private anger into a collective resentment against the anti-egalitarian injustices of capitalistic society. Once he has served his prison term, Pietro secretly murders Francesco with Antine’s complicity. Pietro’s moral descent parallels his social ascent, made possible through his partnership with Antine in dubious commercial activities. Five years later, Maria accepts Pietro’s marriage proposal, thus confirming Pietro’s integration to the middle class. However, an anonymous letter sent by Sabina to Maria shortly after the wedding, when Sabina and her husband end up becoming seasonal workers in Algeria, unveils the mystery of Francesco’s violent death. Facing the choice between a scandal that would result in the downfall of her family and a silent acceptance of her moral complicity in Pietro’s development, Maria opts for the latter. The ambiguous, open ending of the novel depicts Maria and Pietro sharing the responsibility for abandoning their values and moral identities. The ‘espiazione’ [expiation (C, 410)] for ‘il loro male’ [their illness (C, 410; emphasis in the text)]2 coincides with the acceptance of their reciprocal guilt and the hopeless prospect of a life together without love or mutual respect. 1.1. From L’indomabile to La via del male: Social Mission and Positivism In a letter to Epaminonda Provaglio3 of 11 November 1893, an ‘untameable’ and bold twenty-two-year-old Grazia Deledda writes: Ho finito, sì, il mio nuovo romanzo. Me lo aveva commissionato un editore milanese ... Ma sai cosa voleva? Avventurieri e banditi, assassini, bande armate sui monti, donne di malavita, odî, inimicizie, pugnalate, archibugiate ... feci il romanzo a modo mio e come Dio comanda. Lo credo bello e forte. (Opere scelte, 1: 1056)

La via del male 23 [Yes, I did finish my new novel. A Milan publisher commissioned it to me ... But you know what he wanted? Adventurers and bandits, assassins, armed gangs on the mountains, corrupted women, hatred, hostilities, stabbing and shooting ... I wrote the novel in my own way, as God wants it. I believe it is beautiful and powerful .]

Enthusiasm and self-confidence will always characterize the complex editorial story of a novel ‘ingiustamente dimenticata’ [unjustly neglected (De Michelis 1964: 21)]. Deledda had probably already begun to work on La via del male in 1890.4 Completed – only temporarily – in November of 1893, as the correspondence attests, La via del male first appeared in a volume edition with the Turin publisher Speirani in 1896, then after a thorough revision in 1906 in the ‘Biblioteca Romantica’ series of the prestigious literary journal Nuova Antologia, Rome, and finally, after some minor linguistic variations, in 1916 for the prominent publishing house Treves of Milan. The references to La via del male throughout the first decade of Deledda’s correspondence summarize the intellectual self-portrait of the young writer. Persistent study emerges as the best means of resistance against provincial isolation and romantic ennui, and as the source of a deep confidence in her artistic talent, which, however, was not devoid of self-criticism, as the following passage indicates: Ora parliamo del mio romanzo e poi ti darò le mie nuove. Son sicura che non mi aduli dicendo che ti piace, dal momento che, senza falsa modestia, piace anche a me. Lo stile è, al mio solito, scorretto, scorrettissimo, – e ci vorrà del tempo perché io mi perfezioni, – ma la tesi, le figure e lo scopo, soprattutto, lo credo buono. Ci ho messo tutto ciò che posso avere di forte in me, delle mie cognizioni umane vedute sul vero, del mio studio sulle passioni e sui caratteri sardi e del mio amore per quest’angolo di terra ignoto. Speriamo dunque un po’ di fortuna. (Letter to E. Provaglio, 26 April 1894, Opere scelte, 1: 1069– 70) [Now let’s talk about my novel first and then I will update you about myself. I know for sure that you are not flattering me when you say that you like it since, without false modesty, I like it too. The style is, as usual for me, incorrect, very incorrect, – and I will need some time before I improve, – but I believe that the novel’s thesis, its characters and, above all, its purpose are good. I infused it with all the strength I can find in myself, all my knowledge about human life observed as it is, my study of Sardinian passions and characters and my love for this unknown corner of the earth. Let’s hope for some luck.]

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Grazia Deledda’s Dance of Modernity

Already well known as the author of Elias Portolu (1900), Dopo il divorzio [After the Divorce (1902)], and Cenere (1904), Deledda defines this ‘unjustly neglected’ novel as ‘forse uno dei miei migliori ‘ [perhaps one of my best (letter to Gégé Primoli, 24 April 1906, Spaziani 1962: 266)]. Still, La via del male endured several metamorphoses even in the title. The original title, reminiscent of Dannunzian taste and decadent heroes, was going to be L’indomabile [The Untameable]. The author had firmly intended to keep this title even after learning about the publication of a homonymous novel by feuilleton writer Umbertina di Chamery in 1895, when she had already submitted the manuscript to several publishers: Però io son decisa di lasciar questo titolo al mio romanzo, per più ragioni. Prima di tutto perché è l’unico che gli conviene. Tutto lo scopo del lavoro tende a dimostrare come la fatalità doma l’uomo il più forte; dunque un altro titolo sarebbe sbagliato. (Letter to E. Provaglio, 7 June 1895, Opere scelte, 1: 1099) [However, I am determined to keep this title for my novel for several reasons. First of all, because it is the only suitable title. The very purpose of the work is to demonstrate that fatality tames even the strongest man; therefore, a different title would be wrong.]

Despite her conviction in the oxymoronic significance of the title – The Untameable refers to a protagonist tamed by fate – Deledda would eventually reach a publishing compromise with the final title. The definitive title also reveals a fundamental shift toward modernity in the structure of the novel, as we shall see in this chapter: E mi è venuto in mente questo: La via del Male. Ti piace? E’ poi emozionante come lo vuole l’editore, ed è nello stesso tempo artistico e adatto al romanzo. (Letter to E. Provaglio, 1 September 1895, Opere scelte, 1:1106)5 [This title has come to my mind: The Path of Evil. How do you like it? It is exciting like the publisher wants it to be, and at the same time it is artistic and suitable for the novel.]

Still, in 1904 the author refers to the same work with the sociologically connotative title Il servo [The Servant], which is ‘La via del male riveduto da cima a fondo’ [revised from beginning to end (undated letter to Salvator Ruju, ascribed to 1904–5, Ciusa Romagna 1959: 99)]. With this title, the revised novel appears in instalments in the Roman newspaper La Gazzetta

La via del male 25

del Popolo in 1906 (13 February – 6 June), the same year of its volume publication for the ‘Biblioteca Romantica’ of the Nuova Antologia. A work in progress par excellence, La via del male assumes a narrative form ‘in cammino,’ ‘on the way’ to modernity as the evolution of the title and its final utterance suggest. 1.1.a. A Social (and Literary) Mission In the early 1890s, when Deledda was shaping L’indomabile in the solitude of her native Nuoro, the young self-taught intellectual eagerly responded to the appeal for collaborators from different regions launched by distinguished orientalist and folklorist Angelo De Gubernatis in his journal Rivista delle tradizioni popolari italiane. De Gubernatis’s Rivista, sponsored by Italy’s Queen Margherita, investigated folk cultures and was the official channel of the ‘Società Nazionale per le Tradizioni Popolari,’ which De Gubernatis established following the example of the first folklore society, founded in London in 1878 (King 2005: 50–1). Deledda’s passionate participation in the project resulted in a series of articles on Sardinian folkloric traditions published in De Gubernatis’s renowned Rivista between August 1894 and May 1895, which were also collected in the volume Tradizioni popolari di Nuoro in Sardegna (1894).6 Deledda’s enthusiasm for the project, which would finally present an image of Sardinia beyond stereotypes, stemmed not only from cultural and sociological sources, but also from her private hope to penetrate the literary scene of Rome beyond the familiar and cultural limits of Nuoro. In a letter to De Gubernatis of 27 July 1893, Deledda admits: Sì, vorrei cambiar vita ... Sono inchiodata qui da leggi, da costumi e tradizioni rigorosissime. Il Deledda che vive a Roma, e che conosco, non è mio parente neppure, – ma anche se fosse mio zio è molto probabile che i miei non mi lasciassero venire a Roma. E’ inutile pensarci. Io forse non conoscerò mai il mondo, la vera società, e capisco che da ciò appunto dipenderà la mia fortuna letteraria. (Di Pilla 1966: 427) [Yes, I would like to change my life ... I am nailed down here by extremely rigorous laws, customs, and traditions. The Deledda who lives in Rome, whom I know, is not even a relative of mine, – but, even if he were my uncle, it is very likely that my parents would not let me go to Rome. It is useless to think about it. Perhaps I will never know the world, the high society, and I understand that my literary fortune will depend precisely on this.]

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Grazia Deledda’s Dance of Modernity

It is not by coincidence, then, that the self-promoting young writer first informs De Gubernatis about the plot of her Sardinian novel: Pietro Benu – giovane contadino nuorese, poverissimo, bello, forte, di un carattere fiero, onestissimo e retto, si pone al servizio di una famiglia di quei piccoli proprietari del popolo di Nuoro. C’è una ragazza in questa famiglia; Maria, bella, vana e ambiziosa, che sogna uno splendido matrimonio, magari di convenienza. A Pietro sulle prime riesce antipatica, ma poi se ne innamora, le fa la corte e si fa amare da lei. Infelicissima per quest’amore, che crede vergognoso e disonorevole, Maria tuttavia corrisponde il giovine in segreto, gli dà parola di fedeltà e gli fa infine perdere la testa – ma alla prima occasione lo tradisce e si sposa con un altro giovinotto ricco, brutto, che non ama ... (Letter, 4 September 1893, Di Pilla 1966: 436) [Pietro Benu, a young peasant from Nuoro, is very poor, handsome, strong, and has a proud, honest, and upright personality. He is hired by a Nuorese family of small landowners. There is a girl in that family: Maria. She is beautiful, vain, ambitious, and dreams of a gorgeous wedding, perhaps a marriage of convenience. At first, Pietro finds her disagreeable, but then he falls in love with her, he courts her and obtains her love. Although deeply unhappy about this love, which she considers shameful and dishonourable, Maria recipocates the young man’s love secretly, vows her faithfulness and finally makes him lose his mind. Still, at the first opportunity she betrays him and marries another man, rich, ugly, whom she does not love ...]

The fate that male protagonist Pietro Benu fiercely resists, albeit in vain, coincides with his social class. The milieu of French naturalist authors, whose works Deledda had avidly read in her self-acquired literary apprenticeship (De Michelis 1938: 7–48; Dolfi 1984: 5), confines Pietro to a seemingly inescapable condition of inferiority: Ah, no: una distanza immensa lo separava da lei; egli era un pezzente, un immondo servo ... ; Maria era bella e pura, doveva essere anche buona, era il frutto squisito serbato per la bocca d’un uomo ricco e distinto. (B, 44–5, and also 100, 296/C, 234, and also 269, 389; in less clearly sociological terms, the same theme emerges in corresponding A 27, 74) [No, no: an immense distance separated him from her. He was a miserable, filthy servant ... ; Maria was beautiful and pure, and she was probably good-natured

La via del male 27 as well; she was the exquisite fruit set aside for the mouth of a rich and distinguished gentleman.]

Conversely, the condition of superiority of the ‘prinzipales’ – the Sardinian landowners’ upper middle class – determines the fate of female protagonist Maria Noina. Maria’s elevated social status forces her to deny her erotic desire for the servant Pietro, and then to marry Francesco Rosana, a member of the local upper middle class and holder of economic and cultural power. Francesco Di Pilla, in his seminal study on the intertwining of French and Russian naturalist and psychological novels in Deledda’s early works, interprets the contrast between master and servant in La via del male as the polarization of the feuilleton and late-romantic ill-fated love between the nobleman/-woman and the poor woman or man in the first writings from Sangue sardo [Sardinian Blood (1888)] to Stella d’Oriente [Star of the Orient (1890)] and as the first expression of Deledda’s ‘sardità.’ According to Di Pilla, ‘sardità’ designates in her writings not only an archaic or mythic category (Sapegno 1981: 320), but also the author’s consciousness of the general crisis of Sardinian society at the end of the nineteenth century, which she explores intellectually through the ethnological collaboration with De Gubernatis. The first essential aspect of this crisis that Deledda depicts in La via del male is, in Di Pilla’s words, the ‘diseguaglianza sociale’ [social inequality] at the very root of Pietro and Maria’s tragic love, in which both components of Deledda’s cultural apprenticeship, Naturalism and Positivism, converge (Di Pilla 1982: 103). Anna Dolfi has convincingly argued that La via del male represents ‘una tentata e riuscita identificazione della biografia col romanzescoromantico’ [a successful attempt to identify the biographical with the fictional-romantic (Dolfi 1984: 7, and Dolfi 1992: 17)]. In her correspondence, Deledda depicts herself as subject to the same painful ‘dannazione di una collocazione socio-culturale intermedia’ [damnation of an in-between socio-cultural position (Dolfi 1984: 7, and 1992: 17)] in her two tormented sentimental relationships of those years. Whether from a point of view of inferiority or superiority, the sociological displacement of the writer dooms her love for journalist Stanis Manca – of Sardinian origins but living in Rome, the ‘promised land’ of Deledda’s literary aspirations – and for grade-school teacher Andrea Pirodda as well (Dolfi 1984: 5–6, and 1992: 15–16). Beyond the biographical level, La via del male represents the conscious attempt to express on the literary level the socio-cultural mission that

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inspired Deledda early on. We find a clear, programmatic statement in this respect in the first self-introductory letter that nineteen-year-old Deledda wrote in 1890 to influential Milan publisher Treves: Forse il mio nome Le è del tutto ignoto ... Ad ogni modo presentandomi a Lei con tutta fiducia, Le dirò che sono una fanciulla, posso anche dire un’artista sarda, piena di molta buona volontà, di molta fede e coraggio. Sono anche assai giovane e forse per ciò ho grandi sogni: ho anzi un sogno solo, grande, ed è di illustrare un paese sconosciuto che amo molto intensamente, la mia Sardegna! (Versi e prose giovanili, 236) [Perhaps my name is completely unknown to you ... I will introduce myself anyway with full confidence, and I will tell you that I am a young lady, I can also add a Sardinian artist, with a lot of good will, faith, and courage. I am also very young and probably for this reason I have big dreams: I have actually only one, big dream, and it is to illustrate an unknown land, which I love very intensely, my Sardinia!]

In the same year she even inserts her dream in a precise time frame: ‘Avrò fra poco vent’anni, a trenta voglio aver raggiunto il mio scopo radioso qual è quello di creare da me sola una letteratura completamente ed esclusivamente sarda’ [I will turn twenty soon, and at age thirty I want to have reached my bright goal, which is to create a completely and exclusively Sardinian literature all by myself (letter to M. Ferraris, 1890, Versi e prose giovanili, 236)]. Three years later, as a result of De Gubernatis’s invitation to research Sardinian traditions, social impetus and literary dreams overlap. Grazia herself launches a passionate plea to Sardinian intellectuals to contribute, under her leadership, to this cultural and social mission with the primary goal of liberating Sardinia from stereotypes derived from positivistic culture in unified Italy. Her call in a letter to the journal Vita Sarda reads: Si tratta di un’opera patriottica che riguarda assai la nostra cara Sardegna ... A Roma si è costituita una società per lo studio del folklore italiano di cui accludo il programma. // Il De Gubernatis ha incaricato me di raccogliere possibilmente il volume riguardante la Sardegna, che l’illustre uomo ritiene per una delle regioni italiane più ricca [sic] di tradizioni, leggende, e usanze popolari. Ed io ho accettato il geloso incarico, l’ho accettato con entusiasmo e trepidazione, sperando e disperando nell’aiuto dei Sardi colti che possono collaborare con me a questo lavoro. // Ho detto ‘disperando’

La via del male 29 perché purtroppo in Sardegna si verifica un doloroso fenomeno. Tutti gridano che la Sardegna è la Cenerentola d’Italia, che aspetta tuttora la fata benefica che la scopra e la tragga dall’oscurità in cui vive: tutti gridano ma quando si tratta di fare qualcosa, quando si esige dai Sardi un movimento intellettuale e generoso, allora nessuno risponde all’appello, nessuno si muove o si commuove ... // Bandire una specie di crociata intellettuale, a voce e sui giornali, pregando tutti gli studiosi Sardi di aiutarmi alla lor volta, ecco il mio progetto. // Comincino Loro con la Vita Sarda. In ciascun villaggio c’è almeno uno studente che può raccogliere succintamente le credenze, le piccole poesie antiche, gli usi domestici, le superstizioni, le feste popolari. // Scriverci sú degli appunti e mandarli a me, che in ultimo li compilerei, li ordinerei accennando le fonti da cui mi pervengono e i nomi degli studiosi miei collaboratori, ecco il progetto ... // Loro sono le prime persone a cui mi rivolgo. Aiutino questa piccola lavoratrice che ha consacrato la sua vita e i suoi pensieri alla Sardegna, e che sogna ad ogni istante di vederla, se non più conosciuta, liberata almeno dalle calunnie d’oltre mare ... (Letter to A. Scano and A. G. Satta-Semidei, 2 May 1893, Versi e prose giovanili, 241–2) [It is a patriotic work that concerns our dear Sardinia. In Rome a society devoted to the study of Italian folklore was founded, of which I am including the program. // De Gubernatis assigned me the task of possibly putting together a volume about Sardinia, which the illustrious man considers to be one of the Italian regions richest in traditions, legends, and popular customs. I have accepted the delicate task. I accepted it with enthusiasm and trepidation, hoping for and despairing over the help and collaboration of cultivated Sardinians. // I said ‘despairing’ because, unfortunately, a painful phenomenon occurs in Sardinia. Everyone cries out that Sardinia is Italy’s Cinderella who is still waiting for the good fairy to discover her and take her out of the obscurity in which she lives: Everyone cries out, but when it is time to take action, when one requests from Sardinians an intellectual and generous action, then no one answers the call, no one reacts ... // My project is to proclaim in person and in the newspapers a sort of intellectual crusade, by asking all Sardinian scholars to help me. // You could begin with your journal, Vita sarda. In every village there is at least one student who could gather concise information about beliefs, little poems of the past, domestic customs, superstitions and folk festivities. // They could take notes about this material and then send them to me. Eventually, I would edit and organize them, by mentioning the sources and giving credit to my collaborators. This is my project ... // You are the first ones to whom I am turning. Please, help this little worker who has devoted her life and

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Grazia Deledda’s Dance of Modernity thoughts to Sardinia and dreams to see it, if not better known, at least freed from overseas slanders ... ]

1.1.b. The ‘Scuola positiva di diritto penale’ In the early 1890s, Deledda succeeds in breaching the isolation of her life in Nuoro, confined to the increasing family burden and societal pressure, through her avid reading, reminiscent of the Leopardian ‘studio matto e disperatissimo’ [madly desperate study (Leopardi 1988: 1050)], and her extensive correspondence with publishers and intellectuals in the ‘continente’ [mainland Italy], such as Provaglio and De Gubernatis (King 2005: 1–32). She does not hesitate to ask her interlocutors to provide her with contemporary publications of interest. While researching Sardinian folklore for the Rivista delle tradizioni popolari italiane and working on her ‘romanzo sardo, sulle classi povere’ [Sardinian novel, on the class of the poor (as she defines L’indomabile in a letter to E. Provaglio, September 1892, Opere scelte, 1: 1014)], Deledda reads attentively two essays about Sardinia written by Paolo Orano and Alfonso Niceforo. Orano and Niceforo followed positivistic thought applied to criminal law as promulgated by the ‘Scuola positiva italiana di diritto penale.’ Founded by psychiatrist and criminal anthropologist Cesare Lombroso and penal lawyer Enrico Ferri, this school of thought applied the deterministic theories of Positivism to the study of criminal psychology. In his highly praised Genio e follia [Genius and Madness (1864)], Lombroso argued that the characteristic features of the criminal personality are derived from individual and collective hereditary defects. Orano and Niceforo had visited Sardinia together in 1895. Paolo Orano published the results of his field studies under the title Psicologia della Sardegna [The Psychology of Sardinia (1896)]. Alfredo Niceforo authored two ethnic-sociological studies with the revealing titles Le varietà umane pigmee e microcefaliche della Sardegna [Pigmy and Micro-Headed Human Varieties in Sardinia (1896)] and La delinquenza in Sardegna. Note di sociologia criminale [Delinquency in Sardinia: Notes on Criminal Sociology (1897)]. A more comprehensive study followed under the title L’Italia barbara contemporanea [Contemporary Barbaric Italy (1898)]. The young positivistic sociologists applied Lombroso’s theories to Sardinia, the most geographically and historically isolated region of unified Italy, to explain its economic backwardness and the spreading of banditry. Accordingly, they read the social problems of Sardinia as consequences of a deficient moral consciousness dependent upon the

La via del male 31

physiological constitution of the Sardinian population. In particular, Orano and Niceforo explained the higher delinquency rate in Barbagia, the most internal mountain region of the island, of which Grazia Deledda’s native Nuoro was the main city, with cranial measurements and other ‘scientific’ data. As a result, they believed that the rural inhabitants of Barbagia would spread pathogens that would epidemically infect the remainder of the island population.7 Deledda reviewed Orano’s Psicologia della Sardegna in La Roma Letteraria, 10 May 1896. In a typical move of captatio benevolentia, she praises first the author’s courageous report on ‘le piaghe più profonde dell’isola e ... [i] rimedi urgenti che le bisognano’ [the island’s deepest plagues and ... the necessary urgent remedies (209)]. At the core of her article, though, Deledda points out the dangerous exaggeration of such Sardinian problems as ‘delinquenza, ... moralità, ... clero’ [delinquency, ... morality, ... and clergy (210)], and generalization, for instance of the immoral traits of Sardinian women (210). Deledda does not overtly criticize Orano’s point of departure, the presence of a ‘liquido d’ambiente sardo isolano’ [liquid related to the insular Sardinian environment (1896: 6–10)], which would determine the negative ethical and biological qualities of the island’s population, particularly in the mountain region because of its isolation. Nor does she object to Orano’s appeal to the Italian government for a stronger and more repressive presence in the Nuoro region to heal the plague of banditry.8 However, Deledda does correct some bold statements. For instance, she replies that the irresponsible deforestation of the Sardinian mountains was not ‘suicidal’ because it belonged to a vast exploitation strategy of natural resources through mainland enterprises.9 Despite the overall positive overtone of the review for the constructive criticism of Sardinian social problems, we are left with suspicion of some irony in the conclusion about ‘l’Orano [che] chiamando la Sardegna “grande isola antica, vecchia gloria buona d’Italia nostra,” dice d’amarla “come patria, come la luce, come la vita!”’ [Orano who, defining Sardinia as ‘a great, ancient island, good, old glory of our Italy,’ claims to love it ‘as fatherland, light, and life!’ (210)]. Nevertheless, Deledda defends Orano’s undertaking when she writes to her suitor Andrea Pirodda: Non credere alle stupidaggini che hanno stampato riguardo al volumetto di Paolo Orano. E’ un bellissimo volumetto, artistico e buono, che però ha il torto di dir la verità riguardo alla delinquenza ed alla immoralità di Nuoro. (Letter, 31 May 1896, Di Pilla 1966: 374)10

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Grazia Deledda’s Dance of Modernity [Don’t believe the nonsense they have printed about Paolo Orano’s volume. It is a very good and artistic little work, whose only fault is telling the truth about the delinquency and immorality of Nuoro.]

In 1902 Paolo Orano holds a lecture on Grazia Deledda at the Collegio Romano, in which he focuses on l’importanza scientifica dei romanzi della Deledda, notando come per lo psicologo futuro, e per il sociologo, indagatori delle anime sarde, essi terranno il posto di un qualunque studio statistico o folkloristico, perché da essi romanzi balza viva, completa, quasi per forza meravigliosa, la rude ignota anima sarda. (Randaccio 1902: 34) [the scientific significance of Deledda’s novels, noticing that for the future psychologist and sociologist who will investigate Sardinian souls, they will play the role of any statistical or folkloristic study, for from these novels the rough, unknown Sardinian soul stands out in its liveliness and entirety, almost through a marvellous force.]

With respect to Alfredo Niceforo, we find a first mention of him in a letter to Provaglio of 23 November 1894 (Opere scelte, 1: 1088). He had just started to write for the Roman journal Piccola antologia, which had already published some of Deledda’s short stories and seemed interested in the instalment publication of L’indomabile (Opere scelte, 2: 1080, footnote 2). One year later Deledda asks her editor and supporter Provaglio to send her ‘tutti i numeri del Corriere della domenica dove son state o saranno pubblicate le corrispondenze sarde del Niceforo e dell’Orano’ [all the issues of the Corriere della domenica where Niceforo’s and Orano’s Sardinian correspondences were or would be published (letter, 1 November 1895, Opere scelte, 1: 1109)]. The four correspondences, entitled Di là dal mare: Viaggio attraverso la Sardegna [Beyond the Sea: A Voyage through Sardinia], end with the instalment of 2 February 1896, Sull’Orthobene [On Mount Orthobene], in which Deledda’s name and picture appear. Niceforo refers repeatedly to Deledda as the ‘gentile e geniale scrittrice sarda’ [the kind Sardinian woman writer of genius], and quotes from her short stories and Tradizioni popolari di Nuoro in Sardegna in his La delinquenza in Sardegna (1897: 24, 49, 100, 125). The young sociologist offers a ‘scientific’ analysis of Sardinian delinquency as ‘un mondo a tipo criminoso ... atavico’ [a world of a criminal ... atavistic kind], which expresses ‘una società non completamente evoluta in tutte le sue parti e

La via del male 33

nella quale si manifestano, quindi, come reati specifici, i reati propri alle società primitive, vale a dire l’omicidio, il furto, la grassazione, la violenza, l’usurpazione, il danneggiamento, l’incendio’ [a society not completely developed in all its parts, in which, therefore, specific crimes occur, which are typical of primitive societies, such as homicide, theft, robbery, violence, usurpation, vandalism, and arson (1897: 1)]. In particular, Niceforo examines the historical and biological reasons for the extreme violence of the Barbagia or ‘Zona delinquente’ [Delinquent Zone] and its arrested development in moral and social terms (1897: 58– 9). He insists, though, not only on the laws of moral and biological heredity,11 but also on the economic factor as one – albeit not the only one, as does Marx (1897: 107–11) – of the main reasons for social violence. The ‘Appendix’ of the volume recommends that the Sardinian people abandon their passive attitude, take action, and fight first of all against the social and legal injustices of the centralized government. Like the living organism whose cells vary greatly in constitution and function, the Italian unified national regions and socio-geographical groups differ greatly from each other, and only a federation could respect this diversity and solve the specific problems: Quali leggi ha mai dato lo stato alla Sardegna? Quelle leggi stesse che ha dato alle altre provincie italiane: quasicché un medico dovesse curare tutti i malati della sua corsia d’ospedale con una sola e medesima medicina. Cesare Lombroso attribuisce a questo ugual trattamento usato dal governo verso tutte le provincie italiane, che sono tanto dissimili tra loro per carattere, per ambienti, per condizioni economiche e morali, l’aumento della criminalità: l’Italia infatti è una ma non è unificata, e sarebbe follia usare per ogni parte di essa ugual terapia: il Proudhon, in un suo lavoro sull’unità italiana, diceva che una tale unità non è che un’idea ... (1897: 200) [What laws has the nation given to Sardinia? The same laws it has given to the other Italian provinces. As though a physician should cure all patients in his hospital ward with one and the same medication. Cesare Lombroso ascribes increasing criminality to this government treatment, the same for all Italian provinces, which are so different in character, environments, and moral and economic conditions. Italy, in fact, is one but is not unified, and it would be foolish to use the same therapy for each part of it. Proudhon, in one of his works on Italian unification, said that unification is nothing but an idea ...]

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Grazia Deledda’s Dance of Modernity

Undoubtedly, it was this aspect of Orano’s and Niceforo’s studies, the social protest against the unified government and the call for active participation of the Sardinian people, that impressed young Deledda and motivated her to dedicate the 1896 edition of La via del male ‘Ad Alfredo Niceforo e Paulo Orano che amorosamente visitarono la Sardegna’ [To Alfredo Niceforo and Paulo Orano, who lovingly visited Sardinia]. Peter J. Fuller has highlighted how ‘the interdependence or mutual influence of Grazia Deledda and Alfredo Niceforo at this time illustrates in emblematic terms the complex relationship that existed between Sardinian and national culture at the turn of the century’ (2000: 63). On the one hand, intellectuals like Sardinian-Roman Orano and Sicilian Niceforo analysed the social problems of Italian unification in the light of Positivism and were committed to finding a ‘scientific’ solution to the rift between the margins and the centre of unification. On the other hand, the self-taught Sardinian woman writer embraced the mission of reaching out to a wider national (and international) audience to fulfil her professional dreams and to represent her island’s culture beyond stereotypes.12 Interestingly, in the first edition of La via del male a biblical epigraph preceded the dedication to the two voices of Positivism: Non conoscono il cammino della pace, e nelle loro vie non v’è alcuna dirittura; si hanno distorti i loro sentieri; chiunque cammina per essi non sa cosa sia pace. Isaia, L. IX, 8 [They do not know the path of peace, and in their ways there is no righteousness; their paths are distorted; whoever follows them does not know what peace is.]

The quotation from the Old Testament belongs to the biblical references that punctuate Deledda’s entire corpus (De Michelis 1938: 49–70), which present the Bible as ‘il libro già interamente scritto della vita’ [the already entirely written book of life (Ramat 1978: 111)]. Moreover, the biblical passage expresses a mirror-like representation in the religious realm of the scientific determinism of Positivism epitomized by the two recipients of the dedication. The coexistence of the religious and positivistic references indicates the coexistence of transcendence and immanence that traces a constant thread throughout Deledda’s works (Bocelli 1936, De Michelis 1938: 50–2). The ‘distorted paths’ that the tormented

La via del male 35

protagonists of La via del male follow encompass social and erotic transgression, in other words love as primordial, transgressive force against social order, capable of stirring homicidal instincts that interwine eros with thanatos. Love in Deledda’s work has been interpreted as the primeval force of pre-Christian culture (De Giovanni 2001: 15) or as moral temptation, the ultimate ‘prova dell’anima’ [trial for the soul], which imbues Deledda’s narrative with a profound ‘carattere religioso, non confessionale’ [religious, non-confessional character (Momigliano 1968: 589)]. No matter how we intepret it, erotic passion presents in this novel a deterministic connotation, not very different from the psychosomatic defects derived from the geographical and sociological milieu analysed by the ‘Scuola positiva di diritto penale.’ The author’s decision to eliminate the dedication to Niceforo and Orano, and the biblical epigraph as well, from the second edition of 1906 acquires new relevance in light of our previous considerations of Deledda’s interactions with exponents of Italian Positivism. A sign of the intellectual independence that defines the revision of La via del male in its entirety, this editorial decision inspires Deledda’s words in a letter of 17 January 1905 to the consul-general of France in Trieste: Ho una grande pietà, una infinita misericordia per tutti gli errori e le debolezze umane. Per quanto ho potuto studiare ho imparato ad amare le teorie della scuola positiva italiana. Per me non esiste il peccato, esiste solo il peccatore, degno di pietà perché nato col suo destino sulle spalle. La mia pietà, però, non mi impedisce di essere pessimista, e da questo miscuglio di sentimenti io credo nascano i personaggi poco allegri dei miei racconti, e la mia ... pretesa semplicità di vita intima. (Momigliano 1954: 88–90, and Ciusa Romagna 1959: 87) [I have great pity and infinite compassion for all human errors and weaknesses. For what I could study of it, I have learned to like the theories of the Italian Positive School. For me sin does not exist. Only the sinner exists, and he deserves pity because he was born with his destiny on his shoulders. My pity, though, does not prevent me from becoming a pessimist, and from this mixture of feelings, I believe, are born the not very cheerful characters of my stories, and my ... alleged simplicity of interior life].

We will follow Deledda’s journey to modernity around the turn of the century through the multifaceted revision of La via del male and will shed new light on her ‘alleged simplicity of interior life.’

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1.2. From La via del male (1896) as The Path to Evil to 1.2. La via del male (1906) as The Path of Evil. The rewriting of La via del male13 responds to Luigi Capuana’s constructive criticism. In his favourable review of 1897, Capuana had praised the novel according to his naturalistic credo for being exempt from the spreading ‘ismi’ of his time, i.e. ‘Symbolism,’ ‘mysticism,’ ‘Idealism,’ and ‘Decadentism.’ In tune with the realistic and regional character of Italian Verism, La via del male would noticeably surpass Fior di Sardegna [Sardinian Flower (1891)] and Anime oneste [Honest Souls (1895)] in literary quality because it embodies Un concetto giusto dell’arte narrativa che, innanzi tutto è forma, cioè creazione di persone vive, studio di caratteri e sentimenti non foggiati a capriccio o campati in aria, ma resultato di osservazione ... (Capuana 1973 [1898]: 97) [A correct concept of narrative art that, first of all, is form, that is a creation of living people, and a study of personalities and feelings that are not shaped capriciously or unsubstantiated, but the result of observation ...]

Thanks to her keen spirit of observation, Grazia Deledda was able, in Capuana’s words, to ‘metter fuori delle creature vive ... [L]’umanità non astratta, ma reale, sostanziale’ [bring out living creatures ... Not abstract but real and substantial humanity’].14 Deledda’s ability to represent the macrocosm in the microcosm and the universal in the particular profoundly entices the naturalistic critic and author, who specifically refers to the narrative sequences on Nuorese traditions. There, Deledda transfigures the object of her earlier ethnological studies into a choral narrative of rituals that bond past and present in the mysterious embrace of nature. A case in point is certainly the sequence on the nocturnal pilgrimage to the Monte Gonare sanctuary, at the centre of the pivotal tenth chapter, which Capuana explicitly mentions. At this point, it is essential that we examine the major changes that the novel undergoes from its first volume publication in 1896 (A) to its second volume edition in 1906 (B) to the third and last one in 1916 (C).15 The modifications from A to B include significant choices on the complementary planes of language, themes, and narrative structure, whereas

La via del male 37

the variations from B to C affect mostly the linguistic area. While I agree with Anna Dolfi’s interpretation of the modification from A to B in light of Deledda’s receptiveness to Capuana’s constructive criticism (1984: 11–12), I will indicate how those variations hint at Deledda’s beginning the path toward modernity beyond the tenets of Verism and Positivism. 1.2.a. Linguistic Changes: Against Approximation16 In the previously quoted letter to Provaglio of 26 April 1894 about her recently concluded novel L’indomabile Deledda remarks: ‘Lo stile è al mio solito, scorretto, scorrettissimo, – e ci vorrà del tempo perché io mi perfezioni’ [My style is, as usual, incorrect, extremely incorrect – and it will take some time before I can improve (Opere scelte, 1: 1069–70)]. In the spirit of this early awareness about the novel’s stylistic shortcomings, Deledda attentively follows Capuana’s precise criticism of language and style: Qua e là s’incontrano inesperienze di mestiere, ma non intaccano l’ossatura del lavoro. La parte esteriore dell’opera d’arte – la lingua e lo stile, – ha bisogno di molta cultura e di studio; è un po’ disuguale, e in alcuni punti trascurata, o esitante, quasi ignorasse in che modo esprimere un concetto, senza servirsi di una formola che dà soltanto il press’a poco; da ciò un eccesso di forme approssimative: – il vomero brillava come di argento; sentiva come un peso insopportabile ... (Capuana 1973 [1898]: 100; emphasis in the text) [Here and there one encounters some signs of lack of experience, but they do not affect the structure of the work. The exterior part of her artistic work – the language and the style – needs great culture and study; it is a little uneven, and in some passages shabby or hesitant, as if the author did not know how to express a concept without using a system that provides only what is approximate. From this originates an excessive usage of approximated forms: – The ploughshare shone like silver; – He felt something like an unbearable burden ...]

Moreover, Capuana indicates certain ‘stonature’ or utterances ‘out of tune,’ which impose the authorial voice on the characters’ point of view and, therefore, betray the veristic principle of impersonal narration. This is clearly the case when the author uses highly literary expressions or eccentric comparisons. Capuana refers to adjectives such as ‘jeratico’ in ‘una certa barba maestosa e jeratica’ [a certain majestic and hieratical

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beard (100)] and to similes such as ‘[f]uori il vento diventava sempre più violento e cantava come un pazzo inno di leggende nella gran notte sublime dei cristiani’ [outside the wind became more and more violent and sang like a mad hymn of old legends in the sublime, deep night of the Christians (100)]. As Mortara Garavelli has convincingly argued, Deledda amended her language in the second editions of her early works – particularly La via del male (1896>1906), Elias Portolu (1900>1903), Il vecchio della montagna [The Old Man of the Mountain (1899>1912)], and Cenere (1903>1906) – aiming at greater precision, moving from the indefinite to the definite, and thus reversing the tendency present in Manzoni’s canonical linguistic revision of the Promessi sposi [The Betrothed] from the 1827 to the 1840 edition (Mortara Garavelli 1991: 153). It is interesting to note that, upon an exact comparison of A and B, I located only four of the seven examples of ‘approximate’ style that Capuana detected in La via del male. The celebrated author and theorist of Italian Verism does not appear to be exempt from the lack of precision for which he faulted the young writer. However, Deledda followed his advice and altered the sentences that were to be found in the text. In the first case, she eliminated the approximate ‘come’ [like] while maintaining the intensity of the image and heightening the visual accuracy. Servant Pietro Benu leaves his patrons’ comfortable home in Nuoro to reach the solitary cornfields for the autumn harvest, where his only company will be his newly conceived love for Maria. ‘Nella punta dell’aratro, messo sul carro, il vomero brillava come di argento’ [On the top of the plough on the cart the ploughshare shone like silver (A, 39)] becomes ‘Sulla punta dell’aratro, capovolto sul carro, il vomero brillava con un tenue splendore d’argento nuovo’ [On the top of the plough, reversed on the cart, the ploughshare shone with the pale brightness of new silver (B, 60/C, 244)]. The remaining three examples share with the first one the improper use of ‘come,’ which lessens the assertiveness of a comment made by the implied narrator to explain the psychological status of the character. In the second case, the reader learns about the inner changes that Pietro, once called ‘l’indomabile,’ experiences while falling in love: ‘Pietro amava da poco più di due mesi solamente, ma gli sembrava di amar da molti anni, e di giorno in giorno sentiva come un peso insopportabile, la sensazione di nascondere da tempo indefinito un segreto penoso, che non poteva più celare, la cui rivelazione l’avrebbe alquanto anzi molto sollevato’ [Pietro had been in love for slightly more than two months, but he had the impression of having been in love for many years, and from day

La via del male 39

to day he felt something like an unbearable burden, the feeling of hiding for an indefinite time a painful secret that he could not conceal any longer. On the contrary, revealing his secret would have been a considerable relief (A, 67)]. In B, 92, the two-page-long authorial comment that precedes this passage is condensed into a half page, in which the implied narrator yields to the stream of consciousness of the character, and the sentence with ‘come’ is completely omitted. In the third case, Pietro is gathering his spiritual forces to confess his socially unacceptable love to Maria. ‘Pietro ebbe come una suggestione di calma, di fresco, e il desiderio abbastanza poetico ed egoista di una notte, di un silenzio eterno, in cui potessero vivere egli e Maria soltanto, essi soli, non disturbati dal timore del ritorno di zio Nicola o dal risveglio di zia Luisa’ [Pietro felt something like peacefulness, freshness, and the quite poetic and egoistic desire for a night and an eternal silence, in which he and Maria alone, only the two of them, could live, undisturbed by the fear of Uncle Nicola’s return or Aunt Luisa’s awakening (A, 72)].17 The whole passage disappears in B, 96–7, and the lengthy introduction to Pietro’s first love declaration to Maria is confined to a sharp depiction of the clear winter night outside in contrast to the warm atmosphere inside around the fireplace in the kitchen.18 Pietro’s sudden inner calm derives here, in more veristic tones, from the physical effort that he makes by stirring up the fire with a heavy log. In the fourth case, the beginning of the ninth chapter contains a detailed recounting of Pietro’s state of happiness after obtaining Maria’s ‘I love you.’ ‘Viveva come in un nuovo mondo, in una nuova esistenza, e tutto gli sembrava bello e facile; e una indulgenza, una bontà, una dolcezza mai provata gli regnavano in cuore’ [He lived as though in a new world, in a new existence, and everything seemed beautiful and easy to him; and in his heart reigned an indulgence, a goodness, and a sweetness that he had never experienced before (A, 85)]. This passage has vanished in B, and the more synthetic beginning of the chapter there hinges rather on the dreamlike quality of Pietro’s happiness: ‘Per qualche mese Pietro Benu visse come in un sogno ... I primi giorni, specialmente, egli visse stordito, febbricitante, sospeso fra cielo e terra ... Non era stato mai così felice, e neppure aveva mai sognato tanta fortuna’ [For a few months Pietro Benu lived as though in a dream ... The first days in particular, he was stunned, feverish, suspended between heaven and earth ... He had never been that happy, and had never dreamed of such fortune either (B, 118)]. In all four cases Deledda implements Capuana’s guidelines and

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obtains a more precise level of expression by reducing the psychological digressions of the authorial voice and avoiding the improper prepositional use of ‘come.’ Still, the last example indicates the intellectual and narrative independence of the young writer. She willingly maintains the grammatically incorrect use of ‘come’ to blur the border between dream and reality that defines the psychological status of her tormented male protagonist. The confusion of the real and unreal will emerge, as we shall see, as a thread in the variations from A to B/C. Suffice it to notice here that in this specific example Deledda is at the same time following Capuana’s advice toward more precise and veristic expression and distancing herself from the naturalistic faith in objective representation of outer and inner reality. 1.2.b. Linguistic Changes: Against ‘Aulicismo’ 19 It is the same narrative independence that guides Deledda in the main aspect of her linguistic revision of La via del male’s first edition. When Capuana criticized her ‘out of tune’ utterances, such as the adjective ‘jeratico,’ he referred to those ‘aggettivi exornanti e gabrielici’ [ornamental adjectives in the style of Gabriele D’Annunzio] that Pascoli wanted to reduce drastically in his poetry in order to distance himself from D’Annunzio’s rhetoric. In general, Capuana aimed at ‘non solo gli aggettivi, ma certe combinazioni di parole auliche o evocanti immagini vaghe e desuete: cascami di un preziosismo dannunziano di maniera, ma anche barlumi di espressionismo linguistico di marca scapigliata’ [not only the adjectives, but also certain combinations of lofty words evoking vague and unusual images, which were the waste of overpolished affectation in D’Annunzio’s style, but also gleams of linguistic expressionism in the style of Scapigliatura (Mortara Garavelli 1991: 150)]. An example of these remainders of ‘preziosismo dannunziano di maniera’ is certainly the simile that Capuana quotes (this time exactly, even if, as usual, without specific page references in the text): ‘Fuori il vento diventava sempre più violento e cantava come un pazzo inno di leggende nella gran notte sublime dei cristiani’ [Outside the wind became more and more violent and sang like a mad hymn of old legends in the sublime, deep night of the Christians (A, 65)]. Inserted in the ‘scena omerica’ [Homeric scene (B, 87/C, 261)] with Pietro Benu and his future fatherin-law, Zio Nicola, improvising epic chants around the fireplace on Christmas Eve, this comparison made by the implied narrator imposes the refined culture of the author upon the primordial culture of the

La via del male 41

character, thus deviating from veristic impersonality, as Capuana noticed (1973: 100–1). Therefore, the simile disappears completely in the later editions, in which we find a sober ‘fuori soffiava una violenta tramontana’ [outside a violent north wind was blowing (B, 88/C, 261)]. In the same spirit of previous examples, Deledda quite consistently trimmed utterances of ‘aulic,’ redundant, and decadent style in search of ‘scorrevolezza, di elementare lindore formale’ [fluency and fundamental formal tidiness (Mortara Garavelli 1991: 151)]. A comparative analysis of the three volume editions of La via del male points out Deledda’s constant preoccupation with the linguistic problem or ‘questione della lingua’ in post-unification Italy, in which Sardinia played an extremely marginal role. Moreover, a thorough examination contradicts Deledda’s pessimistic statement in the letter to Antonio Scano of 10 October 1892: Ora non faccio nulla. Cioè, studio soltanto, e, secondo il suo consiglio, cerco di studiare la lingua, perché la fantasia non mi manca. E ho afferrato il Manzoni, il Boccaccio e il Tasso, e tanti altri classici che mi fanno sbadigliare e dormire. Dio mio! È inutile! Io non riuscirò mai ad avere il dono della buona lingua, ed è vano ogni sforzo della mia volontà. Scriverò sempre male, lo sento, perché l’abitudine di scrivere così come viene è radicata ormai nella mia povera penna (Versi e prose giovanili, 238–40) [Now I am not doing anything. That is, I am only studying and, following your advice, I try to study the language, because I am not lacking imagination. And I have seized Manzoni, Boccaccio, Tasso, and many other classics that make me yawn and fall asleep. My God! It is useless! I will never be gifted with a good language, and every effort of my will is in vain. My writing will always be of poor quality, I feel it, because the habit to write as it comes is ingrained in my poor pen.]

Despite Deledda’s early discouragement, the strong will to improve her linguistic abilities in written Italian20 would eventually meet the ambitious goal of preserving the regional elements of the language of her characters and reaching a standardized, unified Italian that would make her work and world accessible to a broad, middle-class national public.21 The conspicuous list of ‘aulic’ expressions that punctuate the first edition of La via del male is drastically shortened in the second edition by means of two authorial devices: 1) elimination and 2) adaptation. 1) Numerous nouns, adjectives, and verbs are simply erased in the pas-

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sage from A to B. A significant example for many others is ‘epifonema’ for ‘exclamation’ from ancient Greek ‘epiphonema,’ which occurs twice in A, 34 and 66, but disappears completely in B, 52/C, 238 and B, 91/C, 264. Other cases of erasure are ‘prece’ for ‘prayer’ from Latin ‘prex, precis’ (A, 40 > B, 61/C, 244) or ‘Espero’ for ‘Venus’ from ancient Greek ‘Hesperos’ (A, 125 > B, 158/C, 305). Adjectives like ‘diruto’ for ‘ruined’ from Latin ‘dirutus’ (A, 125 > B, 159/C, 306) or the superlative ‘algentissime’ for ‘very icy’ from Latin present participle ‘algens, algentis’ (A, 138 > B, 179/C, 318) are also completely eliminated. 2) Several other aulicismi are translated into equivalent standard Italian expressions to conform to the competence of a middle-class audience. This is the case of such verbal phrases as the past perfect ‘si assise’ for ‘he sat down,’ which becomes ‘sedette’ (A, 61 > B, 84/C, 258), or the imperfect ‘pareano’ for ‘they appeared,’ which becomes ‘sembravano’ (A, 109 > B 141/C, 295). For nouns, ‘duolo’ for ‘mourning’ from Latin ‘dolus’ changes into the more common ‘lutto’ (A, 216 > B, 262/C, 369), and ‘novella’ for ‘news’ from Latin ‘novellus’ changes into ‘notizia’ (A, 148 > B, 196/C, 328). An adverb such as ‘tosto’ for ‘right away’ from Latin ‘tostus’ evolves into ‘subito’ (A, 182 > B, 232/C, 350). Among adjectives, ‘intemperanti’ for ‘intemperate’ from Latin ‘intemperans’ becomes a more general ‘viziosi’ (A, 66 > B, 91/C, 263). Finally, convoluted and refined verbal phrases undergo simplifying revision. For instance, we learn in A that Maria, the spouse of rich landowner Francesco Rosana, ‘menava quasi una vita signorile’ [led almost the life of the upper class]. The same sociological connotation is later translated into a more bourgeois sounding ‘era diventata quasi una signora’ [had become almost a lady (A, 175 > B, 223/C, 344)]. The list of erased or adapted ‘aulic’ expressions could continue almost indefinitely. The examples mentioned above are taken from different lexical categories to show Deledda’s consistent attitude in her linguistic revision of the novel that launched her – and Sardinia – into the national and international literary scene. 1.3. From La via del male (1906) to La via del male (1916): 1.2. Inconsistent Revision or Intellectual Independence? Despite my effort to underline Deledda’s coherent editorial choices, some inconsistencies remain. For the most part, the author eliminates them in her second revision for the first Treves edition of the novel in

La via del male 43

1916 (C). The minuscule variations from B to C attempt to move further toward a spoken, standard Italian by polishing some obsolete choices of 1) lexical, 2) pronominal, 3) orthographic, and 4) phonetic nature. 1) For the first group of lexical modifications, suffice it to compare a descriptive sentence reminiscent of D’Annunzio’s style about the joyful atmosphere at a country fair, ‘un’onda di gioia e di voluttà accarezzava i bei contadini sani.’ [a wave of joy and voluptuousness caressed the handsome, healthy peasants (B, 35)], with ‘un’aria di gioia e di voluttà avvolgeva i bei contadini sani’ [a joyous and voluptuous look wrapped up the handsome, healthy peasants (C, 228)]. In C the decadent ‘voluttà’ stays but is mitigated through more realistic ‘aria’ and ‘avvolgeva.’ 2) Pronominal variations go from the rather literary ‘ella’ to the spoken ‘lei’ [she (B, 31 > C, 325)] in accordance with a general trend in Deledda’s late works and in the Italian literature of the time, which went back to Manzoni’s lesson (Mortara Garavelli 1991: 158). 3) Orthographic variations affect in particular the diphthong ‘-ie’ as plural ending of feminine nouns in ‘-ia’ such as ‘rocc-ia’ [rock] and ‘querc-ia’ [oak] or in the future tense of the verb ‘lasc-ia-re.’ These recurring cases show an evolution from a puristic form (‘rocc-ie,’ ‘querc-ie,’ and ‘guanc-ie’) to a standardized form (‘rocc-e,’ ‘querc-e,’ and ‘guanc-e’), in which the ending diphthong is assimilated into ‘e’ (B, 320, 133, 327, etc. > C, 405, 289, 408, etc.). 4) Finally, phonetic changes from B to C toward a spoken Italian standard become evident, for instance, in the case of ‘vomer-e’ [ploughshare], which is modified into ‘vomer-o’ (A, 42/B, 63 > C, 245), or in the case of ‘dimagrato’ [slimmer because of weight loss] which is modified into ‘dimagrito’ (A, 61/B, 84 > C, 259). Despite the consistent trend toward the ‘lingua media parlata’ [standard spoken language (Mortara Garavelli 1991: 155)] in both revisions, we can detect some minor inconsistencies from B to C that reveal the difficult search for the ‘buona lingua’ [good language] even in the minimal details. An example is the oscillation from ‘trecc-e’ [braids] to ‘trecc-ie’ back to ‘trecc-e’ (A, 108 > B, 141 > C, 205; see also ‘piogg-e’ [rainfalls] A, 144 >‘piogg-ie’ B, 192 > ‘piogg-e’ C, 326). To reinforce Deledda’s subtle statement of intellectual independence on the road to modernity on the linguistic level, we should examine one of these apparent inconsistencies more closely. I refer to the adjective ‘jeratico’ for ‘sacred’ from ancient Greek ‘hieratikós,’ which Capuana had explicitly condemned (1973 [1898]: 100). Interestingly, the phrase that Capuana quoted – ‘una certa barba maestosa e jeratica’ [a certain majestic and hieratical beard (emphasis in the text)] – does not occur as

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such in A. The phrase that reminds us most closely of Capuana’s choice is: ‘vecchie teste jeratiche di pastori’ [old, hieratical heads of shepherds (A, 106)] and refers to the elderly participants in the procession to the Monte Gonare. This cathartic moment of folkloric culture and fusion of Christian traditions and archaic Sardinian rituals reflects the centrality of Deledda’s ethnological research in the years of La via del male, which culminated with the volume publication of Le tradizioni popolari in Sardegna in 1894 (Turchi 1994: 13). This long ethnological digression is certainly deprived of redundant authorial comments and descriptions of traditional costumes in the revision from A to B/C, but it continues to play a pivotal role in the narrative structure of all three versions. It is during this procession that Maria Noina meets Francesco Rosana, and the sacred frame of this encounter marks the unbridgeable gap between Maria and Pietro’s impossible love beyond class barriers and Maria and Francesco’s relationship blessed by social conventions. We shall return later to this key chapter 10 of the novel for its thematic changes (see 1.7.a, pp. 67–8). At this point, it is important to note that the sacred aura of the procession defines Maria and Francesco’s encounter. This high level of sacredness does not primarily refer to specific confessional liturgies and religious customs. It is not coincidental that the revised version of this chapter eliminates most references to Catholic traditions and images. From the very beginning of the same chapter in B, for instance, we note the disappearance of the precise explanation in Catholic terms of the reason for the procession: Pallide pellegrine notturne, le graziose giovinette nuoresi si recavano a piedi al santuario di Gonare per sciogliere un voto, o domandare una grazia, o deporre un cero e una preghiera ai piedi della soave Madonna che, due volte all’anno, chiama a sé, sulle vette eccelse e selvagge della sua montagna, tante anime bisognose di aiuti sovrumani, afflitte da dolori fisici e spirituali. (A, 93–4) [Pale, nocturnal pilgrims, the handsome Nuorese girls walked to the Gonare sanctuary to be released from a vow, or ask for a blessing, or offer a large candle or a prayer at the feet of the gentle Madonna who, twice a year, calls to her, up to the high and wild mountain top, so many souls in need of transcendent help, afflicted by physical and spiritual pain.] >Le graziose pellegrine notturne si recavano a piedi al santuario che sorge sulla cima del monte Gonare; alcune intendevano di sciogliere un voto,

La via del male 45 altre domandare una grazia, le più volevano semplicemente divertirsi. L’indomani si celebrava la festa: gente di ogni paese del circondario sarebbe salita a Gonare; c’era da vedere, da ballare, da divertirsi. (B, 127/C, 285) [The handsome girls walked like nocturnal pilgrims to the Gonare sanctuary that is located on the top of the mountain. Some of them intended to be released from a vow, others, to ask for a blessing, but the majority of them wanted simply to have fun. The next day there would be the big celebration; people from all around would come up to Gonare; there would be the opportunity to watch, dance, and have fun.]

What is left in B is a more general elucidation about the traditional significance of the procession with the addition of the ‘human, all too human’ reasons for the young peasants to take part in it: to enjoy themselves and meet new people. According to the same unconfessional sacredness, we will not find in B allusions to Maria’s resemblance to a ‘Madonna, una martire cristiana lumeggiata dal pennello amoroso d’un fresco artista del Rinascimento’ [Madonna, a Christian martyr illuminated by the loving paint brush of a fresh Renaissance artist (A, 97 > B, 131/C, 288)]. Nor will we encounter the digression on the miracle that, according to a medieval legend, accounts for the name of the sanctuary of Madonna di Gonare (A, 99– 100 > B, 132/C, 288). It is, therefore, even more significant that Deledda decides to leave the phrase that includes the adjective ‘jeratico’ in both revisions. This linguistic presence – the only occurrence of this lofty adjective in A, B, and C – can be interpreted first of all as an implicit protest against a certain dismissive approximation in Capuana’s criticism. Secondly, and more importantly, the ‘vecchie teste jeratiche di pastori’ [old, hieratical heads of shepherds (A, 106/B, 139/C, 293)], which Maria admires in the stunning and splendid diversity of the traditional costumes and physical traits of the crowd gathered around the sanctuary, hint at the sacred dimension of life that Maria and Pietro’s generation is endangering through its loss of the spiritual principles that used to connect the individual with nature and community. Maria and Pietro’s materialistic values undermine the sacredness of love as interpenetration of natural and religious dimensions. The implication of Deledda’s apparent inconsistency in maintaining the ‘aulic’ adjective ‘jeratico’ is that superficial linguistic criticism should not diminish the significance of that sacred aura, which ‘jeratico’ expresses so forcefully.

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1.4. Toward Formal ‘Simplification’ (Herczeg) and Modernity The permanence for whatever reason of a highly literary and sophisticated qualifier like ‘jeratico’ represents rather an exception in a consistent pattern of ‘simplification’ that, according to Giulio Herczeg, characterizes the sentence structure of Deledda’s writing. Rather than insisting on the traditional aspects of Deledda’s style (Cecchi 1941: 4) and the deviation from the linguistic standard of her time through the insertion of regional lexical and syntactic elements,22 Herczeg convincingly highlights Deledda’s contribution to the evolution of Italian prose after Manzoni. He points out la funzione della scrittrice nel cammino faticoso per la liberazione della prosa italiana dalle pastoie di formule invecchiate. Grazia Deledda adottò formule nuove, intese a facilitare la trasformazione della frase a struttura tradizionale. (1973: 202) [the role that Deledda played in the difficult road to free Italian prose from the shackles of obsolete forms. She adopted new forms aimed at facilitating the transformation of the traditional sentence structure.]

In particular, Herczeg examines the simplification of the sentence structure in Deledda’s mature writings, such as Il fanciullo nascosto [The Hidden Child (1916)], Il segreto dell’uomo solitario (1921), or Il Dio dei viventi [The God of the Living (1922)]. He refers to ‘La via del male, 1896,’ for the presence of ‘discorso indiretto libero’ [free indirect discourse (1973: 205, 206)]; however, he does not specify that the quotations in his study derive from the 1916 edition of the novel. It is, therefore, crucial to our understanding of Deledda’s precocious evolution toward modernity on the linguistic plane, and complementary to Herczeg’s seminal contribution, to consider some examples of the same simplifying strategy from the first revision of an early novel like La via del male. This order of considerations will shed new light on Deledda’s role in the modernization of Italian prose. First of all, sentences are often simplified by the reduction of adjectives and adverbs from A to B, even when they do not belong to the aulic register that we have previously analysed. For instance, Maria’s ‘voglia abbastanza vile e volgare’ [quite mean and vulgar desire (A, 80)] to show her hatred for Pietro the servant becomes a more synthetic ‘guardava

La via del male 47

con disprezzo’ [watched with contempt (B, 108/C, 274)], deprived of the redundant pair of adjectives. The adverbial phrase ‘con un tono leggermente canzonatorio’ [with a slightly mocking tone (A, 170)] is streamlined into ‘con lieve ironia’ [with light irony (B, 217/C, 341)]. Following the same simplifying pattern, ‘Pietro si trovò ... fieramente ammanettato’ [Pietro found himself proudly handcuffed (A, 138)] evolves into ‘... si trovò preso’ [... he got caught (B, 179/C, 318)]. More importantly for the lighter rhythm of the sentence, Deledda tends to eliminate gerunds and adjectival present participles and unfolds them into verbal phrases with the indicative. One striking example of the gerund disappearance, which also introduces the central narrative theme of the journey, reads: ‘“Camminando, camminando sempre, figlia mia”’ [‘Walking, always walking, my daughter’ (A, 54)]. In B we will find: ‘“Si cammina, si cammina”’ [‘One walks, one walks’ (B, 75/C, 254)]. For the present participle, which abounds in the first edition, suffice it to mention ‘gruppi di paesane e paesani, riedenti dalla campagna’ [groups of peasant girls and boys, returning from the countryside (A, 23)]. This lofty adjectival phrase in the original changes into ‘gruppi di contadini e di paesane tornavano chiacchierando dalle vendemmie’ [groups of peasant girls and boys came back chatting from the grape harvest (B, 37/C, 229)]. The elimination of the polysyndeton in favour of asyndeton contributes noticeably to the simplification of the sentence structure. In the description of Sabina’s activities during the festive preparation for Maria’s first wedding, we find: ‘... Sabina entrava nel magazzino del pian terreno, vuotava il grano, riponeva le torte e coi recipienti restitutiva un pezzo di carne bovina, e cuori e uccelli e fiori di mandorle cucinate col miele’ [Sabina went into the warehouse on the first floor, emptied the wheat basket, laid down the cakes and filled the containers to be returned with beef, and hearts and birds and flowers made with almonds cooked with honey (A, 145)]. The passage loses its rhetorical overtone and lightens up when it changes as follows: ‘ella entrava nella dispensa e vuotava il grano, riponeva le torte, e nei recipienti da restituirsi ai donatori metteva un bel pezzo di carne bovina, un cuore di pasta dolce e di mandorle ed altri pasticcini in forma di uccelli, di fiori, di triangoli’ [she went into the storeroom and emptied the wheat basket, laid down the cakes, and in the containers to be returned to the donors put a good piece of beef, a heart made of sweet dough and almonds, and other little pastries in the form of birds, flowers, and triangles (B, 193/C, 326)]. The simplification of the sentence structure that Herczeg points out

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in Deledda’s mature and late works becomes particularly evident in the systematic replacement of hypotaxis with parataxis that characterizes the first revision of La via del male. The following passage belongs to a key chapter of the novel, in which Maria and Francesco arrive at Francesco’s ‘tanca,’ the idyllic country estate where the newlyweds will tragically end their honeymoon. In contrast with the protective function of the hortus conclusus literary topos, from Boccaccio’s Decameron to Bassani’s Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini [The Garden of the Finzi-Continis], the seemingly enchanted garden of La via del male will not save its guests from death.23 Here Pietro Benu will advance on ‘the path of evil’ and will take revenge on Francesco Rosana, who has married his beloved Maria Noina. Francesco’s servant, and allegedly Pietro’s accomplice, is shepherd Turulia, who is introduced as follows: Zizzu Croca, detto Turulia (Il Nibbio, in the footnote),24 il grosso pastore, un pezzo di giovinotto prepotente, con grandi occhi azzurri da settentrionale in un volto nero, arso e aquilino d’arabo, e con tanto di mastrucca lanosa [che lo rassomigliava assai ad un animale selvatico,] si decise [che dormirebbe all’aperto, sotto le siepi dell’ovile,] [[per cedere interamente ai padroni la capanna,]] [[[dove verrebbe composto un bel letto di frasche molli e di felci,]]] [[[[che, [[[[[con le coperte e i cuscini già fatti portare dai giorni prima]]]]], sarebbe qualcosa di meraviglioso.]]]]25(A, 181) {They decided [that Zizzu Croca, named Turulia (Il Nibbio, in the footnote), the big shepherd, a hefty and overbearing young man with the wide, blue eyes of Northern Italians in a dark, dried-up and aquiline face like an Arab, with the furry goat vest typical of Sardinian shepherds, [[which made him closely resemble a wild animal,]] would sleep in the open air, under the hedge of the sheepfold,] [[[in order to leave his hut completely free for his masters,]]] [[[[in which they would put together a nice bed with soft, leafy branches and ferns,]]]] [[[[[which, [[[[[[with the blankets and pillows already carried there in the previous days, ]]]]]] would become a marvellous thing.]]]]]}

The descriptive paragraph unfolds in a series of five subordinate sentences preceded by six appositional phrases. The first subordinate sentence is a declarative clause introduced by ‘che’ [that] depending upon ‘si decise’ [they decided]. The second subordinate is the final infinitive clause ‘per cedere interamente ai padroni la capanna’ [to leave his hut

La via del male 49

completely free for his masters], which introduces the new subordinate relative clause ‘dove verrebbe composto un bel letto di frasche molli e di felci’ [in which they would put together a nice bed with soft, leafy branches and ferns]. In turn, this relative clause introduces a fourth subordinate, again a relative clause containing a new parenthetical phrase (‘che, con le coperte e i cuscini già fatti portare dai giorni prima, sarebbe qualcosa di meraviglioso’) [which, with the blankets and pillows already carried there in the previous days, would become a marvellous thing]. The heavily hypotactic sentence structure of the paragraph is strained further by the occurrence of the present conditional for the indirect discourse (‘che dormirebbe’ etc.) [that he would sleep].26 Here is the revised paragraph: Era un grosso e rozzo giovanotto dal nome duro: Zizzu Croca, e dal nomignolo poco rassicurante: Turulia (Nibbio, in the footnote) – una figura da uomo primordiale, con grossi occhi iniettati di sangue, in un viso nero, arso e aquilino d’arabo: la mastrucca, sopragiacca di pelle lanosa, completava il suo aspetto di uomo selvaggio. Nonostante questo aspetto, Zizzu Croca aveva maniere garbate ed una voce dolce, quasi femminile. Lasciate fare a me, – disse, [poiché Maria e Francesco si preoccupavano per il giaciglio,] – vi farò un letto più bello del vostro letto di sposi. Io dormirò fuori, sotto la siepe, o costrurrò un’altra capanna: qui, in quest’angolo, faremo un bel giaciglio di felci, [sulle quali stenderemo il materasso, i cuscini, e le coperte] [[che arriveranno da Nuoro]]. (B, 229– 30/C, 348–9) {He was a big and rude young man with a hard name: Zizzu Croca, and with a nickname that was not very reassuring: Turulia (Nibbio, in the footnote) – a figure of a primordial man, with large, bloodshot eyes, in a dark, dried-up and aquiline face like an Arab: the mastrucca, a vest of furry leather, completed his look of a wild man. Despite his appearance, Zizzu Croca had good manners and a sweet voice, almost feminine. Let me take care of this, – he said, [since Maria and Francesco worried about their bed,] – I will make you a bed more beautiful than your nuptial bed. I will sleep outside, under the hedge, or I will build another hut: here, in this corner, I will make a nice bed with ferns, [on which we will spread the mattress, pillows, and blankets,] [[which will arrive from Nuoro]]}.

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The heavily hypotactic structure has given way to a much lighter paratactic structure with shorter sentences and more rhythmic punctuation. Only three subordinate sentences are left, a causal clause (‘poiché Maria e Francesco si preoccupavano per il giaciglio’) [since Maria and Francesco worried about their bed] and two interdependent relative clauses (‘sulle quali stenderemo il materasso, i cuscini e le coperte che arriveranno da Nuoro’), [on which we will spread the mattress, pillows, and blankets, which will arrive from Nuoro]. In addition, indirect discourse has been replaced by direct discourse, thus introducing an important structural reason for the syntactic simplification of the second edition. While aiming at the ‘buona lingua,’ Deledda realizes that indirect discourses and authorial comments lend themselves to diegetic excesses, characterized by convoluted subordination, juxtaposition of authorial point of view with the characters’ points of view, and usage of the ‘aulic’ register. As Herczeg notes, ‘Grazia Deledda, pur consapevole delle forme retoriche del Manzoni, trasformò il periodo ampio, composto di molte coordinate e subordinate ... in una successione di frasi semplici, con poche propaggini’ [Grazia Deledda, although aware of Manzoni’s rhetorical forms, transformed the long sentence, consisting of many coordinate and subordinate clauses ... into a sequence of simple sentences, with few ramifications (1973: 220)]. This is precisely what happens in the modification of the sentence structure in the second edition of La via del male in order to reach ‘un registro meno letterario, più colloquiale, più vicino al parlato’ [a less literary register, more colloquial, closer to the spoken register (Maxia 1999: 104)]. In B direct discourse consistently takes over indirect discourse and comments by the implied narrator, which are often devoted to psychological analyses or ethnological explanations, and thus renders characters’ psychology and Sardinian ethnology more accessible to a middle-class audience. Moreover, direct discourse allows the author to represent more poignantly the choral dimension of the narrative, at the centre of the poetics of Verism. For instance, at the beginning of the procession from Nuoro to Monte Gonare, Maria Noina captures everyone’s attention with the beauty of her long, dark hair: Avvezza a camminare scalza e a percorrere grandi distanze a piedi, non provava alcuna sofferenza in quel lungo e originale pellegrinaggio: solo i capelli le davano gran fastidio, perché la brezza freschissima della notte glieli scompigliava, gettandoglieli sul viso; ma anche questo inconveniente

La via del male 51 le veniva ricompensato dalla soddisfazione di sentirsi ogni tanto lodare e ammirare la veramente magnifica chioma dalle compagne di viaggio. Erano tutte simpatiche e graziose ragazze, ma nessuna, certo, possedeva capelli altrettanto folti, lunghi e crespi; forse per ciò nessuna li lasciava vedere, e senza forse neppur Maria avrebbe adempito completamente al suo voto se non fosse stata conscia di aver la più bella capigliatura bruna di Nuoro. (A, 94) [Accustomed to walking barefoot and covering long distances on foot, she did not suffer at all during that long and eccentric pilgrimage: only her hair bothered her a great deal, because the chilly nocturnal breeze ruffled it by throwing it on her face; but even this inconvenience was compensated by the satisfaction of hearing her travel companions praise and admire her truly magnificent mane. They were all nice and handsome girls, but certainly no one had equally thick, long and wavy hair; probably for this reason no other girl showed her hair and probably without that kind of hair even Maria would not have completely fulfilled her vow, were she not fully aware of having the most beautiful dark hair in Nuoro.]

Instead of inserting the implied narrator’s psychological interpretation about Maria’s feeling of gratification for her peers’ admiration, the revision insists on the choral dimension of the event: I lunghi capelli neri le ondeggiavano sulle spalle, inumiditi dalla rugiada; la brezza talvolta glieli scompigliava, gettandoglieli sul viso, ma questo fastidio le veniva poi ricompensato dalla soddisfazione di sentirsi lodare dalle sue compagne di viaggio. – Sembri una fata, Maria Noina, coi tuoi capelli sciolti. ... – Dio guardi i tuoi capelli, Maria Noina: lascia ch’io li tocchi per evitare il malocchio ... – Preghiamo, – propose Rosa S’ispina, invidiosa delle lodi che le compagne rivolgevano a Maria. (B, 128/C, 286) [The dark, long hair, moistened by dew, blew on her shoulders; sometimes the breeze ruffled it by throwing it on her face, but the satisfaction of hearing her travel companions’ praise made up for this nuisance. – You look like a fairy, Maria Noina, with your loose hair. ... – God save your hair, Maria Noina: Let me touch it to avoid the evil eye ...

52

Grazia Deledda’s Dance of Modernity – Let’s pray, – suggested Rosa S’ispina, envious about the praise her peers expressed for Maria.]

The conscious use of direct discourse enables the author to convey her knowledge about Nuoro customs that she would otherwise insert through gnomic statements. In the first edition, the timeless-truth content of these utterances frequently causes the sudden switch from past to present tense (Herczeg 1973: 204). Here is a telling example: Così passarono i quindici giorni e tutto il resto di settembre, e Francesco Rosana continuò a frequentar la casa, finché le vicine, con quella finezza di osservazione che solo le donne nuoresi hanno, non fiutarono il segreto e lo sparsero a tutti i venti. In breve tutta la città seppe che Maria e Francesco erano qualche cosa come fidanzati, o vicini ad esserlo. (A, 120) [The fifteen days went by, and then the remainder of September, and Francesco Rosana continued to pay visits to Maria’s house. Finally, some neighbours, with the keen sense of observation that only Nuorese women possess, smelled the secret [of Maria and Francesco’s relationship] and threw it to the winds. Rapidly the whole town knew that Maria and Francesco were something like engaged, or close to becoming so.]

In the second edition, we hear the neighbours’ voices, which stress the social function of the veristic chorus: Le due settimane passarono ... Già i regali fioccavano, da casa Rosana a casa Noina: quasi ogni giorno le vicine e il bettoliere curioso vedevano arrivare una donna di servizio, che teneva sul capo un canestro ben coperto da un tovagliolo bianco. – Sarà un canestro di frutta, – diceva il bettoliere, scacciando le mosche dalla sua botteguccia. – No, saranno dei biscotti con la cappa (Coperti di zucchero, in footnote) – rispondeva una vicina dalla porta di contro ... – Non si capisce perché quella donna non si decida. Ma voglio dirglielo. (B, 151/ C, 300–1; emphasis in the text; see also A, 103–4 > B, 137–8/C, 292) [The two weeks went by ... There was already a shower of presents from the Rosanas’ home to the Noinas’ home: Almost every day the neighbours and the inquisitive pub keeper saw a maid come in, who held on her head a basket covered with a white napkin.

La via del male 53 – It’s probably a basketful of fruits, – said the pub keeper while driving away the flies from his modest shop. – No, it’s probably a basket full of cookies with the glaze (covered with sugar, in the footnote) – a neighbour replied from the door in front of him ... – One can’t understand why that girl doesn’t make up her mind. But I want to tell her something.]

In addition to the usage of direct discourse, Herczeg analyses the function of free indirect discourse in Deledda’s revisions. According to Herczeg, free indirect discourse is one of the narrative devices that Deledda implements most successfully to express with immediacy and simplicity the psychological crisis of her characters or to trace portraits of other characters and descriptions of landscapes. The free indirect style is connected with il generale atteggiamento della scrittrice di creare una prosa antiretorica, a corto respiro ... [in quanto promuove] la paratassi ... proposizioni semplici ... aumenta il numero dei sintagmi isolati, delle frasi consistenti in poche parole e spesso delle frasi non terminate, interrotte emotivamente ... le proposizioni interrogative e esclamative. (1973: 213) [Deledda’s general intention of creating an anti-rhetorical, short-paced prose ... (since it promotes) parataxis, ... simple clauses, ... increases the number of isolated syntagms, phrases consisting only of few words and often incomplete sentences, interrupted for emotional reasons, ... and interrogative and exclamatory clauses.]

On the formal level, the constant insertion of free indirect discourse to replace direct discourse and comments of the implied narrator represents the most significant sign of Deledda’s early journey to modernity. The following passage from the beginning of the novel shows Sabina, Maria’s cousin and a simple peasant girl who had first attracted Pietro’s attention, confused about Pietro’s interest in her and in need of disclosing her ‘anima istintivamente sentimentale’ [instinctively sentimental soul (A, 56)] to the more sophisticated Maria: Quella sera sentì il bisogno di riparlarne con Maria, ma non sapeva dove cominciare. – Quando ritornerà? – domandò, rimaste sole, risalendo con un po’ d’ansia il viottolo della Concia.

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Grazia Deledda’s Dance of Modernity – Ma, non so. Forse prima di Natale. Ha detto che non ritornerebbe fino a lavoro finito. Ma egli lo sa, e tu pure dovresti saperlo meglio di me, – disse Maria maliziosamente. – Io non so nulla, – rispose Sabina timidamente. (A, 57) [That evening she felt the need to talk again about Pietro with Maria, but she did not know where she should start. – When will he come back? – she asked when they were left alone on the way up the Concia path. – Well, I don’t know. Perhaps before Christmas. He said he would not be back before his work is done. But he knows when, and you should know it as well, better than me, – said Maria with malice. – I know nothing, – Sabina answered shyly.]

The revision condenses the direct discourse above into a brief free indirect discourse: Sabina continuava nel suo sogno sentimentale. Quando tornava Pietro? Avrebbero avuto occasione di incontrarsi ancora? Ah, se ella avesse potuto avere le ali come un uccello e volare vicino a lui per scrutarne i pensieri! (B, 77–8/C, 255) [Sabina went on with her sentimental dream. When would Pietro be back? Would they have a chance to meet again? If only she had wings like a bird to fly next to him and scan his thoughts!]

In this case, the free indirect style presents all markers of the interior monologue according to Herczeg’s analysis: the absence of verbal phrases introducing direct or indirect discourses, such as ‘she said’ or ‘she thought,’ the lack of quotation marks, the hammering questioning, and the optative exclamation. As I mentioned earlier, free indirect discourse is often inserted to ease the burdensome psychological analysis of the implied narrator. The general aim is to ‘far emergere in modo più netto il punto di vista dei personaggi’ [allow the characters’ point of view to emerge more clearly (Maxia 1999: 100)]. In this passage, the implied narrator focuses on the inexplicable unhappiness in Maria’s apparently complete self-fulfilment after her marriage to Francesco. Spesso però ella sentiva istintivamente come un gran vuoto nel cuore, qualcosa che non riusciva a percepire, ma la cui mancanza le dava una rapida,

La via del male 55 intensa sensazione di tristezza che le dilagava per ogni vena, per ogni fibra, e allora, annoiata (la noia era un’altra sensazione nuovissima per lei), con una inafferrabile espressione di stanchezza sulla fronte, cadeva in sogni indefiniti, pieni di desideri ignoti, di memorie vanescenti, di pensieri indistinti che la mente non voleva percepire. Ma erano come baleni, rapide visioni lontane e vaghe, riflessi di grigie nuvole che presto sfumavano. Si scuoteva subito, si guardava attorno e sorrideva, cullandosi, suggestionandosi nell’illusione di una felicità che realmente le mancava. (A, 177–8) [Oftentimes, though, her instinct felt a deep emptiness in her heart, something she could not perceive as such, but whose lack gave her a rapid and intense feeling of sadness that pervaded her every vein and fibre. Then ennui (another completely new feeling for her) took hold of her and infused her with an elusive expression of tiredness on her forehead. She fell into vague dreams, full of unknown wishes, evanescent memories, and unclear thoughts, which her mind did not want to perceive. But they were like flashes, swift, far and vague visions, reflections of grey clouds that vanished rapidly. She stirred herself immediately, looked around and smiled while lulling herself in the illusion of happiness, which she lacked in reality.]

In the second edition, the free indirect discourse voicing Maria’s interior monologue consolidates the lengthy authorial comments, which evoke Baudelaire’s ‘spleen’ and, closer to Deledda’s early readings, Bourget’s ‘maladie secrète de l’âme’27 [secret illness of the soul]: Ah, senza confessarlo apertamente, ella finiva con dire a sè stessa che qualche cosa le mancava: la scatola dei biglietti, il cestino delle monete, le vesti di lusso, i servi, l’invidia delle donne della sua classe, non bastavano dunque a riempire la sua vita. (B, 226/C, 346) [Ah, without admitting it openly, she used to end up by telling herself that something was missing: the box with the banknotes, the basket with the coins, the expensive clothes, the servants, the envy from women of the same social class, all this was then not enough to fill up her life.]

Despite the wide addition of free indirect discourse to render the characters’ interior monologues in the second edition of the novel, it is worth noticing that Deledda does not hesitate to eliminate occurrences of free indirect style when they purport a moralistic rather than moral point of

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view of the character. A more critical insight of the author into the spirit of modernity purges moralistic statements from the revised novel. One among several examples could be the disappearance of the following interior monologue by Pietro Benu. Forced to go to confession by religious and social conventions before the longed-for wedding with Maria Noina, he fears that admitting the murder of Francesco Rosana could jeopardize the fulfilment of his dream: Allora zia Luisa gli mandò il sacerdote che doveva sposarli, e costui gli parlò francamente, anche a nome del parroco: – O confessione, o nulla. Pietro passò due notti atroci, sacramentando fra sé, pensando al modo di risolvere quest’imbroglio, come lo chiamava. Sentiva una tristezza, un’ansia, un’inquietudine profonda; non poteva dormire né trovar pace. – No, certo, il confessore non l’avrebbe assolto, anzi avrebbe forse impedito il matrimonio. L’idea di un Dio che punisce e perdona non era abbastanza approfondita nella sua mente, perché egli sentisse la forza d’andarsi a denunziare come un gran colpevole, e perdere così la sua fortuna e la sua felicità ... Alla terza notte, mentre stanco e sofferente cominciava ad assopirsi, ebbe nella dolcezza del dormiveglia un’idea luminosa e soavissima. Come mai non gli era balenata prima? ... Ma sicuro, sarebbe andato a confessarsi, ma avrebbe confessato soltanto ciò che meglio gli pareva e piaceva! La luce s’era spenta del tutto nell’anima sua. (A, 267–8) [Then Aunt Luisa sent the priest who would marry them, and he spoke frankly with him, also on behalf of the parish priest: – Either you go to confession, or no wedding. Pietro spent two atrocious nights, swearing at himself and thinking about a way to solve this scrape. He felt such sadness, anxiety, profound unrest; he could neither sleep nor find peace. – No, for sure, the confessor would not have absolved him; on the contrary, he would probably have vetoed the wedding. The concept of a God that punishes and forgives was not rooted deeply enough in his mind that he felt the strength to give himself up as guilty, thus losing his fortune and happiness ... On the third night, while he was tired, aching, and just about to fall asleep, he had a bright and very sweet idea in the gentle atmosphere of halfsleep. Why did it not enlighten him before? ... Of course, he would go to confession, but would confess only and exclusively what he deemed appropriate! The light had completely died out in his soul.]

La via del male 57

The one-page-long moral debate, reminiscent of Dostoyevsky’s and Manzoni’s psychological analyses, ends with Pietro’s pragmatic decision to use the sacrament of confession simply to reach his goal of marrying Maria, even if this implies lying in front of God. What deeply differentiates Pietro Benu’s character from Dostoyevsky’s and Manzoni’s protagonists is exactly what the author chooses to emphasize through the elimination of the interior monologue in the free indirect style of the second edition: the complete loss of faith in a moral authority by a generation that adheres to traditional values only superficially and for utilitarian reasons.28 Pietro’s character and its narrative changes through the revisions express the deep crisis of archaic Sardinia at the onset of modernity. Young Deledda stigmatizes this aspect of the modern crisis in her own social context as ‘la più grande corruzione [che] invade tutto e tutti. E parlo del popolo sardo, che è in decadenza e in degenerazione come tutto il resto del mondo’ [the largest corruption, (which) infiltrates everything and everyone. And I am talking about the Sardinian people, who are decaying and degenerating like the entire rest of the world (letter to De Gubernatis, 18 September 1893, Di Pilla 1966: 441)]. The revised version of the previous passage underlines precisely this loss of meaning disguised as pragmatism: – Tu sai che non bisogna sposarsi in peccato mortale, – disse Maria con voce insinuante. – Peccati ne avrai commessi in questi anni! E’ necessario che tu ti confessi. Non dare quest’ultimo dispiacere a mia madre, Pietro ... Egli chinò, poi sollevò e scosse la testa. – Ebbene sia. Ma anche tu mi devi fare un piacere: non ho osato domandartelo prima. Per il tempo che abiteremo qui, nella casa di tuo padre, lascia che faccia portare nella camera dove dormiremo il letto che ho acquistato a Cagliari. Tu capirai ... Io desidero ... A sua volta Maria si fece pensierosa e triste. Era la sposa che doveva fornire il letto nuziale, e Pietro quasi la offendeva proponendole un letto suo; ma d’altra parte egli aveva ragione ... Allora vennero ad un accordo: Pietro si sarebbe confessato e Maria avrebbe messo un altro letto nella sua camera! (B, 299–300/C, 391) [– You know that one should not get married in mortal sin, – Maria said with an insinuating voice. – You have certainly sinned in these years! It is necessary for you to go to confession. Don’t give my mother this last sorrow, Pietro ... He bent his head, then looked up and shook his head. – Well, yes then. But you have to do me a favour as well: I did not dare ask

58

Grazia Deledda’s Dance of Modernity you before. For the time that we will live here, in your father’s house, allow me to have in the bedroom where we will sleep the bed that I have purchased in Cagliari. You’ll understand ... I would like to ... Maria, in her turn, became pensive and sad. It was the bride that ought to provide the nuptial bed, and Pietro was almost offending her by offering his bed; but, on the other hand, he was right ... Then they came up with an agreement; Pietro would go to confession and Maria would put his bed into her bedroom!]

Clearly, the revision lays bare the reduction from morality to moralism that takes place in the swap of a (false) confession for a (new) bed. Deledda chooses here to privilege scepticism (and irony, as stressed by the exclamatory conclusion) about moral values over the stylistic feature of the interior monologue through free indirect discourse. Moreover, this specific example represents a further case of the ‘simplification’ strategy on both levels of narrative style and content, which Deledda implements consistently in her revisions to reach a broad middle-class audience. 1.5. Toward the ‘Unified’ Italian Middle Class In addition to the linguistic shift from ‘aulic’ to standard Italian, and the syntactic turn from hypotaxis to parataxis with the generalized insertion of free indirect discourse that we have previously examined, Deledda targets a trans-regional, middle-class audience whenever she revises ethnological elements of the novel. At the linguistic level, she carefully detects and amends isolated utterances where she had not provided the reader with the Italian translation of the Sardinian original in parenthesis (more often in B) or in a footnote (more often in C). This is the case with ‘aronzu,’ the isolated country estate of his patrons where Pietro Benu spends the fall months sowing. While A does not explain the Italian meaning of the word in italics (A, 40), B and C carry a footnote with ‘il luogo in cui si ara’ [the place in which one ploughs (B, 61/ C, 244)]. Other Sardinian expressions that do not stress a significant theme, like the solitude and marginalization of the protagonist in ‘aronzu,’ are simply eliminated and incorporated directly in Italian into the text. This is the case of ‘sartu’ (A, 175), which becomes ‘ovile’ [sheep-fold (B, 224/C, 345)]. According to a general principle of didactic functionality, in the revision Deledda eliminates linguistic details that would not convey any sig-

La via del male 59

nificant information about Sardinian culture to a non-Sardinian reader. For instance, while we find in A the Sardinian translation of ‘camera da letto’ [bedroom] in parentheses ‘(sa dommo ‘e cambra)’ (A, 135; emphasis in the text), this superfluous information is left out in B, 175 and C, 316. More often, the author dilutes ethnological explanations and integrates the information into the narrative with subtle elegance. One of several examples, the chapter devoted to the aftermath of Francesco Rosana’s death, begins in the first edition as follows: Il giorno dopo, verso le dieci del mattino, in casa Noina si svolgeva una scena solenne e caratteristica. Si faceva la ria, cioè tutti gli stretti parenti del morto e della vedova, e specialmente le donne, sedute in riga, o meglio in circolo attorno alla cucina, piangevano, aspettando i sacerdoti che fra poco dovevano venire a togliersi la salma di Francesco Rosana. (A, 204; emphasis in the text) [The following day, around ten in the morning, a solemn and traditional scene took place at the Noinas’. It was the ria, that is, all close relatives of the dead and the widow, and in particular the women, sitting in a row, or better in a circle around the kitchen, were crying while waiting for the priests, who would come shortly thereafter to take away Franscesco Rosana’s remains.]

The overtly didactic tone of the explanatory sentence about the traditional ‘ria’ is mitigated in the second and third editions. There, the beginning of the chapter highlights the choral scene in the kitchen, and the information about the ‘ria’ re-emerges in the following passage within the limits of an appositive phrase: L’indomani, verso le dieci del mattino, una ventina di donne, sedute in circolo nella cucina dei Noina, piangevano e bisbigliavano, aspettando che i sacerdoti venissero e portassero via la salma di Francesco ... Nella cucina si svolgeva la ria, l’antica scena funebre, resa più caratteristica dal chiaroscuro dell’ambiente. Il focolare era spento, la finestra chiusa; solo dalla porta penetrava un filo di luce, e un sottile raggio di sole si ostinava ad entrare per una fessura del finestrino, descrivendo una striscia di pulviscolo nel vuoto e andando a finire in un occhio d’oro sulla parete opposta. (B, 252–3/C, 362–3; emphasis in the text) [The following day, around ten in the morning, about twenty women, sitting in a circle in the Noinas’ kitchen, were crying and whispering, while waiting for the priests who would come to take away Francesco’s remains ...

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Grazia Deledda’s Dance of Modernity What was taking place in the kitchen was the ria, the ancient funeral scene, made more characteristic through the chiaroscuro of the environment. The fire in the fireplace was out, the window closed; only through the door did a thread of light infiltrate, and a thin sunray persisted in entering the kitchen through a crack in the little window. It designed a streak of dust in the emptiness and ended up in a golden eye on the opposite wall.]

The meaning of the ‘ria’ is retained in B/C, but the visual intensity of the ‘chiaroscuro’29 depiction of the kitchen is highlighted and beautifully shades off the coexistence of light and darkness, joy and pain, in the existential journey of the characters. The didactic purpose of the novel, which targets the middle class of unified Italy, becomes more sophisticated when Deledda revises passages that could reinforce stereotypical representations of multifaceted Italian regional identities or of ‘exoticism.’ For instance, the description of shepherd Turulia, whom many suspect to be Pietro Benu’s accomplice in Francesco Rosana’s murder, suggests the association of his malignant nature with the physical detail of his ‘grandi occhi azzurri da settentrionale,’ [wide, blue eyes of Northern Italians (A, 181)]. Significantly, the detail of the blue eyes, a feature allegedly typical of Northern Italians, disappears in B, where Turulia’s negatively perceived nature emerges in his geographically neutral ‘grossi occhi iniettati di sangue’ [large, bloodshot eyes (B, 229)]. The conscious loss of the regional stereotype that could have bothered a Northern reader of the novel exemplifies the author’s constant attempt to reduce prejudicial reactions in her targeted middle-class Italian audience. As Luciano Marrocu notes, Deledda partakes in the collective effort that Sardinian intellectuals undertake after the unification: to define a Sardinian identity bearing in mind in particular an external, not insular, audience. Also in the case of Deledda’s revisions of La via del male, it appears that ‘lo sforzo di autocoscienza sia come deviato dalla tendenza a disegnare una Sardegna ricalcata (in positivo e in negativo) dalle analisi di un Niceforo e dalle pagine del Giornale d’Italia’ [the effort to build a self-consciousness is somehow redirected by the tendency to design an image of Sardinia modelled (in a positive or negative sense) after the analysis of someone like Niceforo, and the pages of the Giornale d’Italia (Marrocu 1992: 53)]. A further example of this constant preoccupation is the elimination from B, 233/C, 351 of authorial comments about Francesco Rosana’s good relationship with local bandits:

La via del male 61 Maria non aveva paura dei banditi, che non potevano molestare Francesco dal momento ch’egli, spesso, concedeva loro ospitalità nel suo ovile, non paventava un ricatto o una mala azione dei ladri, ma tuttavia provava sempre un vago presentimento ...’ (A, 184) [Maria was not afraid of the bandits, who could not bother Francesco since he often offered them hospitality in his sheepfold. She did not fear blackmail or wrongdoing from the thefts; still, she always had a vague foreboding ...]

The social plague of banditry in Sardinia was rooted in the political history of the island and often represented ‘a form of extreme protest among the disenfranchised’ against constituted authority, in particular when this took the form of the unified legal system that the mainland administration had superimposed onto insular realities (Kozma 2002: 19). Susan Briziarelli has convincingly argued that Deledda’s constant reference to banditry throughout her work aims at tracing a politics of gender that sees the bandits as a ‘metaphor for society outcasts.’ ‘It is clear that she [Deledda] aligns her strong women ideologically with the socially outcast group finding in them the common denominator not only of courage and rebellion, but of transgression against society’ (1995: 27). This becomes particularly evident in later novels like Marianna Sirca (1915), La chiesa della solitudine (1936), or the posthumous Cosima (1937). In La via del male, though, Deledda’s politics of gender is still maturing, and the young author’s intent to write ‘un romanzo sardo, sulle classi povere’ [a Sardinian novel, about the class of the poor (letter to Epaminonda Provaglio, September 1892, Opere scelte, 1: 1014)], ‘una leggenda ... tinta di socialismo’ [a legend ... coloured with socialism (letter to Stanis Manca, 1 February 1894, Versi e prose giovanili, 249)], does not allow her to instil any uncertainties in her readership about the injustices of the Sardinian social system. For this reason, the veiled authorial comment about what could appear as an illegal protection offered by rich local landowners to the bandits in mistrust of an outsiders’ legal system disappears completely in the second and third editions. The danger of inserting stereotypes that could undermine the comprehension of Sardinian culture on the Italian and European mainland is in most cases related to the comments of the implied narrator, which Capuana had already criticized as the main source of linguistic and cultural ‘stonature’ [utterances out of tune (Capuana 1973 [1898]: 100)]. Thus, in the revision Deledda carefully avoids traces of ‘ingenuo eso-

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tismo’ [naïve exoticism (Mortara Garavelli 1991: 151)] that equated Sardinia with the radical otherness of the Americas. In the years between Italian unification and 1916, North and South America lured about eight million Southern Italians with rural backgrounds in hopes of a new beginning and better economic prospects than the newly born Italian nation could offer them.30 A clear example of ‘out of tune’ exoticism in the novel is the elliptical comparison between the Sardinian countryside and the Argentinian ‘pampa’ that we encounter in the descriptive passage about Maria and Francesco’s trip to their ‘tanca’: Era la stessa strada, i medesimi passaggi attraversati pochi mesi prima per recarsi a Gonare; senonché ora le campagne, gaiamente inondate di sole, si stendevano verdissime e fiorite, e sulle pianure nere in inverno, pantanose in autunno ed arse in estate, rabbrividiva alla tiepida brezza della primavera una rigogliosa vegetazione da pampa americana: altissime erbe, cardi spinosi ... (A, 178; emphasis in the text) [It was the same way, the same passages they had traversed few months earlier to reach Gonare, but now the fields, gaily inundated with sun, stretched away all green and full of flowers. On the plains, dark in winter and dried up in summer, a flourishing vegetation typical for the American pampa shuddered at the mild breeze of spring: high grass, thorny thistles ...] >Era la stessa strada, i medesimi luoghi da loro attraversati pochi mesi prima nel recarsi al monte Gonare. Ora però le campagne, inondate di sole, si stendevano verdi e fiorite; sulla pianura, arsa d’estate e pantanosa d’inverno, ondulava alla brezza una vegetazione selvaggia, un mare d’erbe alte, di cardi dal verde argenteo ... (B, 226/C, 346) [It was the same way, the same passages they had traversed few months earlier while heading for Mount Gonare. But now the fields, inundated with sun, stretched away green and full of flowers. On the plain, dry in summer and slushy in winter, a wild vegetation undulated, a sea of high grass, thistles of silver green ...]

The descriptive paragraph is noticeably reduced in length and rhetorical weight from A to B/C, and the disappearance of the ‘pampa’ helps deprive the landscape portrait of the threatening exotic element that, in conjunction with heavier parallelisms of adjectival phrases (‘sulle pia-

La via del male 63

nure nere in inverno, pantanose in autunno ed arse d’estate’ [On the plains, dark in winter, slushy in fall and dry in summer]) and the anthropomorphic usage of ‘rabbrividiva’ [shuddered], would easily fuel in the average reader a widespread attitude toward the intrinsic dangers of the Sardinian countryside.31 In sum, the contrastive textual analysis of the different editions of La via del male has indicated a noticeable reduction of the implied narrator’s comments from A to B/C, which highlights Deledda’s early journey toward modernity on the formal, thematic, and structural levels. The anti-‘aulic’ pattern in linguistic choices (Mortara-Garavelli 1991) and the ‘simplifying’ strategy in syntactic choices (Herczeg 1973) aim at reaching out to a broad middle-class audience, thus combining the author’s ethnological, sociological, and didactic interests with her intellectual journey toward the European culture of the twentieth century. 1.6. Toward the Proliferation of Interpretations The novel of the early twentieth century is a genre that no longer expresses the social ascent of the bourgeoisie (Lukács 1976 [1935]: 156– 7) but rather the crisis of positivistic belief in the rationalistic and experimental approach to any human undertaking. The impossibility of representing a fragmentary external and internal reality through mimesis determines a shift of the narrative structure toward indefiniteness and openness, which requires a deeper interpretive involvement of the reader. In the philosophical and scientific thought of modernity, the notion of truth is replaced by the hermeneutic search for multiple truths that encompass different levels of temporality and different facets of reality. The audience becomes, therefore, a pivotal subject of the open quest and a key component of artistic creation and interpretation, as Wolfgang Iser and Hans Robert Jauss (for the reception theory of the Constance School) and Stanley Fish, Louise Rosenblatt, and Norman Holland (for reader-response criticism) have analysed in depth. Whether the ‘theatre in the theatre’ of Pirandello, the psychoanalythical novel of Svevo, Proust’s narrative voyage into memory, or Kafka’s parable on the hermeneutic quest, literary discourse of the early twentieth century evolves into a disquieting request for the reader’s cooperation in tracing the multiple paths of the artistic journey. From her position at the margins of the literary Italian canon as an allegedly regional woman writer from Sardinia, Deledda shows a precocious responsiveness to the modern thematization of multiple truths and

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openness of interpretation. This awareness already emerges in the first revision of her apparently most Sardinian and veristic novel. The reduction of the implied narrator’s comments in the following key scene of La via del male is a case in point. Maria is anxiously awaiting Francesco’s return from an expedition to recover a stolen bull. She hears some sudden steps in the nearby woods, but no one replies when she calls Francesco’s name: Fu assalita allora da una vaga inquietudine, ma, coraggiosa com’era, prese tosto la decisione di fare qualche passo per il sentiero, con la speranza d’incontrare un pastore che le desse notizie di Francesco. Ma fatti una cinquantina di passi si fermò di botto, pallida in viso, e reprimendo un grido tornò rapidamente indietro. Era un’illusione, una suggestione ottica, causatale dall’inquietudine? In fondo al sentiero c’era un’altra stradicciola ... e nell’incrociatura delle due vie Maria aveva visto, o intravveduto, un uomo che passava senza accorgersi di lei. E in quest’uomo le era sembrato riconoscere Pietro Benu! (A, 186) [She was seized with a vague anxiety but, brave as she was, decided right away to go along the beginning of the path in the hope of meeting a shepherd who would have some news about Francesco. After about fifty steps, though, she suddenly stopped, pale in the face, and went quickly back while repressing a scream. Was it an illusion, an optical suggestion caused by her anxiety? At the end of the path there was another narrow trail ... and at their crossing Maria saw, or caught a glimpse of, a man who went by without noticing her. And she thought she recognized him as Pietro Benu!]

The ensuing direct discourse enacts Maria’s thoughts about Pietro Benu looking for an opportunity to kill Francesco and, therefore, confirms the comments of the implied narrator about the identity of the shadow walking through the bushes. Lengthy discussions between Maria, a mysterious wanderer, and some servant-shepherds about the possible reasons for Francesco’s disappearance precede the following authorial insertion: Ma ella non riposava. Pensava più intensamente ad occhi chiusi, tormentata sempre dalla certezza terribile della morte di Francesco ... Pensava, sentiva le vene della tempia e dell’orecchia, appoggiate alla stuoia, batterle violentemente, e il ricordo di Pietro Benu s’ergeva, come un rimorso, come il presentimento di inevitabili sventure.

La via del male 65 Certo, se a Francesco accadeva qualche disgrazia, la causa doveva esserne soltanto Pietro. Nessun altro voleva male ai Rosana. Ah, che pazza era stata lei a non aspettarsi la vendetta, a non metter in guardia il marito! (A, 196) [But she could not rest. She was thinking more intensively, always tormented by the terrible certainty of Francesco’s death ... She was thinking, feeling the temple and ear’s veins on the mat thundering violently, and Pietro Benu’s memory rose like a remorse, like the foreboding of unavoidable misfortunes. Clearly, if Francesco suffered some kind of accident, Pietro would be the only cause. Nobody else disliked the Rosanas. How foolish she had been for not expecting [Pietro’s] revenge, for not warning her husband!]

The modification of the first paragraph in B is revealing: D’un tratto le parve di udire i passi di un uomo in fondo al viottolo; credendo fosse Francesco, si sporse alquanto, ma non vide nessuno: i passi cessarono. – Franziscu? – ella chiamò. Nessuno rispose. Allora Maria sollevò gli occhi, e guardando di nuovo verso la tanca [emphasis in the text] vicina vide un uomo alto e svelto che attraversava rapidamente il tratto di sentiero che si scorgeva dalla roccia. Ella credette di riconoscerlo, e se un fantasma le fosse apparso in quell’istante non le avrebbe causato più spavento. (B, 235/C, 352) [Suddenly she had the impression of hearing a man’s steps at the end of the pathway; believing that it was Francesco, she leaned out, but did not see anybody: the steps stopped. – Franziscu? – she called. Nobody answered. Then Maria glanced up and looking again toward the tanca (emphasis in the text) close by saw a tall and fast man rapidly cross the section of the pathway that she could see from the rock. She believed she recognized him and, had a ghost appeared in that precise moment, it would have not scared her more.]

In B, the authorial voice does not suggest the identity of the mystery man, and the name of Pietro Benu is mentioned only on the next page within the free indirect discourse that renders Maria’s interior monologue. Moreover, the second passage (A, 196), in which the implied narrator and the voice of the interior monologue conjure up Pietro Benu as the murderer and define revenge as the motive, has completely disap-

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peared in B. By means of textual reduction the reader finds himself involved here in the interpretation of the murder mystery and the underlying search for the truth or truths. As the variation in the passages quoted above indicates, Deledda’s revision of La via del male diminishes the implied narrator’s influence on the reader’s interpretation, thus opening up the narrative to the proliferation of meaning through the dialogue between the reader and the text. 1.7. Thematic Changes toward Modernity As we have seen in 1.1.a, pp. 25–30, Deledda’s writing of L’indomabile responded to a twofold social mission: on the one hand, the intention of making Sardinian culture known and appreciated on the ‘continent’ beyond stereotypical representations, and, on the other hand, the attempt to alleviate the plight of the rural population further discriminated against by centralized Italian government.32 Deledda’s didactic and politically engaged approach derived from her ethnological research with De Gubernatis and her interaction with Orano and Niceforo, the exponents of anthropological Positivism, in the early 1890s. One decade later, this priority has given way to different thematic and structural preoccupations, which indicate the author’s conscious attempt to infuse her narrative with the European culture of modernity. Mortara Garavelli has specified that Deledda’s ‘drastica potatura del discorso’ – the ‘trimming’ of redundant adjectives and adverbs, ‘aulic’ expressions, and superfluous repetitions – ‘non comporta sempre una riduzione quantitativa dell’insieme, perché le sottrazioni sono talvolta compensate da cospicue aggiunte di particolari narrativi o descrittivi’ [does not always imply a quantitative reduction of the whole, because subtractions are sometimes compensated by conspicuous additions of narrative or descriptive details (1991: 148)]. More specifically, the additions in the second edition of La via del male highlight the centrality of themes of modernity such as journey and madness. The new pivotal role of these themes in the revised version determines a series of structural modifications that confirm the twist toward modernity in Deledda’s early narrative. 1.7.a. The Journey Theme Elise Magistro has analysed in depth Deledda’s ‘typical narrative pattern of journey – venturing out, traumatic exile, and the impossibility of

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return’ (1988: 128) in such acclaimed works of maturity as Elias Portolu (1903), L’edera [Ivy (1906)], and Canne al vento [Reeds in the Wind (1913)]. Tracing the evolution and interpretation of the journey theme through the variations from A to B in La via del male will help redefine Deledda’s alleged impermeability to modernity (Sapegno 1971: xii, xxii, and Spinazzola 1981d: xviii). A noticeable increase in the presence of the semantic field of the journey emerges as an unmistakable sign that the voyage theme has become the narrative thread of a novel that, in itself, was ‘in cammino’ [on the way] to modernity for more than twenty years through repeated revisions. For this reason, it is important to start our examination of the journey theme by noticing a significant disappearance. While introducing Pietro’s first sentimental perturbation, the implied narrator underscores in A the inevitable way of the ‘via del male,’ a fatal path of passion, sin, and punishment that is as inherent to eros as primordial desire (Ramat 1978: 77). Egli non aveva la potenza di percepirlo, ma aveva già posto il piede in una china pericolosa, e cominciava a scivolare, senza poter resistere, anzi senza accorgersene, ma preso già dall’angoscia del vuoto, dell’ignoto, della vertigine di una profondità senza confine. (A, 35) [He did not have the power to perceive it, but had already taken a turn for the worse, he had already started to slip down, without being able to resist, even without noticing it, but already taken by the anguish of the empty, the unknown, the giddiness of a depth without limit.]

It is certainly true that Deledda implemented a drastic reduction of the first four chapters of the novel to relieve them of unnecessary descriptions, flashbacks, and authorial comments in favour of an opening that situates the narrative ‘in medias res.’ However, the subtraction of this specific passage – which hinges on a deterministic view of the journey, in particular when love is involved – paves the way to a series of additions that underline the journey as an open quest for love, happiness, and truth. It is exactly this openness of the existential journey that comes to the fore in the numerous additions of B/C centred on the semantic field of ‘cammino.’ It is not by coincidence that the first added passage occurs in the central scene of the procession to the Monte Gonare, to which we have previously referred for its pivotal role in the plot and in the formal

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revision (see 1.3, pp. 44–5, 50–2). From ‘le nuoresi camminarono a lungo’ [the girls from Nuoro walked a long time (A, 95)] with a simple past that underlines the concluded action, to ‘le ragazze camminavano e camminavano’ [the girls continued to walk and walk (B, 129/C, 286)], the iterated imperfect tense emphasizes the duration and the effort but also the indefiniteness of the journey that, because of its sacred frame, becomes a pilgrimage on earth through sin toward salvation. Shortly thereafter, when Maria is confronted for the first time with Francesco Rosana – himself one of the ‘cavalieri erranti’ [wandering knights (A, 96/B, 130/C, 287)] – we notice in the revised version a meaningful addition that compensates for the disapperance of extended landscape descriptions and a folkloric digression on the legend of Monte Gonare. Maria pensava a Pietro, lontano, solo là nella vigna. E sentiva che era giunto il momento di sacrificarlo, e provava pietà di lui, ma come d’una vittima necessaria. Che colpa ne aveva lei? Sapeva forse lei che Francesco Rosana le sarebbe apparso quella notte in mezzo alle tancas, mandatole incontro dal destino? Cammina, cammina. Ecco, così si cammina nella vita, senza sapere chi si deve incontrare nella propria strada ... Cammina, cammina. Maria pensava sempre a Pietro e a Francesco ... (B, 132/C, 289. See A, 99–116) [Maria was thinking of Pietro, far away there in the vineyard. And she felt that the time to sacrifice him had come, and felt pity for him, but like that for a necessary victim. Why was it her fault? How could she possibly know that Francesco Rosana would appear that night between the tancas, sent to her by destiny? Walk, walk. This is how we walk through life, not knowing whom we have to meet on our way ... Walk, walk. Maria was always thinking of Pietro and Francesco ...]

The revision focuses on Maria’s journey in the modern terms of an existential and intellectual open quest through the repetition of the verbal phrase with ‘camminare’ [to walk] and ‘pensare’ [to think], which reminds us of the same repetition to describe Renzo Tramaglino, the anti-heroic protagonist of the journey theme in Manzoni’s Promessi sposi (2005: 236). The parallelism between Maria’s metaphorical walking through the woods of life and the meandering of her thoughts flows

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into this perfect example of interior monologue in the free indirect style. Interestingly, we find a corresponding occurrence of an addition on the journey theme with regard to Pietro Benu. When he learns from a mysterious ‘viandante’ [wanderer] – another utterance belonging to the semantic field of the journey – that Francesco Rosana and Maria Noina are engaged, we have in A a synthetic and frantic ‘Bisognava andare, camminare, vedere’ [He needed to go, walk, see (A, 125)] to refer to Pietro’s decision to leave the mountain, go back to Nuoro, and ask Maria in person about the rumours. The rhetorical emphasis increases dramatically after the revision: Pietro s’avviò, più cieco e triste della notte. Perché andava? Dove andava? Che avrebbe fatto? Egli non lo sapeva, ma andava ... Bisognava camminare, vedere, cercare un sollievo peggiore del male ... – Dove, dove vado io? – si domandò Pietro ... Sì, dove andava? Fra pochi istanti sarebbe arrivato, sarebbe rientrato nella casa dei padroni ... (B, 158, 160) [Pietro set out, darker and sadder than the night. Why did he go? Where did he go? What would he do? He did not know, but he went ... He needed to walk, see, seek a relief that would turn out to be worse than the evil ... – Where, where am I going? – Pietro asked himself ... Yes, where was he going? In few seconds he would arrive, come back to the house of his masters ...]

The journeys of both female and male protagonists run on the parallel paths of radical questioning of moral and societal conventions and, therefore, disclose the abyss of madness. On Maria and Pietro’s journey, reality and dream are dangerously interwoven. This becomes particularly evident in the added passage in which Pietro conceives his murderous plan of revenge against Francesco: – Dove andrò, dove finirò? – si chiese istintivamente ... – Che accadrà di me? Dove andrò, dove finirò? E camminava, camminava, sotto quel cielo misterioso e macchiato come l’anima di un delinquente; camminava su pei sentieri selvaggi, ora bui, ora illuminati da un chiarore azzurrognolo di luna fuggente. Anche nell’anima di Pietro regnava una luce vaga, che talvolta si estingueva completamente: e

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Grazia Deledda’s Dance of Modernity davanti a lui si stendeva, interminabile e misteriosa come nel sogno, la via del male. (B, 176/C, 316) [– Where will I go, where will I end up? – he asked himself instinctively ... – What will happen to me? Where will I go? Where will I end up? And he walked, walked, under that mysterious sky, sullied like a criminal’s soul; he walked up wild paths, now dark, now lit up by a faint, bluish glimmer of a fugitive moon. In Pietro’s soul reigned a faint light as well, which sometimes died out completely: In front of him the path of evil stretched out, endless and mysterious as in a dream.]

A further, significant addition on the journey theme from Maria’s point of view concludes the seventeenth chapter, in which Maria discovers Francesco’s violent death: – Francesco? Francesco? Ella s’inoltrò fra l’erba, si fermò ancora, si guardò attorno ... Ella camminò, camminò, varcò il ruscello, attraversò il bosco ... (B, 241/C, 356, see A, 196) [– Francesco? Francesco? She went forward into the grass, stopped again, looked around ... She walked, walked, crossed the river, went through the woods ...]

The excerpt from the two-page-long passage in B/C is imbued with the theme of the inescapable journey in search of the truth/s. The repetition of ‘camminò, camminò’ [she walked, walked] marks the hammering high frequency of verbal phrases belonging to the semantic field of ‘camminare’ [to walk] that characterizes this pivotal narrative knot. Verbal phrases as ‘arrivò’ [she arrived], ‘saltò’ [she jumped], ‘attraversò’ [she went through], ‘si diresse’ [she headed for], ‘era avviata’ [had set out], ‘proseguì’ [she went forth], etc., build a climactic sequence about Maria’s journey, which culminates with her open question ‘Che fare? Che fare? Andiamo, cerchiamo ...’ [What to do? What to do? Let’s go, let’s look (for Francesco) ... (B, 243/C, 357)]. As we shall see, the modern themes of madness and dream are tightly interwoven with the journey topos in several of Deledda’s late works, such as Il segreto dell’uomo solitario (1921) and La danza della collana (1924). At this initial stage of my study, it is essential to point out how these thematic threads begin to define the texture of modernity that

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already characterizes Deledda’s narrative at the turn of the century, when she attends to the first revision of La via del male. 1.7.b. The Madness Motif The theme of madness is assertively present in the first edition of La via del male as it was in the earlier novel Fior di Sardegna (1893).33 In both novels madness is intertwined with love according to the literary topos of epic poetry that Ariosto codified in his Orlando Furioso. In La via del male Pietro Benu becomes the ‘cavaliere errante’ [wandering knight] who wanders through life because of his ‘indomabile’ [untameable] love for Maria Noina. Because of Maria he has embarked upon ‘la via del male’ [the path of evil], as Maria herself acknowledges when she faces Pietro’s responsibility for her slain husband: ‘Pensava che Pietro aveva seguito la via del male per lei sola’ [She thought that Pietro had followed the path of evil because of her alone (B, 318/C, 403)].34 The etymology of Italian syntagms ‘passione’ [passion] and ‘pazzia’ [madness] refers to the same Greek and then Latin root of pathos or pain provoked by irrational forces that contrast the supremacy of reason. Di Pilla offers an intriguing analysis of the addition of the syntagm ‘forza fatale’ [fatal force] in B 120/C, 281, to define Maria’s ‘passione’/’pazzia.’ An evident intertextual reference to Zola’s Thérèse Raquin and the same ‘force fatale’ that urged Thérèse to return to Laurent despite her internal resistance, Maria’s ‘forza fatale’ witnesses a ‘svolgimento della passione’ [development of passion] that conjugates the Naturalism of Zola with the Positivism of Orano and Niceforo (1982: 108–14).35 The emphasis does not lie any longer on the romantic conflict between ‘la ragione e il cuore’ [reason and heart (A, 89)], but on the more problematic and physiological ‘lotta tra i suoi sensi e la sua ragione’ [fight between her senses and her reason (B, 123/C, 283)]. Rationality means, in sociological terms, accepting the class concept, to which ‘irrational’ love must be subordinate. Throughout the novel, we face a thrashing presence of syntagms that refer to the nexus ‘passione’/ ’pazzia’/social hierarchy. The first occurrence, added after the revision, takes place during Pietro’s interior monologue when he first notices Maria’s indifference to his love: ‘Ah, quanto ella era lontana da lui! Lontana come una donna savia da un pazzo, al quale ella rivolge parola solo per compassione’ [Ah! How far she was from him! Far away as a wise woman is far from a madman, to whom she addresses a word only out of compassion (B, 84/C, 259; see A, 61)]. The second episode takes us to

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the key scene of Pietro’s declaration of love to Maria. The insistence on the theme of passion/madness/social hierarchy produces here a stronger dramatic effect through the insertion of the authorial comment on the social distance between Pietro and Maria, and the emphatic underlining of the thematic words ‘pazzo’/’pazzia’ [madman/madness] with exclamation and question marks: – Scherzi, Pietro Benu? Egli riacquistò subito il senso della realtà; ricordò ancora il padrone, la padrona, la distanza sociale che lo separava dalla bella fanciulla beffarda ... Ebbene, sì, tu! Perché ridi? Perché son povero e servo? E se son povero e servo non posso volerti bene lo stesso? ... Del resto, chi lo sa che anch’io non possa diventar padrone, chi lo sa che anch’io non possa diventar ricco ... – Senti, – disse Maria, seria, troppo seria, -tutto questo è pazzia!… Era forse diventato pazzo? (B, 101–2/C, 269–70) [– Are you joking, Pietro Benu? He regained his sense of reality immediately; remembered again his master with his wife, the social distance that separated him from the beautiful, scoffing girl ... Well, yes, you! Why are you laughing? Because I am poor and a servant? And, even if I am poor and a servant, can’t I love you nevertheless? Besides, no one knows if one day I might become a master myself, no one knows if one day I might become rich myself ... – Listen, – said Maria, serious, all too serious, – all this is madness! ... Was he becoming a madman?]

Pietro reacts to Maria’s resounding view of his ‘passione’/’pazzia’ in social perspective with an added interior monologue in direct discourse that confirms her diagnosis: ‘la passione mi ha tolto il senno’ [passion has made me lose my wits (B, 103/C, 272)].36 From this narrative turning point on, the frequent recurrences of ‘pazzo,-a’/’pazzia’/’impazzire’ [mad/madness/becoming insane (see also B, 114, 122, 123/C, 278, 282, 283)] refer equally to Pietro and Maria, and culminate in the last chapter of the novel. In the revised version, the themes of journey, madness, and dream conflate, thus underlining Deledda’s reception of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, which I shall highlight in Cenere and Il segreto dell’uomo solitario in the second and third chapters.

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1.7.c. The Radical Openness I have already recalled the added passage in which Maria’s urge to continue the search for her missing husband on her own is expressed through the pounding repetition of the verb ‘camminare’ [to walk (B, 241–3/C, 356–7; see 1.7.a, p. 70)]. The increasingly modern twist of La via del male from the first to the second edition implies a more radical and disconcerting openness of the journey theme. As a result, all references to a possible end of the journey have vanished in the second edition. For instance, the utterance ‘meta’ [aim, destination (A, 180)] to indicate that Maria and Francesco have reached their destination, the tanca in the countryside, has disappeared in B, 228/C, 347 in favour of a denotative ‘ovile’ [sheepfold]. The metaphorical connotation of ‘meta’ would have suggested a possible end to Maria’s tormented quest for meaningful love, whereas it is exactly this knot of the plot – the mysterious murder of Francesco Rosana in the seemingly idyllic country estate – that triggers the further tragedy of the quest by eventually reuniting Maria and Pietro on ‘la via del male.’ In the second edition we encounter a new addition with Pietro Benu’s interior monologue in free indirect discourse. There, Pietro expands on his happiness. He has reached the goal of his life, that is, marrying Maria after secretely murdering his rival and successfully climbing the social ladder. Paradoxically, Pietro’s social ascent – which also includes the appropriation of cultural tools – has veiled and complemented his moral descent. His becoming a ‘giovane intraprendente e fortunato’ [young man with initiative and good fortune (B, 293/C, 387)] through dubious business associations defines the sociological aspect of his existential journey. Pietro’s integration into the middle class underscores the profound hypocrisy of a community only superficially bound to spiritual values. The wedding with upper-class widow Maria Noina ratifies Pietro Benu’s attainment of social respect and, at the same time, fulfilment of erotic desire. Ecco, finalmente era giunto, come il viandante che dopo aver attraversato una foresta piena di agguati e di pericoli, arriva stanco ad un luogo ospitale e sicuro. Via ogni paura, ogni ricordo spaventoso; il fuoco brilla nel focolare, il vino aromatico scintilla nel bicchiere capace: è tempo di riposarsi, di bere e inebbriarsi. (B, 303/C, 393) [Here he is: Finally he had arrived, like the tired wanderer who, after walking through a forest full of ambushes and dangers, reaches a hospitable and

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Grazia Deledda’s Dance of Modernity safe place. Fears and frightening memories go away; the fire sparkles in the fireplace, aromatic wine glitters in the generous glass: It’s time to rest, to drink and get drunk.]

This addition, which reminds us of the Dantesque pilgrim wandering through the ‘selva oscura’ [dark wood, trans. Hollander] but also of Nietzschean Zarathustra’s roaming through the mountains, unveils the self-deceptive roots of Pietro’s journey, which the open ending of the revised novel discloses. 1.8. Structural Changes The openness of the novel’s ending is derived first of all from the link between journey and madness. Secondly, it develops from a sequence of structural changes. A series of structural modifications prepares the openness of the conclusion in the second and third editions. Many of these alterations closely follow Capuana’s recommendations aimed at eliminating some ‘artificial’ expedients of the plot. In particular, Capuana had criticized the unclear ways of Pietro Benu’s social ascent through ‘loschi mezzi’ [shady transactions (99)], the ‘disproportioned’ punishment that Maria inflicts on Pietro and herself (99–100), and even more the machination of the letter written by Maria’s cousin and Pietro’s former admirer Sabina (100). Interestingly, George Hérelle, D’Annunzio’s and Deledda’s French translator, must have underlined similar weaknesses of the plot if Deledda replied to his letter as follows: Non è un caso raro in Sardegna che un individuo subisca anche per un semplice sospetto una lunga prigionia preventiva; ma è certo un po’ convenzionale che Pietro esca dal carcere proprio il giorno delle nozze di Maria. Ora io sono dispostissima a rifare questi capitoli, sviluppando meglio anche la figura di Antine; ma prima di accingermi a tale lavoro, che richiederà almeno qualche settimana, vorrei essere certa, per non perdere inutilmente tempo, che La via del male sarà pubblicata sulla Revue de Paris. Aspetto dunque una vostra risposta definitiva per mettermi al lavoro, ripromettendomi di aggiustare per bene gli ultimi capitoli della prima parte e il primo della seconda parte. (Letter, 20 January 1903, Maxia 1999: 96)37 [It is not rare in Sardinia that an individual is subject to a long preventive detention even because of a mere suspicion; but it certainly is a little con-

La via del male 75 ventional that Pietro leaves jail precisely the day of Maria’s wedding. Now I am more than ready to rewrite these chapters and better develop Antine’s character as well. Still, before I set about doing this work, which will require at least a couple of weeks, I would like to be sure, to avoid wasting time, that La via del male will be published in the Revue de Paris. I will wait then until I receive your definitive answer before I begin working with the intention of putting in order the last chapters of the first part and the first chapter of the second part.]

Seven years earlier Capuana had been very explicit about some structural flaws: La contadina che ha scritta la lettera anonima si trova troppo facilmente – e due volte – in condizione di ascoltare, non veduta, e di sorprendere segreti. Passi il bacio ch’ella ha visto dare dal Benu a Maria; ma l’appuntamento col fidanzato alla chiesa della Solitudine, prima dell’alba, e le brevi parole ch’ella, di dietro la cantonata, ode scambiare fra Pietro Benu e un ignoto intorno all’assassino del Rosana sono evidentemente un artificio per arrivare poi alla lettera anonima e allo scioglimento del romanzo. (100) [The peasant girl who wrote the anonymous letter finds herself too easily – and twice – in the situation of being able to listen without being seen, and to grasp secrets. It could be acceptable that she saw Pietro kiss Maria. Still, the peasant girl’s meeting with her fiancé at the Church of Solitude before dawn, and the brief conversation she hears between Pietro Benu and an unknown man about the murder of Francesco Rosana, are clearly a device to arrive at the anonymous letter and the denouement of the novel.]

The ironic overtone of Capuana’s critique is the same that we perceive in the authorial comment within the targeted episode:38 ... Sabina raccontò [al marito] ogni cosa, dal bacio sorpreso dietro la capanna al colloquio sentito la notte del giuramento [di matrimonio] alla Solitudine. Giuseppe pensò causticamente che giusto a Sabina dovesse toccare sempre la fortuna di sorprendere così gravi segreti, ma non lo disse per non mortificarla. – Ma sognando stai? ... (A, 257) [... Sabina told her husband everything, from the kiss caught behind the cabin to the conversation heard the night of the marriage vows at the

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Grazia Deledda’s Dance of Modernity Church of Solitude. Giuseppe thought sarcastically that Sabina happened to always be so lucky as to catch such important secrets, but he did not say anything to avoid humiliating her. – Are you dreaming? ...].

Already aware of the artificial character of the letter expedient in the first edition, as the ironic comments from Giuseppe’s point of view confirm, Deledda appears to welcome Capuana’s criticism in tune with her own doubts. As we have seen for her reception of linguistic and stylistic criticism, Deledda goes a step further and does not blindly implement the recommendations of the acclaimed literary authority. In this specific case, Deledda’s revision of the whole episode erases the hints at a possible moral aspect of Sabina’s betrayal of Pietro’s secret. In the first edition, once she randomly learns about Pietro’s role in the murder of Francesco Rosana and of his servant-shepherd Turulia, who has misteriously disappeared since Francesco’s violent death, Sabina reflects on her ethical responsibilities: Era un affare di coscienza, della sua coscienza. Doveva ella, dopo il colloquio fra Pietro e l’Antine, sentito alla Solitudine una notte lontana, doveva ella permettere che questo matrimonio si compiesse? (A, 255) [It was a matter of consciousness, of her consciousness. Should she, after hearing the conversation between Pietro and Antine at the Church of Solitude a night long ago, should she allow the realization of this marriage?]

Already in A Sabina grasps the moralistic rather than moral twist of her dilemma when, at the end of the same interior monologue, this is defined as ‘una sottile questione di coscienza che così argomentava: – Se tu parli, può darsi che tu lo faccia per rancore, per vendetta, non per giustizia’ [a subtle matter of consciousness, as she considered: ‘If you speak up, it may be that you do this out of a private grudge, a revenge [against Pietro Benu, who had preferred Maria to Sabina], not for the sake of justice (A, 256)]. The disappearance of the whole passage about Sabina’s moral dilemma unmasks in B/C the egoistic impulse at the bottom of seemingly moral behaviours according to Nietzsche’s analysis of The Genealogy of Morals (1887). The same unmasking, corrosive approach to alleged moral behaviours will emerge forcefully, as we shall see, in

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Cenere (1904), probably written in the same years of La via del male’s revision. In the revised edition, what is left of Sabina’s ‘sottile questione di coscienza’ is an elliptical scene in the Chiesa della Solitudine at dawn. There, according to an ancient Nuorese tradition, Sabina promises Giuseppe that she will marry him. Once again, though, traditions are devoid of spiritual value, and in the sacred frame of the church Sabina vows to become Giuseppe’s spouse in exchange for his promise to tell her who has really murdered Francesco Rosana (B, 273–4/C, 375–6). According to the same pattern of condensation and modern critique of morality, the second and third editions completely lack the digression on Sabina’s modest but happy life after building a family with honest and simple-minded Giuseppe (A, 252–3). The idyllic depiction of Sabina looking at ‘una via sicura davanti a sé’ [a secure path ahead (A, 253)] turns into the ironic suspension of ‘e le pareva di essere felice come una signorona’ [and she had the impression of being happy like a grand lady (B, 289)], which is further condensed in ‘e le pareva di essere felice’ [and she had the impression of being happy (C, 385)]. In C the omission of the second term of comparison with the suffix ‘-ona’ in ‘come una signorona’ limits the ironic intervention of the implied narrator, on the one hand, but also underlines the theme of self-deception as inability to discern the real from the unreal. Suffice it here to notice that another elliptical rendition in B/C extends the scope of this theme from the individual to the masses in the central scene of the procession to Monte Gonare. The long description of the festive atmosphere (A, 102) consolidates into: ‘fra queste ombre e queste macchie tutto un popolo si agitava, e credeva di divertirsi soltanto perché era convenuto lassù’ [between these shadows and spots a whole population bustled, and thought they were having fun just because they gathered up there (B, 136/C, 291)]. It is this inherently modern theme of self-deception and social critique that is underscored in an important structural change that does not respond to any of Capuana’s recommendations. Chapter 13 recounts in all three editions Pietro’s traumatizing experience of the judicial system. Invited by some shepherds to share their banquet of stolen sheep, Pietro is caught with the others, while still asleep, by the ‘carabinieri.’39 In spite of his claims of innocence backed up by the livestock thieves, Pietro spends three months in prison before he is acquitted exactly on Maria and Francesco’s wedding day in A, and on the eve of their wedding in B/ C. That the social criticism of the author has sharpened in the years of

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the novel’s revision is evident from two apparently minor additions to an episode that has significantly expanded from A to B/C. In B even Zio Nicola, Maria’s father, tries to rescue Pietro from his legal embarrassment and consults a lawyer to receive the following advice: ‘– Che volete, – rispose l’uomo della legge, – i cavilli della Giustizia sono intricati come i capelli di Medusa’ [– What can you do, – the lawyer replied – the quibbles of the judiciary system are entangled like Medusa’s hair (B, 181/C, 319)]. His statement and Zio Nicola’s frank reaction (‘– Va’ al diavolo con le tue parole difficili, – ... ) [– Go to hell with your difficult words (B, 181/C, 320)] remind us closely of Renzo’s disappointing experience of the law and social justice when he resorts to Doctor Azzeccagarbugli in the third chapter of Manzoni’s I promessi sposi. On the same page, the voice of the implied narrator insists on the absurd practices of the judicial system – a recurring social theme throughout Deledda’s work:40 Pietro sapeva benissimo che un accusato, anche se gli indizi del reato son vaghi, soffre spesso una lunga prigionia preventiva: ma non poteva rassegnarsi; l’ingiustizia gli pareva enorme ... V’erano giorni in cui egli credeva d’impazzire. (B, 181/C, 320) [Pietro knew well that a defendant, even if circumstantial proof is vague, often suffers a long preventive detention: but he could not give up; the injustice seemed outrageous to him ... There were days in which he thought he would go mad.]

1.8.a. Language, Culture, and Power The ambiguous role of the judicial system in Sardinia following the unification of Italy is certainly at the centre of the author’s concerns. On the one hand, the imposition of laws that did not take into consideration the specificity of insular social problems, such as banditry, meant a further form of social injustice and caused the spreading of discontent and rebellion among the local population. On the other hand, the unified judicial system sanctioned the participation of marginalized sociological entities of southern and insular Italy in the high culture of national institutions. One early example among others in Deledda’s narrative of this double-edged role of the law in Sardinia’s sociological reality is the centre of the revised prison episode in La via del male. The third-person narrative in A informs the reader that Antine, an

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intelligent and civilized co-inmate of Pietro, ‘propose a Pietro d’insegnargli a leggere’ [proposed that he could teach Pietro how to read (A, 140)]. Antine, though, not only provides Pietro with the basic skills of reading and writing (A, 140): Il prigioniero di Fonni, fra una lezione e l’altra, gli spiegava perverse teorie sociali e religiose. Parlava bene, usciva in strani sofismi stringenti, aveva una pronunzia suggestiva di voce simpatica, dall’ s spiccato e il th latino; e Pietro l’ascoltava intensamente, con le sopracciglia corrugate. (A, 141–2) [Between lessons, the prisoner from Fonni explained to him perverse social and religious theories. He was articulate, came up with strange, persuasive sophisms, had an evocative accent of a pleasant voice, with a marked s and the th Latin sound; and Pietro listened intensely, with furrowed eyebrows.]

The second and third editions leave out the regional connotations of Antine’s accent, which cannot but evoke the phonetic features of Tuscan speakers, probably in the same spirit of the omitted comment on Turulia’s ‘grandi occhi azzurri da settentrionale’ [wide, blue eyes of Northern Italians (A, 181); see 1.5, p. 60]. The revised text expands Antine’s role, probably in accordance with Hérelle’s suggestions (see 1.8, p. 74), and articulates the content of those ‘perverse social and religious theories’ with a long sequence in direct discourse. Antine’s first statement eloquently targets the core of capitalistic accumulation and voices a sort of veristic version of evangelic socialism: – Chi non ruba non è uomo! ... Dimmi una cosa. C’è o non c’è Dio? Se c’è, ed è giusto, egli deve aver fatto il mondo perché gli uomini se lo godano. Quindi tutta la roba che c’è nel mondo appartiene a tutti gli uomini: basta sapersela prendere, la roba ... (B, 183/C, 320–21) [– He who does not steal is not a man! ... Tell me one thing. Is there a God, yes or no? And, if yes, he must have created the world in order for the humans to enjoy it. Therefore, all the things of the world belong to all humans: it suffices to be able to take it, the things of the world ...]

Antine knows how to convince Pietro that he will not betray him by reminding him of evangelic principles like: ‘– Gli uomini sono tutti fratelli e devono aiutarsi a vicenda, non tradirsi e offendersi’ [– Human beings are all brothers and have to help each other, not betray and

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offend each other (B, 184/C, 321)]. Antine’s evangelic-socialistic credo – ‘– Gli uomini, siamo tutti eguali! ... come i figli di uno stesso padre. Dio è il padre di tutti’ [– We human beings are all equal! ... like the children of the same father. God is everyone’s father (B, 186–7/C, 323)] – cleverly links the anti-egalitarian injustice of capitalistic society with the specific problems of banditry in the Barbagia region. Antine shows Pietro and the other inmates a letter from a legendary bandit of their region. The noble aura that Antine creates around the bandit as a social hero and protagonist of ‘gesta epiche’ [epic feats (B, 184/C, 325)] causes Pietro to realize the importance of acquiring reading and writing skills: ‘– Ecco, – disse, restituendo la lettera, – bisogna che anch’io impari a leggere e a scrivere, perché se diventerò bandito avrò bisogno di scrivere qualche lettera!’ [– There it is, – he said turning back the letter, – I must learn how to read and write because, if I become a bandit, I need to write some letters! (B, 185/C, 322)]. Pietro will, indeed, write a letter in the novel after becoming a murderer, when he apologizes to his fiancée Maria for his delayed return from Cagliari. That letter is the sign of his completed integration in the middle class, as Zio Nicola’s proud exclamation emphasizes: ‘Egli sa anche scrivere!’ [He also knows how to write! (B, 297/C, 390)]. Zia Luisa’s doubts about Pietro’s social acceptability – he was a servant and, after all, he learned how to write in prison – vanish when Pietro presents her with a rich brocade vest. Years after the trauma of preventive detention, Pietro has experienced the effectiveness of language and culture as social weapons. When, at the end of his prison term, he was able to read and write, ‘ne provò una gioia velenosa; gli parve d’aver acquistato un’arma, buona per difesa e offesa!’ [he felt a poisonous joy; it seemed as if he had acquired a weapon, defensive and offensive as well (B, 185/C, 322)]. Pietro has learned how to effectively use that weapon: ‘Non era più un servo, ma un negoziante che faceva fortuna’ [He was not a servant any longer, but a successful merchant (B, 275/C, 376)]. Paradoxically, his appearance exudes a new charm and his hand has become ‘bianca come la mano d’un borghese’ [white like the hand of a bourgeois (B, 282/C, 381)] after dirtying itself with a murder and with several shady matters in association with another recent ‘borghese,’ Antine. The latter, Pietro’s former teacher of high Italian, the language of law, power, and commerce, has also been his accomplice in Francesco’s homicide and his business associate. The last example of the disputable operations that have promoted Pietro and Antine to successful and cultivated bourgeois is the recruit-

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ment of seasonal labourers to Algeria. This episode is added to the second and third editions of the novel. The reference to the Italian colonialistic involvement in Northern Africa and the Sardinian migration in the early twentieth century41 is quite an exception in Deledda’s works, marked by the absence of historical and narrative time (Ramat 1978: 108–10). In La via del male this geopolitical detail marks the moral ambiguity of the social and cultural ascent of the male protagonist from ‘servo’ to ‘borghese.’42 During the recruitment suspiciously carried out in the course of a traditional celebration (B, 285–90/C, 383–6), Sabina sees Pietro for the first time in years and notices: ‘Come il mondo cammina e le sorti umane mutano!’ [How the world goes on and human fates change! (B, 290/C, 385)]. Sabina and her husband will go as labourers to Algeria, and from there Sabina will send her anonymous letter to Maria when she learns about her cousin’s impending marriage to Pietro. The emphasis on the language/power relationship from Pietro’s point of view emerges clearly when Pietro learns from Zio Nicola that Maria is engaged to Francesco Rosana, who was not only wealthy but also cultivated. Pietro realizes that his rival ‘è brutto ... ma è istruito, è astuto, sa parlare come un avvocato’ [is ugly ... but he is educated, smart, and he knows how to talk like a lawyer (B, 169/C, 312; see A, 132)].43 The relationship between financial and political power and culture through language is also clear to Zio Nicola, who introduces Francesco to Pietro as a ‘giovane ricco, spaccone, consigliere comunale’ [rich young man, a boaster, and a councilman (B, 165–6/ C, 310; see also A, 129)]. As a city council member, Francesco has the privilege of having the mayor present his marriage proposal to Maria (ibidem). At that point, Pietro’s interior monologue of profound desperation culminates in an exclamation that also voices deep frustration about his marginalized cultural status: ‘Ah, se sapessi scrivere! Che lettera le manderei, scritta col mio sangue! ... ’ [Ah, if I only knew how to write! What a letter I would send her, a letter written with my blood! (B, 172/C, 313; not in A, 133)]. Again, when Pietro walks in the solitary mountain landscape right before he meets the shepherd-thieves, an authorial comment invokes: ‘Ah se avesse saputo scrivere!’ [Ah, had he only known how to write! (B, 177/C, 317; not in A, 137)]. Significantly, Pietro’s last two optative expressions about the social power of culture are added in the revision of A. The latter exclamation in free indirect discourse occurs after Pietro has stolen from his old aunt’s house the hidden weapon of her aunt’s former husband, the legendary bandit Cubeddu. The most effective

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weapon for Pietro to reach his goal of social ascent and possess Maria will not be an obsolete firearm, but culture, i.e. the reading and writing skills that he acquires in prison later on in the story. The fact that in the revised edition we encounter the first utterance of the title syntagm, ‘la via del male,’ precisely at this crucial point of the narrative, next to Pietro’s invocation ‘Ah, se avessi saputo scrivere!’ underscores once more the ambiguous role of culture and the problematic link between Italian unification, Italian language, and socio-political power. 1.8.b. Female Point of View and Open Ending It is not a letter from Pietro, but an anonymous letter clearly coming from Sabina that constitutes another pivotal knot in the narrative structure of La via del male. In the second edition, Maria’s reaction to Sabina’s letter disclosing Pietro’s murderous revenge takes her to the edge of unconsciousness, of the abyss between reality and dream, rational and irrational: Senza avvedersene Maria attraversò il cortile e si lasciò cadere sulla seggiolina dove poco prima stava seduta. Il suo viso si fece livido, si contrasse. Le sue mani e la sua testa tremarono. Per qualche tempo ella rimase così, come sopraffatta da una leggera convulsione e da completa incoscienza, poi sollevò il capo e si guardò attorno meravigliata. In quei momenti d’incoscienza la sua anima s’era come assentata da lei e aveva fatto un viaggio misterioso: era stata in un paese ignoto, dove aveva veduto cose terribili e grandi, e ritornava mutata e vedeva intorno a sé ogni cosa mutata e ne provava terrore. (B, 310/C, 398) [Without noticing it, Maria went across the courtyard and let herself fall back into the little chair in which she was sitting before. Her face became livid and contracted. Her hands and head trembled. For some time she stayed like that, as though overwhelmed by a light convulsion and complete unconsciousness, then she raised her head and looked around surprised. In those moments of unconsciousness her soul had almost left her and made a mysterious voyage: it had been in an unknown land, where it had seen great, terrible things. It came back changed and saw everything changed around her and was terrified.]

The ‘mysterious voyage of the soul’ will never give Maria the peaceful feeling of Pietro’s self-deceptive arrival at the ‘meta’ [aim] of his journey,

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the ‘safe haven’ that he thinks he has reached through his marriage to Maria and his integration in the middle class. Maria is the first one in a long series of strong female protagonists who, from their apparently secondary or even marginal fictional function, achieve central significance in Deledda’s narrative. These female characters will define the strength of Deledda’s modernity. In La via del male Maria is the character capable of embracing the desperate vision of the abyss, the coexistence of real and unreal or, in the Zarathustrian sense, of the eternal recurrence of the same. Maria’s ‘volontà implacabile’ [implacable will (B, 324, and also 249, 250/C, 406, 361, 362)] not only connects this character to a key word of modernity through Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, but also enables her to travel through mnemonic and oneiric dimensions: ‘In un attimo ella ricordò tutto il suo triste romanzo, cominciato come un idillio e finito in tragedia’ [Within a moment she remembered her whole sad novel, which started as an idyll and ended up as a tragedy (B, 310/C, 398)]. With this metanarrative expression about the sentimental relationship as a novel in the novel,44 the factual and the fictional coincide, and the realms of memory and dream overlap: ‘Ricordò tutto’ [She remembered everything (B, 310/C, 398)], and ‘Aveva sognato: era bella e beffarda, lo ricordava’ [She had been dreaming: she was beautiful and mocking, she remembered it (B, 311/C, 399)]. The hammering repetition of verbal phrases with ‘ricordare’ [to remember] and ‘sognare’ [to dream] punctuates the last chapter (B, 313, 316, 318/C, 402, 405, 408) along with syntagms that refer directly to the philosophical voices of modernity: Di secondo in secondo la lotta si fece più aspra. Per la prima volta Maria considerò le cose passate con intensità di pensiero e le parve che un velo cadesse dai suoi occhi. Ricordò l’inquietudine di Pietro ... (B, 312/C, 399) [The fight became harder every moment. For the first time Maria considered past things with intensity of thought and it seemed to her like a veil falling from her eyes. She remembered Pietro’s anxiety ...]

The disappearance of the Schopenhauerian ‘velo’ (see also B, 306/C, 395), a key image of Schopenhauer’s philosophy that symbolizes the illusory dimension of life and the universality of suffering, makes Maria ‘come convalescente’ [like convalescent].45 As the overshadowing effect of eros during Maria and Pietro’s brief honeymoon fades out, Maria is poised for the revelation that is about to come through the letter. Inter-

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estingly, we find in this addition to the second edition a new occurrence of that improper or ‘approximate’ use of ‘come’ that Capuana had criticized (1973 [1898]: 100; see 1.2.a, p. 37). The presence of this ‘come’ underpins with a linguistic detail the general sense of openness and uncertainty of the new conclusion. Maria’s sudden consciousness about the ‘via del male,’ upon which she and Pietro have embarked together, prompts her to voice the Kierkegaardian ‘angoscia’ [anguish, angst (B, 315, 316/C, 401, 402)]. Maria’s anguish, which as in Kierkegaard’s Concept of Dread (1844, translated into Italian as Il concetto dell’angoscia for the first time in its entirety in 1942) combines desperation and fear, resounds in the iterated, unanswered interrogations: ‘Che fare? Che fare?’ [What to do? What to do? (B, 315, 320, 321/C, 401, 404, 405)]. Far from Pietro’s naïve sense of reaching his destination through the marriage, Maria as a more radical character of modernity is defined through a simile not as a pacified wanderer, but as the victim of a shipwreck: ‘Allora respirava, per un attimo, come il naufrago che riesce a metter la testa fuori delle onde; ma poi ricadeva nel mare pauroso dei dubbî, nella disperazione che la affogava’ [Then she breathed, for a moment, like the one who is shipwrecked and manages to raise her head above the waves; but then she fell back in the dreadful ocean of doubts, in the despair that was drowning her (B, 314/C, 401)]. Through interior monologues in free indirect discourse and direct discourse, the revised version of the last chapter amplifies Maria’s deep state of confusion, which culminates with ‘– E’ tutto un sogno ... Sono pazza? –’ [It’s all a dream ... Am I mad? (B, 322/C, 405)]. The quest for objective answers targets outer and inner reality as well and winds up with the insertion in B/C of the symbolic image of the mirror and the loss of identity through the mask: ‘Si alzò, ricominciò a vagare qua e là intorno alla camera, si accostò allo specchio e quasi non riconobbe il suo viso alterato e verdognolo. Sembrava una maschera’ [She got up, started again to wander all around the room, approached the mirror and almost did not recognize her changed, greenish face. It looked like a mask (B, 322/C, 404–5)]. While Pietro’s journey aims at social ascent and is limited to the materialistic notion of possession – erotic and capitalistic ownership – Maria’s voyage targets the ethical dimension of life and poses the most radical questions. This explains the triple addition in B/C of ‘Che faremo noi?’ [What will we do?] on the last page of the novel (B, 328/C, 409). The subject pronoun in the first person plural refers to Maria and Pietro,

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thus emphasizing personal responsibility for moral decisions after the impersonal ‘Che fare?’ in the beginning of the chapter.46 We have already noticed that additions and subtractions from A to B/ C follow not a quantitative but rather a qualitative pattern. Accordingly, the author eliminates from B/C the long direct discourse in which Maria and Pietro openly confess their guilt to each other. In A Maria hints at an alleged visit by Pietro’s associate and accomplice Antine to force Pietro into confession and then she acknowledges her responsibilities: – Sono stata io pure vile e colpevole ... Tu mi hai creduta buona e invece son cattiva: ti ho tradito mentre t’amavo e per uno che non amavo, perché era ricco, ed io ero ambiziosa ... e tu eri povero e servo. Ora ti ho sposato perché ti amavo, sì, ma se tu fossi stato ancora povero, ancora ti avrei respinto ... – Vedi che io non ho niente da rimproverarti, dunque: ogni colpa è mia. Se tu hai rubato, se tu hai ucciso fu per amor mio. Mettiamo una pietra sul passato, vogliamoci bene lo stesso, lo stesso ... Iddio potrà perdonarci ... – Dimmi! Dimmi, Pietro, dimmi tutto. Non posso stare in quest’incertezza. Dimmelo, e non ne parleremo più! – Sì, è vero! – diss’egli – E’ vero! E’ vero! ... – gridò dopo un istante di silenzio, alzando sempre più la voce. (A, 285) [– I was, too, coward and guilty ... You believed that I was good, whereas I am evil: Although I loved you, I betrayed you for someone I did not love because he was rich, and I was ambitious ... and you were a poor servant. Now I married you because I loved you, yes, but if you were still poor, I would have rejected you again ... – You see, I can’t reproach you for anything, then all guilt is mine. If you stole, if you killed, it was because you loved me. Let’s forget the past, let’s love each other nevertheless, nevertheless ... God can forgive us ... – Tell me! Tell me, Pietro, tell me everything. I cannot stay in this uncertainty. Tell me, and we will not talk about it ever again! – Yes, it’s true! – he said. – It’s true! It’s true! ... – he yelled after a moment of silence, raising his voice more and more.]

In A, Maria’s declaration of shared guilt hinges on the theme of money, on her materialistic Weltanschauung, which had accompanied her throughout the plot. The veristic theme of ‘la roba,’ the material posses-

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sion that determines social devolopment of the characters in Giovanni Verga’s narrative,47 was the common denominator of Maria’s decision to marry Francesco Rosana and Pietro’s decision to marry Maria in A, B, and C, as Pietro had stated in his thoughts at the beginning of the novel: ‘sposarsi senz’amore, no, ma sposarsi bene, avere l’amore e la roba, questa è davvero la felicità’ [to marry without love, no, but to marry well, to have love and possessions, this is true happiness (B, 55/C, 241; see an equivalent passage in A, 3)]. Whereas this materialistic Weltanschauung accompanies both characters through the end of the novel in A, in B/C Maria’s acknowledgment is more problematic in the spirit of a more open and disquieting closure altogether. Central to the revised conclusion is the absence of Pietro’s outspoken confession. In B/C Maria realizes from his overly anxious behaviour that ‘ “Egli ha paura: egli ha capito: egli non chiamerà il medico: nessun medico della terra può guarire il nostro male. Dio mio, Dio mio, che faremo noi?”’ [‘He is afraid: he understood: he will not call the doctor: no doctor on earth can cure our illness. My God, my God, what will we do?’ (B, 328/C, 409)]. Well aware of the limitations of human knowledge and clearly beyond the positivistic faith in objective truth, Maria’s Weltanschauung in B/C has evolved along her existential journey beyond the sheer materialism of its beginning. Money is mentioned here as a once addictive erotic object for Maria, who now has acquired the modern consciousness of its ill-fated power. She is now capable of putting in perspective the significance of money as a sheer means to reach at least a partial truth. After a typographic interval that emphasizes the clueless echo of Maria’s most radical question, the previous passage continues as follows: ‘Che faremo noi?’ Per la prima volta, dopo quelle lunghe ore di incubo, ella associò al suo il dolore di Pietro ... ‘Che faremo noi?’ Ed ella previde lucidamente ciò che doveva avvenire. Ella avrebbe taciuto, ella avrebbe sperato ancora; ma come un giorno era riuscita ad arrivare fino al cadavere di Francesco, un altro giorno sarebbe arrivata a scoprire gli avanzi dell’altra vittima ed a farli parlare. Sì, anche i morti parlano. Ed anche i vivi, talvolta. Col denaro e con la volontà si arriva a tutto. Il denaro, ch’ella aveva amato tanto, amato più di se stessa, le avrebbe dato almeno il conforto di arrivare fin dove ella voleva: fino alla verità. ‘Solo Pietro tacerà ... Egli fingerà e tacerà sempre ...’ E quando anche egli avesse parlato, ella non l’avrebbe certo accusato al giudice. Come nessun medico poteva guarire il loro [emphasis in the text]

La via del male 87 male, nessun giudice poteva condannarli ad una pena maggiore di quella a cui erano condannati. (B, 328–9/C, 409–10) [‘What will we do?’ For the first time, after those long nightmare hours, she associated Pietro’s pain with hers ... ‘What will we do?’ And she foresaw clear-sightedly what would have to happen. She would remain silent, she would still hope; but as one day she had succeeded in finding Francesco’s corpse, another day she would discover the remains of the other victim and make them speak out. Yes, the dead speak out. And the living as well, sometimes. With money and will one can reach everything. Money, which she had loved so dearly, more than herself, would at least bring her the comfort of reaching what she wanted to: the truth. ‘Only Pietro will remain silent ... He will always feign and remain silent ...’ And even in the case that he would speak out, she would not accuse him in front of the judge for sure. As no doctor could cure their [emphasis in the text] illness, likewise no judge could condemn them to a greater punishment than what they were condemned to.]

The development of the female protagonist epitomizes the more multifaceted representation of all primary and secondary characters of the novel. In the open conclusion of the revised novel, Maria’s point of view prevails and projects the shadows of modernity on the clear certainties of positivistic knowledge, whether scientific or legal in nature. An unambiguous definiton of the punishment that Maria and Pietro inflict on themselves characterized the end of A: For the purpose of keeping up appearances, they would continue to live together in a marriage without love but filled with reciprocal hatred and contempt. – Non pensarci, Pietro Benu: davanti al mondo saremo uniti, ma davanti a Dio! Non ci sarà più nulla di comune fra noi. Non temere. Non ne saprà nulla neppure babbo, neppure mamma, anzi essi meno degli altri ... Non c’è bisogno di scandali ... Era bianca come la sua camicia e tremava tutta, ma parlava con voce così sommessa, tagliente e sicura che Pietro comprese che tutto era finito. – Non mi vuoi più bene, vuol dire? – le chiese. – No, – diss’ella, avviandosi verso la porta ... – No, non mi ama più ... e forse ... – pensò Pietro e un dubbio crudele gli passò in mente. Avanzandosi fino alla porta seguì Maria con lo sguardo, e quando essa scomparve si lasciò cadere sul limitare di quella casa fatale, di-

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Grazia Deledda’s Dance of Modernity sperato e avvilito sotto il peso dell’immane castigo. (A, 286) [– Don’t think about it, Pietro Benu: before the world we will be united, but before God! There will be nothing in common between us. Don’t worry. No one will know, not even my dad, not even my mom, actually they will know less than the others ... Scandals are not necessary ... She looked white like her shirt and was all trembling, but she was talking with a voice so soft, sharp, and certain that Pietro understood that everything was over. – Do you mean that you don’t love me any longer? – he asked her. – No, – she said while approaching the door ... – No, she does not love me any longer ... and perhaps ... – Pietro thought, and a cruel doubt crossed his mind. While [she was] going toward the door he followed Maria with his eyes and, when she disappeared, he let himself fall on the threshold of that fateful home, desperate and mortified under the burden of the heavy chastisement.]

In the first edition, materialism and societal laws determine the direction of the individual journey until the end, thus impeding the open development of the characters, the narrative structure, and the function of the reader. In A, Pietro Benu is still paradoxically ‘indomabile’ and yet tamed by the laws of social ascent and the materialistic values of the middle class. It is not a coincidence that the syntagm that had given the original title to the novel still occurs three times in A (3, 67, and 236), but disappears completely in B/C. On the contrary, in B/C the female protagonist epitomizes the radically modern perspective on ethics and epistemology, which is the quintessential doubt of the possibility of reaching a definite truth in moral and logical terms or a clear answer on good and evil. In the revised novel, Maria’s point of view, not Pietro’s, concludes the narrative and determines the most notable change in its structure and the function of the reader in the following final passage: Ella ricordava appunto di aver veduto, una volta, una fila di condannati diretti ad una colonia penale. Procedevano a due a due, incatenati assieme. Ella e Pietro erano simili a quei disgraziati; legati da una stessa catena, diretti allo stesso luogo di castigo. Da anni ed anni essi procedevano assieme per una via grigia, vigilata dal fantasma del male: ed erano giunti ad un crocicchio, adesso, intorno al quale s’aprivano altre strade, tutte eguali tortuose e buie. Tanto valeva prendere l’una o l’altra: tutte conducevano allo stesso luogo

La via del male 89 di espiazione. (B, 329/C, 410) [She precisely remembered once having seen a line of convicts heading for a penal colony. They proceeded in pairs, chained up together. She and Pietro resembled those wretched people: tied up to the same chain, headed for the same place of punishment. For years they proceeded together along a grey path, guarded by the ghost of evil: and now they reached a crossroads, around which other ways opened up, all equally tortuous and dark. It did not matter which one they took: they all led to the same place of expiation.]

La via del male’s narrative journey after the revision concludes not with the Dostoyevskian word ‘castigo’ [punishment] – which was preceded by an unmistakable definition of this self-inflicted punishment in the name of society – but with the utterance ‘espiazione’ [expiation].48 Interestingly, the 1906 instalment publication of the novel in the newspaper La Gazzetta del Popolo, under the title Il servo [The Servant], concluded with the final word ‘castigo’ and not ‘espiazione,’ because it did not include yet the two last sentences ‘on the way’ added that same year to the volume edition B.49 This detail indicates the author’s restless search for a closure that would adequately express her more open approach to a narrative structure apt to mirror the moral and logical tension of modernity. It was precisely to this tension or ambiguity that the young author alluded in the already mentioned letter to De Gubernatis of 4 September 1893, in which Deledda brought to a close the summary of the plot as follows: ‘Questa è la trama. La morale sarebbe doppia, un po’ spirituale, un po’ sociale’ [This is the plot. The moral (of the story) would be double, a bit spiritual, a bit sociological (see 1.1.a, p. 26)]. As a consequence of this new ambiguity, in the revision for the 1906 volume edition a visual memory from the point of view of the female protagonist suggests without describing it the meaning of ‘espiazione’ in place of the direct discourse between the two protagonists in A. Derived from the verb ‘espiare’ [to expiate] with the characteristic suffix ‘-zione’ to indicate action (Dardano and Trifone 1985: 327–8), the noun ‘espiazione’ traces a path that might take the protagonists to redemption and liberation from evil through the implementation of a punishment. In the open conclusion of the revised novel, the semantic field of the journey dominates and empowers the reader to continue the existential voyage of the protagonists through interpretation and reflection. As we have seen, the final chapter of the revised edition of La via del

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male presents a sequence of changes that culminate in the final, ‘unfinished’ word ‘espiazione.’ The only possible answer to Maria’s pounding questions, ‘Che fare?’ [What to do?] and ‘Che faremo noi?’ [What will we do?], lies in the acknowledgment that a moral and epistemological truth is attainable solely through constant self-analysis, critical thinking, and the anguish that these processes instil in the subject of modernity. 1.8.c. Language and Open Journey In addition to the open ending, the most evident structural change from A to B/C, which surprisingly has not been noticed so far,50 highlights the central significance of language and culture in the sociological journey of La via del male’s male protagonist. The original Speirani edition is divided into two parts. ‘Parte Prima’ counts thirteen chapters, and ‘Parte Seconda’ fifteen. The thirteenth chapter of the first part is devoted to Pietro’s dramatic experience in prison, where he appropriates the most effective tools of social ascent: reading and writing. At the beginning of the chapter, Pietro has already made the first step on the ‘path of evil’ when he has entered his aunts’ house to steal the bandit’s pistol: ‘Sentiva che il passo fatto in quella sera era il primo passo nella via del male: ne seguirebbero altri ed altri, fino ad un confine ignoto e pauroso’ [He felt that the step he had made that evening was the first step on the path of evil: many others would follow, up to an unknown and frightening boundary (A, 136)]. The central significance of this chapter in Pietro’s journey is sealed in the appearance of the title syntagm. The presence of the dynamic title in the chapter that sees Pietro acquire a new social potential through the appropriation of linguistic tools emphasizes the ambiguous role of institutional culture in unified Italy. If we take into account the typographical error that left out the indication of chapters 3 and 4 in the second part of the Speirani edition (A, 182), both halves of the novel count thirteen chapters. In a revealing symmetry, the thirteenth chapter of the first part acquires a special significance in pointing out the double-edged role of culture in the existential and social journey of the male protagonist. As we have examined at the level of thematic changes (see 1.7.a, b, and c, pp. 66–74), the revision has highlighted the journey theme as the disconcerting quest for moral and logical truth in the spirit of modernity. We have also pointed out how the reinforcement of the journey motif at the structural level has affected the conclusions of the second and third edi-

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tions (see 1.8.a and b, pp. 78–90). B and C not only end with a powerful image of the existential voyage, but start with a dynamic opening as well.51 In the revised beginning, Pietro Benu arrives from nowhere at Maria’s house in Nuoro in search of work. The temporal coordinates coincide with the general indication of ‘i primi di settembre’ [early September], according to the temporal markers of the natural rhythm of the seasons and sparse hints at the passing of the year throughout the novel. On the contrary, the first chapter of the first edition provides the reader with a precise temporal frame. The narrative begins in November 1885 and, through numerous flashbacks and digressions, the main characters and their veristic milieu are introduced in an orderly fashion. 52 In particular we learn about Pietro Benu’s childhood and how the deterministic force of his social plight had tamed the once fierce personality, which his mother had stigmatized with the nickname of ‘l’indomabile’ [the untameable (A, 3)]. In general, the constant indications of chronological time in A disappear in favour of a cyclical time dimension in B/C. For this reason, the clear-cut separation of part 1 and part 2 in A, corresponding to Maria and Francesco’s wedding, vanishes in the revision, which emphasizes altogether the openness of the protagonists’ life journey. I have underlined how in particular the conclusion of B/C reveals an open-ended existential quest of both protagonists through the prevailing point of view of Maria’s character. It is from Maria’s perspective that the semantic field of the journey dominates the open conclusion and replaces the final word ‘castigo’ [punishment] with ‘espiazione’ [expiation]. And it is from her point of view – which in the final chapter highlighted the fading boundaries between sanity and insanity, and reality and dream – that the open conclusion hints at the indefinite continuation of the protagonists’ journey through the interpretive collaboration of the reader. At the very centre of the open-ended narrative structure of the second and third editions, the thirteenth chapter maintains and increases its pivotal role in determining the outcome of the novel in the spirit of modernity. The expansion of the prison episode – through the addition of the agitated direct discourses between inmates Pietro and Antine about social injustice, egalitarianism, evangelism, and culture as a weapon (see 1.8.a, pp. 78–82) – underscores the radical openness of the journey. The acquisition of cultural and linguistic tools empowers the subject of modernity with epistemological and moral responsibilities that overcome the deterministic Weltanschauung of Positivism and Verism. Writing, in its literal meaning for the male protagonist and its metaphorical

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meaning for the female author, becomes the transgressive activity par excellence, capable of opening up the existential journey of both to liberation from societal constrictions and expression. In a review of the 1906 edition of La via del male aimed at stressing Deledda’s significance as a woman writer against misogynous stances of his contemporaries, Pirro Bessi had already noticed that the novel’s conclusion ‘non pretende di risolvere nessuna tesi morale o psicologica’ [does not pretend to resolve any moral or psychological thesis (1907a: 1)]. For this reason, the openness of the revised novel requires the interpretive involvement of the reader to understand what will be the existential translation of the final word ‘espiazione.’ Accordingly, the dynamic title of the novel leaves the reader with the interpretive task of defining the nature of the genitive. Does La via del male indicate the social determinism or religious fatalism of the objective genitive – The Path of Evil as The Path to Evil – or rather the radical openness of the subjective genitive – The Path of Evil as The Evil Path – which could lead to transgression but also to indefinite forms of ‘expiation’ toward ‘good’? 1.9. A Partial Conclusion In this long chapter we have followed the multifaceted metamorphosis that Deledda’s early novel La via del male underwent through its three volume editions in 1896, 1906, and 1916. Textual analysis and study of variations on the formal, thematical, and structural levels have highlighted the rich texture of this neglected novel, which builds a bridge between late Romanticism and Verism, on the one hand, and modernity on the other. A work in progress by definition, from the title to the conclusive utterance, La via del male embodies a narrative structure ‘on the way’ to modernity, which enables the postmodern reader to unwind the threads of multiple interpretation that the open structure of the revised work suggests. As we know, Deledda was able to come to terms with Capuana’s literary authority and incorporate into her revisions his constructive criticism, which had pointed out linguistic and structural ‘artifices’ in the light of Verism (Capuana 1973 [1898]: 100). The fact that she integrated the amendments inspired by Capuana into her own intellectual and literary journey to modernity did not prevent the young author from acknowledging her debt to the ‘illustrious Master,’ thus showing her diplomatic skills. Deledda expressed her gratitude to Capuana for the ‘bellissimo articolo Suo sulla Via del male’ [excellent article of yours on The Path of

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Evil] and above all for ‘i Suoi alti consigli’ [your great advice] as an ‘illustre Maestro, che per la grandezza appunto dell’arte Sua, è stato l’unico, forse, ad interpretare il mio primo vero lavoro qual esso era nel mio intendimento’ [illustrious Master who, precisely for the excellence of his art, was perhaps the only one to interpret my first real work as it was in my intention’ (letter to L. Capuana, 30 March 1897, Ciusa Romagna, 1959, 109–10)]. As a clear sign of Deledda’s satisfaction with her revision, she decided to send La via del male to operatic composer Giacomo Puccini, with the suggestion to set it to music. Deledda highly appreciated Puccini’s modern interpretation of Italian opera, and one of the first cultural events she attended as soon as she moved to Rome was the performance of Tosca at the Costanzi Theatre in January 1900. Despite the laconic reply from the composer, who never showed an interest in collaborating with the writer,53 Maria Elvira Ciusa has convincingly mapped out common thematic elements between Deledda’s and Puccini’s works. Conceived at the time of intense ethnological research, La via del male expresses, more than other rather famous novels, ‘il culto per i canti corali, espressione dell’anima collettiva’ [the devotion to choral chants that voice the collective soul (Ciusa 1997: 211)], which Deledda and Puccini share. Poignant frescoes of Nuoro’s musical traditions mark the narrative rhythm of the novel, from the Muttetos that accompany Maria and Francesco’s wedding celebrations (A, 165/B, 213/C, 338) to the Attitidos that usher the mourning rituals for Francesco’s death (A, 211/B, 256/C, 365), to the improvised epic chants a disputas during the scenes of oral narration around the fireplace (A, 63/B, 87/C, 261). The echo of these arcane rhythms resounds in the open ending of the protagonists’ journey on ‘the path of evil’ (B, 329/C, 410; see 1.7.b, pp. 88–9). We have analysed in depth how in the open ending of the novel the path of ‘evil’ – as sentimental and social revenge from Pietro’s point of view, and as transgressive passion that overthrows social hierarchy from Maria’s point of view – turns into a way of tormented search for ‘good’ through ‘expiation’ in silence. The conclusion open to multiple interpretations determines the character ‘in cammino,’ on the way to modernity of La via del male. This ensues not only from the recurrence of the semantic field connected to ‘cammino’ and the theme of existential journey, or exclusively from the metamorphosis of the title or the formal, thematic, and structural revisions that the novel underwent. In addition, and more importantly for the cultural journey of the author, La via del male constitutes a bridge between late Romanticism, Verism, and moder-

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nity, for it goes through, literally and metaphorically, Positivism and biblical culture. Fundamental cultural threads throughout Deledda’s narrative, Positivism and Old Testament Christianity start to intertwine in this early novel with irrationalism and nihilism. We will follow intertextual presences of the most disquieting voices of modernity such as Nietzsche and Schopenhauer in the next chapters on Cenere, Il segreto dell’uomo solitario, and La danza della collana. As a consequence of the revised novel’s openness to anti-deterministic Weltanschauungen and of the author’s opening to the European thought of modernity, the dedication to exponents of Positivism Niceforo and Orano disappears from the 1906 and 1916 editions. La via del male transforms the objective genitive into a subjective genitive, thus switching from the deterministic ‘the path to evil,’ to the non-deterministic ‘path of evil’ open to new questions and attempts to reach an unspecified ‘good.’ Accordingly, the biblical epigraph vanishes, too, and the hopeless way that the prophet Isaiah indicated to sinners (see 1.1.b, pp. 34–5) turns into an open journey in search of moral and theoretical answers in the dramatically changing world of modernity. In the crucial stage of her cultural formation, which coincides with writing and revising La via del male, the marginalized woman writer from Sardinia shares with her characters precisely this all-encompassing intellectual, ethical, and formal quest, thus becoming, like them, one of the ‘cavalieri erranti [che] ... camminavano, camminavano’ [wandering knights (who) ... walked, walked (A, 96/B, 130/C, 287)] during the pilgrimage sequence. For these reasons, La via del male represents a novel ‘on the way’ to modernity in its search for the ‘cosmopolitismo spirituale’ [spiritual cosmopolitism (1907b: 608)], which Pirro Bessi had already highlighted in Deledda’s work. The quest of the modern subject, Deledda suggests, cannot escape a deeply disquieting dimension of radical openness because of its nature ‘on the way’: ‘Cammina, cammina. Ecco così si cammina nella vita, senza sapere chi si deve incontrare sulla propria strada’ [Walk, walk. This is how we walk through life, not knowing whom we have to meet on our way (B, 132/C, 289)].

2 The Transgressive Rewriting of the Novel of Formation: Cenere

In the present chapter I argue that the novel Cenere [Ashes (1903, 1904, 1910)] represents a transgressive rewriting of the novel of formation in the spirit of modernity. The boundary-breaking significance of writing in itself, on which Deledda would elaborate in the posthumous autobiographical novel Cosima (Migiel 1994: 113), is enhanced through the intertextual texture of Cenere. For the first time, after exploring the theoretical issues of positivistic determinism in her early prose, and particularly in La via del male, Deledda instils Nietzsche’s subversive thought in her narrative. Moreover, the fact that this novel generated a creative synergy between the literary and cinematic languages underlines Cenere’s central role in my attempt to redesign the Deleddian interpretative canon, beyond the constrictive categories of ‘ismi.’ I refer to the silent film Cenere made by Eleonora Duse in 1916, the first of a long sequence of motion pictures inspired by Deleddian novels, and the first and only one directed and acted by Duse. In a letter to Eleonora Duse, Grazia Deledda reacts to the film as follows: Le ripeto quanto altre volte malamente le espressi con la mia disordinata parola: Lei ha fatto di Cenere una cosa bella e viva: ma quando anche così non fosse mi basterebbe il conforto di aver veduto la mia opera passare attraverso la sua anima e riceverne il soffio vivificatore. Le ripeto; il lavoro è suo, ormai, non più mio, come il fiore è del sole che gli dà caldo più che della terra che gli dà le radici. (Letter, 25 November 1916, Cara 1988: 116) [I repeat what I have already clumsily expressed to you with my disorderly words – you have made something beautiful and alive out of Cenere. But if

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Grazia Deledda’s Dance of Modernity this were not the case, it would be comforting enough for me to have seen my work go through your soul and receive its enlivening breath. I repeat, now this work is yours, no longer mine, just as a flower belongs more to the sun that gives it warmth than to the earth that gives it roots.]

The present chapter intends to unveil the reasons for the author’s judgment quoted above. The nature-bound simile stresses the dynamic cooperation that characterizes the novel/film relationship, which highlights a new aspect of Deledda’s modernity. This successful synergy between different artistic codes is inherently intertwined with the narrative structure and the intertextual discourse of Cenere. Cenere’s linear story begins in the wild Sardinian mountain landscape of Barbagia on a warm summer night during the festival of St John. After gathering magic herbs according to ancient local traditions, Olì, a shepherd’s fifteen-year-old daughter, has an amorous encounter with the more mature and experienced Anania. Olì’s seducer lives in Nuoro, where he manages the olive oil press of the rich Mr Carboni, and is already married to an older, wealthy woman, Zia Tatana. Pregnant with Anania’s child, abandoned by her lover, Olì is also rejected by her father. Thus, her aimless wandering through a life of poverty and humiliation is set in motion. First, she raises her son, the young Anania, under miserable conditions while living in the mountain village of Fonni with Zia Grathia, a bandit’s widow, a single mother herself, and a relative of the elder Anania. Then, in the hope of providing the young Anania with a brighter future, Olì entrusts her son to his natural father. Before abandoning him at the front door of the elder Anania’s house, Olì ties an amulet around the neck of the young Anania. The small brocade pouch with mysterious contents ought to protect the boy in his life far away from his mother. At this point, the mother’s character disappears from the narrative until the second to the last chapter. Meanwhile, the omniscient narrator follows the young Anania along his geographical, cultural, and sentimental journey. The financial and moral support of the benevolent Mr Carboni, who becomes his godfather, bestows the privilege of education on the young Anania. To pursue his studies, Anania moves from Nuoro to Cagliari and from Cagliari to Rome. As a highschool student in Cagliari and a law student in Rome, Anania acquires sophisticated cultural tools, but he cannot free himself from the obsessive desire to find and redeem his mother, whom he believes lost in a sinful and errant life. For this reason, he erroneously thinks that his landlady of Sardinian descent in Rome could be his mother, and is

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dogged by hallucinations and nightmares. Meanwhile, a love relationship between Margherita, Mr Carboni’s beautiful and self-conscious daughter, and Anania underlines his apparently successful novel of formation as social ascent and sentimental fulfilment. However, when Anania meets his deeply ill and decayed mother at Zia Grathia’s in Fonni during a vacation trip home, he is poised to endanger his whole life – his promising professional future and upcoming marriage to Margherita – in order to physically and morally ‘save’ her. While Margherita refuses to accept Anania’s compromising proposal of sharing their future home together with his mother, Olì rejects Anania’s violent imposition of his paternalistic and moralistic protection by committing suicide. At his mother’s deathbed, Anania finally opens up the amulet that accompanied him throughout his quest and apprehends its symbolic contents: ashes. 2.1. Cenere: Whose Bildungsroman? Although it was never considered to be Deledda’s masterpiece, Cenere subsumes all recurrent topics of Deledda’s work in an open-ended narrative frame of silence.1 The silencing of the mother, unmarried, with an illegitimate child, is represented by her narratological erasure from the text, just as in the restrictive Sardinian culture of that time such a woman is banished to the margins. Within the film, though, the figure of the mother becomes visually central. Silence is represented visibly and graphically, as the character makes no claims to speech; instead she communicates through the body rather than the word, through gesture, movement, and facial expression. The silence/silencing of the mother, already the connective tissue of the novel, emerges overtly in the film through Duse’s landmark performance to become pivotal. An analysis of the narrative structures of the novel aims to highlight the internal reasons that made this work particularly apt for a filmic interpretation in the era of silent cinema. In the first part of the chapter I will underline how the cultural and social ascent of the male protagonist, Anania, paradoxically serves to stress the centrality of the otherwise seemingly peripheral character, his mother Olì. In contrast to her son, the mother – a recurring figure in Deledda’s narrative, as in La madre [The Mother (1920)], highly praised by D.H. Lawrence – is eventually able to find her strength and identity by virtue of a silent journey away from social interdictions and moral stereotypes.2 In Cenere, Anania’s search for his mother reveals itself to be a search

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for power through the accepted moral code. Moreover, the son’s quest turns out to be the failure of his Bildungsroman. The mother, who disappears from the surface of the text after the introductory chapters, will reappear only at the end of her son’s failed novel of formation; the true driving force of the narrative, she epitomizes the object of the quest, and of incestuous desire. The analysis of some significant variations between the first publication of Cenere in the renowned literary journal Nuova Antologia in 1903 (A), the second publication and first volume edition for the ‘Biblioteca romantica della Nuova Antologia’ in 1904 (B), and the third and final edition for Treves publishing house in 1910 (C) will corroborate my reading of this novel. Realized in the years of La via del male’s editorial journey (1896, 1906, 1916), Cenere’s revisions indicate a further step toward modernity on the formal and thematic level. In the second part of the chapter, I will first address Deledda’s openness to cinema as the art of modernity while sketching the story of her interaction with film form. The core of this section will be the analysis of the silent film Cenere, co-directed and interpreted by Eleonora Duse and Febo Mari in 1916. Duse’s Cenere represents a notable example of cinematic adaptation as a rewriting of the textual source in a different set of signs (Marcus 1993: 15). Her detached directing and soundless gestures create a powerful translation of Deledda’s novel into filmic language. Duse’s version adds to the text rather than subtracts, by highlighting the transgressive centrality of the maternal character and the liberating force of silence. 2.2. Cenere as a Male Bildungsroman The novel’s opening paragraph3 immediately inscribes Olì Derios’s story – an Italianized Rosalia in the film – in the spatial-temporal coordinates that define Deledda’s major novels. The depiction of Sardinia’s internal mountain region of Barbagia, in spite of Deledda’s detailed descriptions, moves away from realistic mimesis and assumes a sacred-mythic dimension.4 Olì is simultaneously imprisoned and enchanted by her archaic and magical world. ‘Oppressa dalla solitudine e dalla miseria’ (Cenere I, 14) [Oppressed by loneliness and poverty (Ashes I, 25)], captivated by tales of fantastic other worlds and far-off places, she is easily seduced and subsequently abandoned by Anania. Of a higher social class than Olì, Anania has already been to mainland Italy while serving in the army of the unified state. In spite of the mythic connotation of the ‘Continente’

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(I, 13; I, 24) – a geographic synecdoche for mainland Italy still used in spoken language in today’s Sardinia to stress the distinctness of the insular identity (Wood 1995: 60–3) – Anania is constantly dreaming about the hidden treasures (‘accusorgios’) in the ‘nuraghe.’5 Anania’s quest for the hidden treasures has a decidedly erotic valence that draws him, just as it will draw the younger Anania, Olì’s natural son, back to Sardinia. Unsurprisingly in this patriarchal environment, Olì’s father repudiates his ‘dishonoured’ daughter, who in turn ends up abandoning her ‘illegitimate’ son. The amulet, called ‘ricetta’ (I, 36) or ‘rezetta’ (I, 35, emphasis in the text), that the young mother secures around her son’s neck before deserting him confirms the mythic-sacred dimension in Deledda’s work that several critics have emphasized.6 Olì had allegedly received the mysterious content of the ‘ricetta’ from an old friar. The apotropaic amulet illustrates the syncretism of pagan rituals and Christian traditions that characterizes Deledda’s narrative (De Giovanni 1999: 21). From a mythical perspective, Striuli reads in Jung’s terms the fairy-tale topos of the search for the secret treasure in Cenere as ‘the myth of the perilous psychological journey to the lower levels of consciousness’ (1989: 212). The plot is thus inserted in a frame of sacred rituals and mythical archetypes that are echoed in the homonymy between father and son. The film narrative begins at this point, in the crucial scene of the amulet gift, which marks in the novel the inception of young Anania’s Bildungsroman. The novel of formation of the male protagonist coincides with his progressive integration into the bourgeois middle class of unified Italy by acquiring the appropriate cultural tools. The male protagonist’s narrative of formation also coincides with his journey from Fonni – the little mountain village – to Nuoro – where his father’s wealthy employer will finance his education – to Cagliari – the Sardinian capital city where he will attend high school and then start his law studies. Finally, from Cagliari he will move to Rome, the capital of the unified Italian Kingdom and the symbolic centre of the expanding industrial society represented in the novel by the train, the ‘mostro dagli occhi rossi’ (II, 143) [the red-eyed monster (II, 130)] that Anania admires and fears at the same time.7 According to Bàrberi Squarotti (1972: 152–3), the voyage motif plays a pivotal role in numerous Deledda novels. More explicitly than in La via del male, in Cenere the physical and existential journey of Anania becomes the centre of the fairy-tale structure, which unfolds from the violation of the norm to the purification from sin. The geographical journey of Ana-

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nia from the margins to the centre of unified Italy in search of his mother coincides with his moral itinerary. Moreover, the voyage is the most characteristic metaphor for youth. Youth is the stage of life that defines par excellence the protagonist of the Bildungsroman, the literary genre that voiced the longing for social and cultural transformation between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Wilhelm Meister’s youth replaces Aeneas’s and Dante’s adulthood. In the Bildungsroman of Romanticism, the young age of the protagonist becomes a symbolic category that is defined by constant outer mobility and inner anxiety. These are also the features of young Anania’s formation novel (Moretti 1987: 4, 26). In a novel of formation à la Stendhal, Balzac, Flaubert, or Pushkin – authors fondly read by Deledda and her characters (King 2005: 29–31) – ‘what makes a story meaningful is its narrativity, its being an open-ended process ... that manages to suppress itself as a story’ (Moretti 1987: 7). In Cenere, this will be precisely the narrative outcome of the male protagonist’s formation. In Anania’s case, the romantic Streben toward constantly new aims results in a circular movement of incestuous nature (Migiel 1985: 63–4). For this reason, Anania can be included with full rights in the multitude of male and female ‘alienated failed types’ who succumb in the quest for their identity (Lazzaro-Weis 1993: 96). Anania’s Bildungsroman is triggered by the desire to find his mother in order to repair her wrongdoings from the past: ‘Fuggire! Cercare sua madre! Questa idea lo afferrò tutto e non lo lasciò più’ (I, 46) [Run away! Search for his mother! This notion overtook him completely and never left him (I, 50)]. This idea had seized him from the very first night he had spent at his father’s pleasant home. The repeated textual references to the teleological significance of the journey (Cenere, I, 49, 109– 10, 133; Ashes I, 51, 100, 117) erase the educational value of its content and underscore its diegetic circularity. Even in elementary school, Anania ‘studiava con piacere la geografia, e sapeva già perfettamente l’itinerario da percorrere per arrivare dall’isola a quel continente dove si nascondeva sua madre’ (I, 84) [studied geography with pleasure; and he already knew precisely the itinerary to follow in order to arrive from his island at that Continent where his mother was hiding (I, 80)]. In the taxonomy of the male protagonist, cultural contents turn out to be functional to the moral goal that he envisions. For Pietro Benu in La via del male, cultural tools were functional to his social and sentimental goal of overcoming his servant’s condition and marrying upper-middleclass Maria Noina. Anania in Cenere will acquire higher education and

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refined cultural tools for the purpose of finding his mother and ‘reforming’ her from her ‘sin.’ Already the grammar-school student in the passage quoted above eagerly learned geography in order to trace his journey to his vanished mother on the map. Anania’s journey becomes his itinerarium mentis in matrem. The protagonist’s novel of formation is also, in the path of the European Bildungsroman tradition, the account of a ‘sentimental education.’ Since his childhood in Nuoro, Anania had been in love with the ‘altera e soave’ Margherita (I, 125; a much closer Dantesque reminiscence than the English ‘haughty but sweet’ at I, 112), the daughter of the rich benefactor, Mr Carboni. Margherita, who combines the characteristics of Dante’s Beatrice and Goethe’s Gretchen, arouses in her young admirer ‘la coscienza del dovere’ (I, 125) [the realization of his duty’ (I, 112)], which he identifies with the ‘mission’ of finding and saving his mother from ‘sin’ (Cenere I, 109–10, 131; Ashes I, 100, 118–19). The sublimated female character of Margherita thus represents the positive pole of the erotic-incestuous tension of which the mother constitutes the negative pole. 2.3. Intertextuality and Male Bildungsroman The story of Anania’s intellectual and sentimental education is skilfully constructed on the intertextual level, which reveals direct and indirect references to Italian and European classics, ranging from Leopardi to Hugo and Nietzsche. The first literary quotation, framed in a bucolic setting – high-school student Anania learns ancient Greek while strolling in the orchard during a mild, sunny day of Easter recess – refers to a love poem by Sardinian dialect poet Luca Cubeddu (Cenere I, 88; Ashes I, 83). Shortly thereafter, though, we learn that Victor Hugo’s Les miserables lies open on Anania’s bedside table (Cenere I, 91; I, 85), thus stressing Anania’s broadening cultural and sociological horizons.8 The implied narrator is intent on making the cultural case for the move from Nuoro to Cagliari in order to achieve Anania’s social ascent and admission into an Italian and European cosmopolitan, bourgeois culture. It is exactly at this point that we encounter the first reference to Leopardi’s Le ricordanze [Recollections (1828)], which is explicitly quoted during Anania’s frantic night walk before his departure: ‘Non sapeva perché, Anania ripeteva i versi: “Care [sic] stelle dell’Orsa, io non credea” ’ (I, 112) [He didn’t know why, but Anania repeated the verses: ‘Dear stars of Ursa Major, I didn’t believe’ (I, 102)]. In spite of Anania’s

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allegedly unconscious literary choice, emphasized through syntax and punctuation in ‘Non sapeva perché,’ the omniscient narrator underlines very consciously the seemingly successful desire to abandon the archaic, provincial, and stifling world of the protagonist’s childhood, remarkably similar to Leopardi’s ‘natio borgo selvaggio’ and his inhabitants, ‘gente zotica, vil’ (Le rimembranze 30–1) [uncouth village of my birth among a folk/doltish and base (Recollections, trans. Whitfield 1962: 160–1)]. The acquisition of cultural tools plays a pivotal role in the protagonist’s quest for his mother. Anania will be allowed to move from Nuoro to Cagliari because he is a successful student, and there he will conclude classical high school and study law for the first two years prior to his next move to Rome. Therefore, the high-culture reference to Manzoni’s I promessi sposi at the conclusion of the famous eighth chapter, when Anania is about to leave Nuoro, comes as no surprise: Addio, addio, orti guardanti la valle; addio scroscio lontano del torrente che annunzia il tornar dell’inverno; addio canto del cuculo che annunzia il tornar della primavera; addio grigio e selvaggio Orthobene dagli elci disegnati sulle nuvole come capelli ribelli d’un gigante dormente; addio rosee e cerule montagne lontane; addio focolare tranquillo e ospitale, cameretta odorosa di miele, di frutta e di sogni. (I, 103) [Goodbye, goodbye, gardens overlooking the valley. Goodbye, distant babble of the stream that announces the return of winter. Goodbye, cuckoo song that declares the return of springtime. Goodbye, gray and savage Mt. Orthobene with your holm oaks etched against the clouds like the fly-away hair of a sleeping giant. Goodbye, pink and blue mountains in the distance. Goodbye, quiet and welcoming family hearth, little room fragrant with honey, fruit, and dreams! (I, 95)]

In Manzoni’s text the melancholic, tragic element of the ‘Addio, monti’ passage results from an external perverse force – Renzo and Lucia have to abandon their roots because of Don Rodrigo’s oppressive attraction toward Lucia. On the contrary, in Deledda’s novel Anania himself yearns for the separation from his native town, for this move heralds the final goal of reuniting with his mother. Therefore, the indirect quotation implies an ironic paradox, which emerges as the cipher of the male protagonist’s novel of formation. While Renzo and Lucia’s journey represents a veritable learning experience and, therefore, the essence of the Bildungsroman, Anania’s novel of formation ends up in a circular move-

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ment of an incestuous nature. Triggered by the Oedipal desire to reunite with his mother and the moralistic obsession to rehabilitate her, Anania is unable to acquire meaningful knowledge through his formal education and the encounters of his new life, first in Cagliari and then in Rome. The reference to Manzoni, therefore, underscores the paradoxical nature of Anania’s novel of formation, which fails because of the protagonist’s inability to accept his mother’s independence and self-determination. The same ironic connotation characterizes the quotation from Dante’s Purgatorio which strategically opens the first chapter of the second part of the novel, a chapter dedicated to Anania’s wandering on the ‘Continent’ and eventual return to his native village: ‘Era nell’ora che volge il disìo ai naviganti ed a quelli che stanno per salpare verso ignoti lidi. / Anania è fra questi. Il treno lo trasporta verso il mare’ (II, 139) [It was the time of day when sailors and those who are about to sail for unknown shores think about their loved ones. / Anania is among them. The train is taking him toward the sea (II, 127)]. The opening lines of the second part of the novel paraphrase the first tercet of the eighth canto of Dante’s Purgatorio: Era già l’ora che volge il disio Ai navicanti e ’ntenerisce il core Lo dì ch’an detto ai dolci amici addio (Purgatorio VIII, 1–3) [It was now the hour that melts a sailor’s heart And saddens him with longing on the day He’s said farewell to his beloved friends (2003: 153, trans. Hollander)]

The reference to the Divina Commedia’s second cantica is particularly apt because in medieval Christian theology ‘Purgatory’ denotes a place in which purification of the souls occurs while they are on their after-life journey toward salvation. The eighth canto is the last of the ante-Purgatory, a unique creation of Dante to accommodate the souls that need a longer preparation before they can begin the process of repentance. In the ante-Purgatory Dante gathers crucial historical symbols of the moral freedom necessary to contrast political and religious oppression. The first saved soul that the pilgrim Dante encounters here is Cato of Utica, who committed suicide – otherwise a mortal sin – to resist Caesar’s tyranny. In the ante-Purgatory Dante courageously places the group of the excommunicated – those unjustly banned from the Church because of their insubordination, as in the case of Manfredi.

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The Dantesque pilgrim’s metaphorical journey toward salvation is ingrained in the image of the voyage across the sea and the painful detachment from one’s roots in the first tercet of the eighth canto. The romantic nostalgia that the tercet exudes is intertwined with the political dimension of Dante’s existential journey. As a matter of fact, the eighth canto concludes with a veiled prophecy of Dante’s exile by Currado Malaspina’s soul. Therefore, the association between Dante’s and Anania’s nostalgia that is suggested through the strategic intertextual reference represents another case of ironic paradox. While in Purgatorio’s eighth canto the inner tragedy of the political exile is at stake, thus evoking the burning socio-political context of Dante’s pilgrim journey, in Deledda’s novel the Dantesque epigraph introduces the protagonist’s voluntary ‘exile’ justified by his previously conceived ‘mission’ – that is, to find his mother again in order to purify her from the ‘original sin’ of a sexual relationship with his father, a sin that she had amplified in her illegitimate son’s point of view by abandoning him and then allegedly continuing her immoral lifestyle on the mainland (Cenere I, 49; Ashes I, 52): ‘Ricordi tumultuosi gli passarono nella mente; rammentò i generosi propositi tante volte accarezzati, il sogno di cercarla e di redimerla, la pietà infinita per l’incoscienza e la irresponsabilità di lei, l’orgoglio ch’egli provava nel sentirsi così pietoso, la sete di sacrifizio ... / Tutto menzogna’ (II, 163; emphasis in the text) [Disturbing memories went through his head. He thought about his generous plans, so often entertained – the dream of finding her, of reforming her, his infinite pity for her unscrupulousness and her irresponsibility, his pride in feeling himself so full of compassion, his thirst for self-sacrifice ... / All lies (II, 145)]. Anania’s quest for his mother asserts his male-gendered power, which is legitimized by prevailing moral conventions. Although Anania’s search coincides with his Bildungsroman, his journey erases the cultural achievements that the learned quotations have underlined. Moreover, intertextuality works in Cenere not only at the narrative level, by enhancing the circularity of the plot and the consequent self-suppression of the Bildungsroman, but also at the meta-narrative level. It is well known that Deledda was largely self-taught (De Michelis 1964: 11–20; King 2005: 11– 18; Kozma 2002: 28–30). She attended only the first four mandatory years of grammar school, as was customary for a middle-class girl at that time. In addition to private lessons in Italian, Latin, and French, young Deledda carved in her Nuoro seclusion a multifaceted experience of literature that nurtured her first writings. A sometimes bored reader of canonical Italian classics, from Boccaccio to Manzoni, from Dante to

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Tasso,9 she voraciously absorbed the works of Italian and European late Romanticism, Naturalism, and Decadentism ranging from Capuana to D’Annunzio, Tarchetti to Fogazzaro, Hugo to Poe, Balzac to Dostoyevsky. The maturation of Deledda’s literary consciousness meant, though, a progressive detachment from mainstream culture on both personal and professional levels. Once she moved to Rome in 1900, she insisted on distancing herself from the trendy cultural life of the capital of the Nuova Italia, on the one hand, and on pursuing her dream of a socio-cultural mission to free the image of Sardinia on the ‘Continent’ from prejudice and stereotypes, on the other hand (see 1.1.a, pp. 25–30). Deledda’s deep personal and scholarly ties with the culture of a region at the margin of the newly unified Italian nation would determine her unique Bildungsroman, which would entail the appropriation of the Italian and European canonical texts of past and present to initiate a novel representation of Sardinian identity and traditions in the light of modernity.10 In Cenere, the mother, who had disappeared from the plot right after she abandoned little Anania, is strategically reintroduced as a driving narrative force, a longed-for aim of the quest, and an object of incestuous desire. Having returned from Rome to Nuoro during summer break in order to see again his beloved Margherita, Anania undertakes a solitary ascent of the Gennargentu Mountains. In the course of his wanderings, he stops in Fonni, the village where he had spent his early childhood. There, he visits Zia Grathia. He learns from her that, in spite of his belief that his mother was Maria Obinu (Cenere II, 168–9; Ashes 149–50), his Sardinian landlady in Rome, in fact Olì had never left her island. Zia Grathia gives voice once more to that persistent Deleddian fatalism of suffering11 while helping Anania organize a reunion with his mother, a tragic ghost of herself, exhausted by a meandering existence of misery and illness, and finally abandoned by a blind storyteller. First seduced and abandoned by a ‘Carabiniere’ for whom she had traversed the rugged mountain region at the heart of the island, Olì lived two years with Celestino, a blind minstrel. In spite of his poetic talent and beautiful voice, the sightless storyteller took advantage, too, of the poor woman who had assisted him so devotedly in his nomadic life from town to town, and abandoned her when she contracted malaria.12 Paradoxically, the male characters that represent two opposite sides of Sardinian reality at the end of the nineteenth century – the institutional presence of unified Italy in the ‘Carabiniere’ and the indigenous oral poetic tradition in the blind minstrel – coincide in exploiting the female protagonist and quashing the liberating potential of her journey.

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2.4. Nietzsche’s Moral Critique and Bildungsroman At this point, the filmic narrative resumes. Eleonora Duse’s production omits in full (in the version found at the Museo Nazionale del Cinema, Turin), or in part (in the version recently recovered at the George Eastman Institute of New York), Anania’s novel of formation from Nuoro to Rome via Cagliari.13 Instead of depicting the outward direction of Anania’s journey, from the village of Fonni in the Gennargentu Mountains to Nuoro first, then to Cagliari, and lastly to Rome, gradually farther from his geographical roots, Duse’s film underscores the unexpectedly inward result of that voyage. The film lingers not on the centrifugal tendency, but rather on the centripetal force that eventually attracts Anania back to Fonni. Fonni, the mountain village where Anania had spent his childhood with his mother, is the place where the departure and arrival of the journey coincide. In Fonni, Anania and Rosalia – the Italianized name of Olì in the film – rejoin the paths of their wandering lives. During and following the encounter with his mother Olì, Anania tries to compel her and his fiancée Margherita to accept his proposal of a ménage à trois with the overt purpose of ‘saving,’ but also of punishing, his mother. The overlapping of punishing and saving, the Catholic notion of salvation through the expiation of one’s sins, underscores Anania’s patriarchal violence against his mother, who would like to leave her son once again to allow Anania to pursue his sentimental and professional dreams without the burden of her shameful presence. ‘“Dio?” proruppe Anania, dandosi forti pugni sul petto. “Ora Dio vi comanda di obbedirmi. Non osate neppur più ripetere che non volete restare qui. Non osate” ’ (II, 229) [‘God?’ erupted Ananias, pounding his chest. ‘God is now commanding you to obey me. Don’t you dare even repeat that you don’t want to stay here. Don’t you dare!’ (II, 194)]. Neither Anania’s mother nor Anania’s fiancée, however, will play the game. At the end of their violent altercation, Olì forcefully replies to her son’s claim to control her that she has the night to go her own way (II, 232; II, 197). In a long letter to Anania, Margherita rejects her fiancé’s proposal and unveils the true reasons for his seemingly moral decision: Perché, vedi, io capisco benissimo che tu vuoi sacrificarti non per affetto, e neppure per generosità, – perché probabilmente to odii giustamente la

Cenere 107 donna che fu la tua rovina, ma spinto da quei pregiudizi umani inventati dagli uomini per rendersi scambievolmente infelici. Sì, sì: tu vuoi sacrificarti per il mondo; tu vuoi rovinarti e rovinare chi ti ama, solo per la vanità di sentir dire: ‘Hai fatto il tuo dovere!’ Tu sei un fanciullo, e il tuo è un sogno pericoloso ma anche, permettimi di dirtelo, anche ridicolo.’ (II, 241) [Because you see, I understand very well that you want to sacrifice yourself not for affection and not even for generosity – because justifiably you probably hate the woman who is the ruin of you – but because you are driven by those human prejudices invented by men to make one another unhappy. Yes, yes: you want to sacrifice yourself for the sake of appearances. You want to ruin yourself and ruin the one who loves you for the sheer vanity of hearing people say: ‘You did your duty!’ You’re a little boy, and yours is a dangerous dream, but it’s also ridiculous, if I may say so. (II, 204)]

In order to grasp the philosophical reference to Friedrich Nietzsche that resonates in Margherita’s words, we should attentively read a previous passage in the same chapter. Deeply shaken at the evident decline of his mother, Anania takes a stormy walk and longs for a hermit’s life: Se mi nascondessi su queste montagne e vivessi solo, cibandomi d’erbe e di uccelli? Perché l’uomo non può viver solo, perché non può spezzare i lacci che lo avvincono agli altri uomini e lo strangolano? Zarathustra? Sì, ma anch’Egli una volta scrisse: ‘... Oh, quanto sono solo! Non ho più nessuno con cui possa ridere, nessuno che mi consoli dolcemente...’ (II, 217) [What if I hid in these mountains and lived alone, eating herbs and birds? Why can’t a man live alone; why can’t he cut the ties that strangle him, that bind him to other men? Zarathustra? Yes, but even he once wrote, ‘Oh how alone I am! I have no one to laugh with anymore, no one to console me sweetly...’ (II, 186)]

Who is then the Zarathustra that defines Anania’s intellectual status and, at the same time, the cultural journey of the implied narrator? As we shall see, Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra has a particularly profound resonance in the narrative structure and themes of such late Deleddian novels as Il segreto dell’uomo solitario (1921) and La danza della collana (1924). The turning point in Nietzsche’s philosophy, Also sprach

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Zarathustra. Ein Buch für alle und keinen [Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and No One (1883–5)], is a long prose poem that aims at ‘a radical re-formation of humanity’ (Vattimo 2002: 90) through the notion of the ‘Eternal Recurrence of the Same’ and the prophetic annunciation of the Uebermensch. The doctrine of the Uebermensch or a new subject beyond (‘über’) the hierarchies of mind and body, good and evil, truth and falsehood, which have characterized Western metaphysics according to Nietzsche, can be understood only in the light of the ‘genealogic’ phase of Nietzsche’s thought. After his early ‘philological’ study on Die Geburt der Tragödie vom Geist der Musik [The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music (1872)], Nietzsche’s mature works develop a cultural criticism that deconstructs the ethical and logical foundations of Western metaphysics since classical Greece. Menschliches, Allzumenschliches [Human, All-Too-Human (1878)] inaugurates Nietzsche’s ‘genealogic’ thought, which will culminate in his later Die Genealogie der Moral [On the Genealogy of Morals (1887)]. In the first aphorism of Human, All-Too-Human on ‘The Chemistry of Ideas and Sensations,’ Nietzsche declares that strictly understood, there is neither an unegoistical action nor an entirely disinterested point of view, they are both only sublimations, in which the fundamental element appears almost evaporated, and is only to be discovered by the closest observation. All that we require, and which can only be given us by the present advance of the single sciences, is a chemistry of the moral, religious, aesthetic ideas and sentiments, as also of those emotions ... but what if this chemistry should result in the fact that also in this case the most beautiful colors have been obtained from base, even despised materials? (1909a: 14; emphasis in the text)

It is with this deconstructive attitude that Margherita criticizes the alleged moral decision of Anania and points out the ‘human, all too human’ impulse of hatred and revenge that his consciousness wants to mask under the notion of sacrifice. ‘Everything that declares itself superior and transcendent, in other words everything we deem valuable, is nothing more than a product of the sublimation of “human, all too human factors” ’ (Vattimo 2002: 61). Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra deploys a quest of the protagonist that reminds us of Anania’s quest but, more closely, of Cristiano’s, the ‘solitary man’ of Il segreto dell’uomo solitario (see 3.4, pp. 180–5). The explicit reference to Zarathustra in Anania’s interior monologue on his lonely ascent of the mountain gives us a clue to understand the

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Nietzschean resonance of Margherita’s critique of morality. Moreover, the authorial irony that surrounds Anania’s ‘superhuman’ attitude confirms in a subtler way the transgressive device that permeates the narrative mechanism of Cenere.14 Nietzsche’s presence does not simply enrich the intertextual dimension of Deledda’s novel, as is the case of Colombi e sparvieri (1912), in which we find explicit references that range from D’Annunzio to Schopenhauer and Lombroso (Bregoli-Russo 1985: 7–9; see 4.4, pp. 198–210). Ironically Anania, who establishes a connection with Zarathustra and the philosophy of the Uebermensch, does not know how to cope with the miserable reality of his mother beaten by misery and illness other than with a repeated scream: ‘Nooo!’ (Cenere II, 222, 229–30; Ashes II, 189, 195). The ironic implication of this powerless yelling demonstrates that Deledda read more in depth than we would expect in a writer generally accused of being ‘purely experiential’ (Kozma 1997: 338, and 2002: 157), totally detached from the decisive expressions of modernity (Sapegno 1971: xii). In contrast to D’Annunzio’s most influential interpretation of Nietzsche as ‘the great destroyer’ (Disertori 1980: 61),15 Deledda suggests in Cenere and, later on, in Il segreto dell’uomo solitario and La danza della collana, a narrative interpretation of Nietzsche that anticipates hermeneutic readings of Nietzsche’s philosophy from Heidegger to Vattimo. In Cenere, Margherita attempts to deconstruct the allegedly moral behaviour of Anania in order to construct a morality ‘beyond good and evil.’ This was precisely Nietzsche’s intention with his prophetic Zarathustra, the herald of an Uebermensch capable of overturning traditional values, accepting multiple truths, and reuniting the body and the spirit. Despite Anania’s cultivated philosophical and literary references that we have highlighted, the cultural and social ascent of the male protagonist is undone by his own redemptive desire, his attempt to appropriate and realign the mother figure. The result is a Bildungsroman that transgresses both literary and social convention. While emphasizing the irony of Anania’s seemingly ‘superhuman’ reactions, the implied narrator invites the reader to uncover a female novel of formation hidden between the lines of the manifest male novel of formation.16 2.5 Cenere as a Female Bildungsroman In spite of her limited physical, social, and cultural presence, Olì is able to resist filial and societal pressures at the conclusion of her journey: ‘Eppure ella si ribellò’ (II, 228) [Yet she rebelled (II, 193)]. The authorial intervention emphasizes the forceful act of resistance from a seemingly

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weak subject through the strong adversative conjunction (‘Eppure’) and, in the Italian original, the liquid consonance (‘ella’/‘ribellò’) and the oxytone verb form with the stress on the last vowel of the sentence (‘si ribellò’). In one of her few direct speeches in the whole novel (Bàrberi Squarotti 1972: 136–41), Olì voices her rebellion with the following words: ‘ “Tu non sei il mio padrone. Io non so chi tu sei ... Io sono libera ... e me ne andrò ...” ’ (II, 232) [‘You don’t own me. I don’t even know who you are ... I’m a free woman ... And I’m leaving’ (II, 197)]. Against the backdrop of prostration and desperation that defines Olì’s condition, her assertion of freedom and rejection of her son’s patriarchal rights over her stand out as a truly ‘superhuman’ decision to go ‘beyond good and evil.’ Still, the claim for freedom and independence of the mother’s character is infused with the tragic irony of a liberation that – in an inflexible patriarchal society – can be conquered only at the price of death and self-sacrifice. At the end of the novel, when it clearly appears that Margherita has rejected the idea of living with her fiancé and mother-in-law, Olì takes her own life by cutting her throat. With a powerful metaphorical gesture, the mother chooses silence in order to assert her freedom. In the concluding scene of the novel, after discovering his mother’s tragic death, the son opens up the ‘ricetta,’ the amulet that had accompanied him through his life. The mysterious little bag discloses nothing other than ashes. The voice of the omniscient narrator enunciates the contradictory meaning of that symbol. Ashes symbolize death but also life past that can arise, like the phoenix (Migiel 1985: 72), from an extreme gesture of self-sacrifice but also self-affirmation, as is Olì’s assertive death. Eppure, in quell’ora suprema, vigilato dalla figura della vecchia fatale [zia Grathia] che sembrava la Morte in attesa, e davanti alla spoglia più misera delle creature umane, che dopo aver fatto e sofferto il male in tutte le sue manifestazioni era morta per il bene altrui, egli ricordò che fra la cenere cova spesso la scintilla, seme della fiamma luminosa e purificatrice, e sperò, e amò ancora la vita. (II, 257) [Yet in that supreme hour, watched over by the figure of the fatal old woman who seemed to be the Death-in-Waiting, and in front of the remains of the most miserable of human beings, who after having created and suffered evil in all its manifestations, died for the good of others, he remembered that often there is a spark among the ashes – the beginning

Cenere 111 of a bright, purifying flame. And he hoped. And he loved life again. (II, 217)]

Although Anania has been interpreted as an active character, capable of transgressing the old for the new in order to undertake a social (Bàrberi Squarotti 1972: 143) or cultural (Piromalli 1968: 52–3) ascent, I argue that the only active character of the novel is Olì. In the conclusion, Olì affirms her right to self-determination, albeit through extreme self-negation, defining her identity through a silent journey against moral taboos. Thus Olì lines up with numerous silent mothers that abound in the ‘autobiographies of formation’ authored by women writers at the turn of the nineteenth century, such as those by Aleramo, Neera, and Serao. As Patrizia Zambon has documented, in those female autobiographies the family experience is consciously re-enacted as a cultural context that has replaced formal education, usually reserved for a male writer (1989: 313). At the very centre of the family experience the mother figure emerges (Cavallero 1993: 176). Olì’s choice of silence in Cenere finds its narrative counterpart in the posthumous autobiography Cosima, quasi Grazia or, we could even say, quasi Olì. Written only at the end of an extremely successful career, Cosima bears witness to the modesty in recounting oneself that often differentiates female from male autobiographies. Deledda’s autobiography rises to ‘un testamento poetico esistenziale’ [a poetic-existential testament (De Giovanni 1987: 122)] centred on the twofold process of acquiring erotic and intellectual knowledge. It has already been noted that Cosima epitomizes the only clearly winning character of Deledda’s work (Sanguinetti Katz 1994b: 57). Cosima’s third-person narrative allows the critical distance from the narrated events that initiates ‘una interpretazione o reinvenzione’ [an interpretation or a re-invention (Sanguinetti Katz 1994b: 56)] of the author’s life. My analysis points out that Cenere establishes a median stage in what Sidonie Smith calls ‘the negotiation of the autobiographical I’ (Smith 1993: 23) ‘in order to move from silence to self-narrative’ (4). Olì’s final gesture of self-negation but also self-affirmation through silence reveals the implied centrality of the female protagonist – in other words, the transgressive rewriting of the male protagonist’s novel of formation. That the female protagonist is at the very centre of the narrative is confirmed visually if we look at the peculiar itinerary of Anania’s novel of formation. Olì’s son goes from his origins back to his origins, from Fonni to Fonni via Nuoro, Cagliari, Rome, and Nuoro. In the journey from his

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mother to his mother he reveals his inability to use culture as a means of maturation.17 Furthermore, if we visualize the division into two equally long parts that characterizes the novel, we notice an astounding symmetry. The different stages of Anania’s quest for his mother are, in part 1, Fonni, Nuoro, and Cagliari. Anania’s brief return to Nuoro constitutes the median point of the novel and the divide between the first and the second part. In part 2, which begins in Rome, the next stages are, in reversed order, Nuoro and Fonni. I argue that this specular symmetry traces an ‘M’ (see diagram below), which stands as a synecdoche for mother, thus underscoring the central role of the female protagonist. Cagliari Nuoro Fonni

Nuoro

Roma Nuoro Fonni

2.6. Cenere’s Revisions and the Rewriting of the Bildungsroman As was the case with several of Deledda’s novels before 1910, when her established fame allowed her to stipulate an almost exclusive contract with the renowned publishing house Treves (Branca 1938: 48–74), Cenere appeared first in five instalments in the distinguished Roman literary journal Nuova Antologia (1 January – 1 March 1903), which hosted among others Pirandello, D’Annunzio, Giacosa, and Pascoli. A sign of undoubted appreciation, the Cenere volume edition inaugurated the ‘Biblioteca Romantica della Nuova Antologia’ series only one year later in 1904. While the variations from A to B are minimal, the author devoted more attention revising the novel for the Treves edition in 1910, which marked the beginning of a fruitful collaboration until Deledda’s death in 1936. The most significant changes place this novel in line with the formal and thematic journey toward modernity that the author undertook decisively with La via del male, which has emerged in the previous chapter as a complex text ‘on the way.’ More importantly for my interpretation of Cenere as a hidden female Bildungsroman, the variations underpin the centrality of the female protagonist. At the formal level, the variations from A to B and from B to C follow the same guiding principles as those at work in the multiple revisions of La via del male. The constant effort to fight what Capuana had criticized

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as ‘approximation’ (see 1.2.a, pp. 37–40) in order to reach a higher level of precision is apparent in subtler changes, for the author has significantly progressed in her literary maturation through the radical revision of La via del male and the writing of Il vecchio della montagna [The Old Man of the Mountain (1900)], Dopo il divorzio [After the Divorce (1902)], and Elias Portolu (1903). Since the inappropriate use of ‘come’ [like] is not a stylistic issue any longer, the author intervenes more often at the lexical level. For instance, ‘fatta la valigia’ [having packed his suitcase (A, 414/B, 139)] becomes ‘chiusa la valigia’ (C, I, 114) [having closed his suitcase (I, 104)] and ‘fece il liceo’ [he went to high school (A, 420/B, 154)], ‘frequentò il liceo’ [he attended high school (C, 126; translation mine)].18 At times, greater precision implies the addition of revealing lexemes. The starting point of Anania’s cultural journey is the first day of school, when he can fulfil his dream of ‘studiare per mettersi in viaggio alla ricerca di sua madre’ (A, II, 236/B, II, 89/C, II, 76) [get(ting) an education in order to be able to travel and search for his mother (II, 74)]. In the classroom, he is disappointed to see a female teacher in place of the male teacher that his older friend had described to him. The main reason for his disappointment, though, seems to be of a linguistic nature. The teacher si rivolgeva a lui di preferenza, chiamandolo col solo cognome e parlandogli un po’ in sardo, un po’ in italiano. (A, 237/B, 91). [Always called on him first, using only his last name and talking to him half in Sardinian and half in Italian.] > si rivolgeva a lui di preferenza, chiamandolo col solo cognome e parlandogli un po’ in dialetto sardo, un po’ in lingua italiana. (C, 79) [Always called on him first, using only his last name and talking to him half in the Sardinian dialect and half in the Italian language. (Trans. mine; cf. trans. Kozma, I, 76)]

The consistent shift from an ‘aulic’ register to a middle-ground, standardized Italian closer to spoken convention and more accessible to a broad middle-class audience continues in Cenere’s revision. Lexical modifications form, as for La via del male, the most evident realm of intervention (see 1.2.b, pp. 40–2, and 1.4, pp. 46–7). As an example, among many, of disappearing ‘aggettivi exornanti e gabrielici’ [ornamental adjectives in the style of Gabriele D’Annunzio (Mortara Garavelli 1991: 150)], suffice it to recall the emotionally laden passage of Anania’s

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highly symbolic crossing of the Tyrrhenian Sea from Cagliari to Rome. In the first chapter of the second part, as in the last chapter of the first part, the authorial interventions intensify as usual in crucial knots of the narrative. Anania’s interior monologue on the train re-enacts Lucia’s famous ‘Addio monti’ in Promessi sposi with an ‘aulic’ overtone in A/B, which the author muffles by targeting adjectives in particular. Addio, addio, terra d’esilio e di sogni! Anania rimase immobile, appoggiato al parapetto del piroscafo, finché l’ultima visione di Capo Figari e delle isolette, sorgenti azzurre dalle onde come nuvole pietrificate, svanirono nell’orizzonte vaporoso ... Finché vide la luna, rossa come un ferro rovente, calare in una lontananza torbida sanguigna. (A, 432/B, 181) [Goodbye, goodbye, land of exile and of dreams! Anania was motionless, leaning against the railing of the steamship up until the very last view of Cape Figari and the small islands; rising blue from the waves like petrified clouds, they disappeared in the misty horizon ... [U]ntil he saw the moon, as red as molten iron, setting in the cloudy, blood-red distance.] > Addio, addio, terra d’esilio e di sogni! Anania rimase immobile, appoggiato al parapetto del piroscafo, finché l’ultima visione di Capo Figari e delle isolette, sorgenti azzurre dalle onde come nuvole pietrificate, svanirono tra i vapori dell’orizzonte ... Finché vide la luna, rossa come un ferro rovente, calare in una lontananza sanguigna. (C, 142) [Goodbye, goodbye, land of exile and of dreams! Anania was motionless, leaning against the railing of the steamship up until the very last view of Cape Figari and the small islands; rising blue from the waves like petrified clouds, they disappeared in the mist of the horizon ... [U]ntil he saw the moon, as red as molten iron, setting in the blood-red distance. (Trans. mine; cf. trans. Kozma II, 129–30)]

A few lines later the author adds an adjective, though, which reveals her clear consciousness about the character’s emphatic personality. After his arrival in Civitavecchia, the harbour town near Rome, Anania uses a resonant metaphor while talking to his travel companion and future roommate: ‘“Vedi, mi par d’essere nel vestibolo ancora semplice ma già misterioso d’una grotta marina meravigliosa”’ [‘Look, it’s like being at the entrance to a marvelous underwater grotto’ (A, II, 433; see B, II, 182/C, II, 143)]. The critical authorial comment that ensues adds a

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revealing adjective in C: ‘Il Daga, che aveva già vissuto un anno a Roma, sorrideva beffardo, invidiando l’entusiasmo enfatico del suo compagno’ [Daga, who had already lived in Rome for a year, scoffed at him, envying the emphatic enthusiasm of his schoolmate (C, II, 143; see A, II, 433/B, II, 182; trans. mine; cf. trans. Kozma II, 130). It is exactly this ‘entusiasmo enfatico’ that Deledda reduces drastically in the next paragraph, which is devoted to the symbol of modernity – the train. In A and B the paragraph reads: L’arrivo rombante e terrificante del diretto diede al giovane provinciale sardo una scossa elettrica, un senso di terrore, la prima impressione vertiginosa d’una civiltà quasi violenta e distruggitrice. Gli parve che il grande mostro dagli occhi rossi lo portasse via, come il vento porta la foglia, lanciandolo in un crogiolo di vita nuova, bollente per gioie e dolori terribili. Era quella la vita vera, la civiltà profonda, l’umana marea, il palpito onnipossente ch’egli, fin dal primo viaggio attraverso la sua solitaria isola natìa, aveva sognato, ma non percepito mai nella sua grandiosa realtà. Affacciato al finestrino guardava le linee malinconiche della campagna romana, verdi-rosee al sole autunnale, che gli ricordavano le patrie pianure; ma le impressioni del paesaggio e le rimembranze tutte svanivano vinte dalla sensazione della vita nuova cui egli andava incontro. Tutte le cose, i muri, gli alberi, i cespugli, l’aria stessa, pareva fuggissero pazzamente, folli di terrore, inseguite da un invisibile mostro; e solo il diretto, mostro pur esso, ma benigno e protettore, enorme guerriero della civiltà, esso solo andava violentemente incontro al drago persecutore, per avventarglisi sopra e distruggerlo. (A, II, 433/B, II, 183– 4) [The thundering and terrifying arrival of the train gave the young Sardinian provincial an electric shock and a feeling of terror, his first dizzying impression of an almost violent and destructive civilization. It seemed as though the large red-eyed monster were blowing him away as the wind blows a leaf, tossing him into a melting pot of a new life, boiling with joys and terrible pain. This was the true life, the deep civilization, the human tide, the powerful beat that he had dreamed of since his first trip across his deserted native island, but had never perceived in its majestic reality. Leaning out of the train window he looked onto the melancholy lines of the Roman countryside, green-pinkish strokes in the autumn sun, which reminded him of the plains of his homeland; but the impressions of the landscape and all the recollections vanished under the feeling of the new life that he was approaching. It seemed as though everything – the walls, the trees, the bushes, even the air – were foolish fugitives, terrified by an invisible monster that was chasing them; and only the train – a monster itself, but a benign and protective one, a gigan-

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tic warrior of civilization – only the train violently went against the chasing dragon, in order to attack and destroy it.]

In C, this is what is left of this certainly emphatic and ‘aulic’ depiction of the monster of modernity: L’arrivo rombante del diretto diede al giovane provinciale sardo un senso di terrore, la prima impressione vertiginosa d’una civiltà quasi violenta e distruggitrice. Gli parve che il mostro dagli occhi rossi lo portasse via, come il vento porta la foglia, lanciandolo nel turbine della vita. (C, 143) [The thundering arrival of the train gave the young Sardinian provincial a feeling of terror, his first dizzying impression of an almost violent and destructive civilization. It seemed as though the red-eyed monster were blowing him away as the wind blows a leaf, tossing him into the vortex of life. (Trans. mine; cf. trans. Kozma II, 130)]

In addition to lexical interventions, Deledda follows the same guidelines implemented in La via del male for pronominal variations (for instance ‘egli’ A, 238/B, 93 > ‘lui’ C, 81, ‘ella’ A, 241/B, 100 > ‘lei’ C, 285) and orthographic and phonetic changes (for instance ‘pietra focaja’ A, 4/B, 7 > ‘pietra focaia’ C, 13), but she also experiences the same uncertainties (for instance from ‘le erbe mangerecc-e’ A, 4 > ‘le erbe mangerecc-ie’ B, 8 > ‘le erbe mangerecc-ie’ C, 13) [edible herbs]. The simplifying strategy that Herczeg has underscored at the syntactic level in La via del male (see 1.4, pp. 46–58) is also at work in the revision of Cenere. Here is an example of ‘simplification’ from hypotaxis to parataxis: ... vedeva sua madre, – la cui immagine fisica si scoloriva sempre più nella sua memoria come una vecchia fotografia, – e se la figurava sempre vestita in costume, scalza, svelta e triste. (A, I, 240/B, I, 98) [... he saw his mother, – whose physical image faded more and more in his memory like an old photograph, – and he always imagined her dressed in traditional costume, barefoot, clever, and sad.] > ... vedeva sua madre. L’immagine fisica di lei si scoloriva sempre più nella sua memoria come una vecchia fotografia, ma egli se la figurava sempre vestita in costume, scalza, svelta e triste. (C, I, 84–5)

Cenere 117 [ ... he saw his mother. The physical image of her faded more and more in his memory like an old photograph, but he always imagined her dressed in traditional costume, barefoot, clever, and sad. (I, 80)]

As in La via del male, the constant search for ‘scorrevolezza, di elementare lindore formale’ [fluency and fundamental formal tidiness (Mortara Garavelli 1991: 151; see 1.2.b, p. 41)] in Cenere has stylistic but also marketing reasons, which target the broad middle-class audience of the united Italian nation. It is interesting to note that Deledda’s interventions indicate a subtle attention to ‘political correctness,’ which certainly relates to the increasingly polarized Italian political context in the first decade of the last century (Floris 1999: 549–51). For instance, in the third person narrative that describes Margherita at the window from the point of view of high-school student Anania and his friend Zuanne, the young lady’s face was ‘quasi illuminato dal riflesso di una fiammante camicetta repubblicana’ [almost illuminated by the reflection of a flaming republican shirt (A, I, 244/B, I, 107)]. With a stronger chromatism, but also a more politically neutral connotation, the revision depicts Margherita’s visage ‘colorito e quasi illuminato dal riflesso di una fiammante camicetta rossa’ (C, I, 92) [tinted and almost illuminated by the reflection of a flaming red blouse (I, 86)]. For the same reason, Anania’s sarcastic remark on the epic heroes of a theatre play, tormented ‘dagli insetti garibaldini!’ [by Garibaldian insects! (A, I, 249/ B, 117)], turns into an anonymous ‘dagli insetti’ (I, 99), [by insects (I, 91)], deprived of the forceful exclamation mark and the provocative, dismissing reference to Garibaldi, the legendary hero of Italian unification. Deledda’s revisions also appear to have a conciliatory attitude toward the Sardinian audience that had originally despised her work because it conveyed an unflattering portrait of Sardinia and its traditions (Pirodda 1998: 1103–4, Giacobbe Harder 1974: 23–5). For instance, some interventions in this respect allude to the conflict between Nuoro, the capital of the secluded Barbagia region in the north of the island, and Cagliari, the island’s capital, the maritime city that mediated between insular and continental cultures. To her adoptive son, who dismissively refuses to confess his sins before moving to Cagliari in his cultural journey, pious aunt Tatana replies: – Cattivo figliuolo, tu non credi più in Dio! Che farai dunque a Cagliari, santa Caterina mia? Spero andrai almeno a visitare la Sea (la cattedrale),

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ove dicono ci siano santi miracolosi. A Cagliari son tutti religiosi: tu non parlerai male della religione, non è vero? – Io mi infischio dei cagliaritani! – protestò Anania. Ognuno crede quello che gli pare e piace: nel mio cuore io venero Dio più di tutti gli ipocriti. (A, I, 410/B, I, 129) [– You scamp! You do not believe in God any more! What will you then do in Cagliari? I hope you will at least visit the cathedral, where they say there are miracolous saints. In Cagliari everyone is very religious: You will not criticize religion, will you? – I don’t care about the Cagliari people! – Anania protested. Everyone believes in what they like: deep in my heart I revere God more than all the hypocrites.]

In C, though, the allusions to the contrast between capital and province disappear, leaving at the centre the opposition between interior faith and exterior religious rituals: – Cattivo figliuolo, tu non credi più in Dio! – Col cuore, sì! (C, I, 107) [– You scamp, you don’t believe in God any more! – Yes I do, deep in my heart! (I, 98)]

Deledda’s revision of a lengthy digression on the allegedly typically Sardinian passive acceptance of fate represents an even clearer effort to reconcile with her Sardinian audience after gaining a certain critical distance in her adoptive Rome. This time Daga, Anania’s roommate in Rome, explains to his naïve friend why their two young landladies only make advances to Daga and not to Anania: – Perché agli asini non può succedere ciò che succede agli uomini. L’asino sardo, poi, quello proverbiale, sai, sardu molente [emphasis in the text], è eternamente bendato e la sua missione è di girare la mola. Caschi il mondo, egli non vede niente, e gira e gira e gira ... (A, II, 604/B, II, 204–5) [– Because it is not possible that the same things that happen to men happen to jackasses. In particular to the proverbial Sardinian jackass, which is constantly blindfolded and has the mission of pushing around the millstone. No matter what, the jackass does not see anything, and turns around, around, and around ... ]19

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The entire passage is three times as long and even presents a provocative distinction between ‘morals’ and ‘morality,’ but what is left in C is solely: – Perché agli asini non può succedere ciò che succede agli uomini. (C, 154–5) [– Because the same things don’t happen to jackasses as happen to men (II, 139)]

Several other textual episodes of authorial criticism against Sardinia, the same island that young Deledda intended to present to a wide national and international readership beyond stereotypes in La via del male, vanish in the revision from A/B to C,20 thus bearing witness to a more conciliatory attitude toward provincialism and a more modern and pragmatic approach to marketing strategies. I would like to go back to strategies of ‘simplification’ in order to comment on aspects of Deledda’s revisions that are more thematic in nature and correlate directly with the author’s journey to modernity. In several occurrences, replacing indirect discourse with direct discourse helps simplify the sentence structure and muffle the emphatic resonance of the implied narrator’s voice. This is often the case in the last two chapters of Cenere, which explore the tormented reunion of mother and son, and the ensuing conflict that involves Anania, Olì, and Margherita. For instance, when Anania returns to his home village after studying in the capital, he revels in a triumphant feeling of belonging. The law student emerges as a ‘pastore di nuvole’ [shepherd of clouds (A, I, 46/B, I, 282/ C, I, 198)], who has overcome the conflict between culture and nature by identifying with the landscape of his origins. Egli ricordò nitidamente la donna che zappava ... Ah, sì, ora davvero Anania respirava l’aria natia, e sentiva qualche cosa di strano, forse un istinto atavico; desiderava cioè di balzare giù dalla vettura, correre su per le chine, fra l’erba ancora fresca, fra le macchie e le roccie, gridando di gioja selvaggia, imitando il puledro sfuggito al laccio e ritornato alla libertà delle tancas [emphasis in the text], – e dopo aver esploso in grida incoscienti l’ebbrezza dell’anima primitiva fermarsi, come il pastore errante, su uno sfondo abbagliante di sole o all’ombra verde dei nocciuoli, sul piedistallo d’una rupe o sulla bifolcatura d’un albero, immergendosi nella contemplazione del vuoto. (A, II, 45–6) [He clearly remembered the woman who was hoeing ... Ah, yes, now Anania really was breathing his native air, and felt something strange coming back, per-

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haps a primitive instinct; he wanted to jump down from the carriage, run down the slopes in the dewy grass, in the thickets and on the rocks, screaming with untamed joy, imitating the colt who had slipped his halter and returned to the freedom of the flatlands. And, after bursting out screaming to unconsciously express the exhilaration of his primitive soul, he wanted to halt, like a wandering shepherd, against a sunny, dazzling backdrop, or under the green shade of the hazels, or on the pedestal of a rock, or on the fork of a tree, and plunge into the contemplation of the empty space.] > Egli ricordò nitidamente la donna che zappava ... Ah, sì, ora davvero Anania respirava l’aria natia, e sentiva qualche cosa di strano, forse un istinto atavico: – Vorrei balzare giù dalla vettura, correre su per le chine, fra l’erba ancora fresca, fra le macchie e le le roccie, gridando di gioja selvaggia, imitando il puledro sfuggito al laccio e ritornato alla libertà delle tancas [emphasis in the text], – e dopo aver esploso in grida incoscienti l’ebbrezza dell’anima primitiva vorrei fermarmi, come il pastore errante, su uno sfondo abbagliante di sole o all’ombra verde dei nocciuoli, sul piedistallo d’una rupe o sulla bifolcatura d’un albero, immergendomi nella contemplazione del vuoto. (B, 281) [He clearly remembered the woman who was hoeing ... Ah, yes, now Ananias really was breathing his native air, and felt something strange coming back, perhaps a primitive instinct: – I’d like to jump down from the carriage, run down the slopes in the dewy grass, in the thickets and in the rocks, screaming with untamed joy, imitating the colt who had slipped his halter and returned to the freedom of the flatlands. And, after bursting out screaming to unconsciously express the exhilaration of a primitive soul, I would like to halt, like a wandering shepherd, against a sunny, dazzling backdrop, or under the green shade of the hazels, or on the pedestal of a rock, or on the fork of a tree, and plunge into the contemplation of the empty space.]

While in A indirect discourse prevails, the first revision attempts to lighten the atavistic enthusiasm by inserting in B the direct discourse in the interior monologue. The second revision, though, more effectively diminishes the emphasis by drastically curtailing the direct discourse: Egli ricordò la donna che zappava ... Ah, sì, ora davvero Anania respirava l’aria natia, e sentiva tutti gli istinti atavici.

Cenere 121 – Vorrei balzare giù dalla vettura, correre su per le chine, fra l’erba ancora fresca, fra le macchie e le le roccie, gridando di gioja selvaggia, imitando il puledro sfuggito al laccio e ritornato alla libertà delle tancas [emphasis in the text]. (C, 197) [He remembered the woman who was hoeing ... Ah, yes, now Ananias really was breathing his native air; he felt all his natural instincts coming back. – I’d like to jump down from the carriage, run down the slopes in the dewy grass, in the thickets and in the rocks, screaming with untamed joy, imitating the colt who had slipped his halter and returned to the freedom of the flatlands. (II, 171)]

In general, this pattern of anti-emphatic ‘simplification’ aims at a more refined attention to the characters’ psychology. For instance, Anania’s obsessive search for his mother is depleted of parts of direct discourses that underscore his violent attitude in almost caricatured tones. In the course of a dramatic conversation about Olì’s past, Anania shows his little finger nail to underline his contempt for his mother with a typical Italian gesture. Zia Grathia notices the length of the fingernail and asks for an explanation.21 Whereas a furious Anania replies in A ‘“Ebbene, per strangolarla! Per strangolarvi tutti quanti!”’ [‘Well, to strangle her! To strangle you all!’ (A, II, 53)], B and C eliminate Anania’s frightening and ridiculous answer (B, 299/C, 211). The author had already dropped similar utterances of Anania as a caricatured superman in the first revision.22 In more evident ways than in La via del male, Cenere’s revisions indicate a modern attention to the complexity of the human psyche and the psychological conflicts of the individual rather than the sociological opposition of individual and society and social classes against each other – e.g. servants and upper middle-class landowners in La via del male.23 For this reason, in the revisions Anania’s character acquires a multifaceted complexity, which underlines the isolation of his existential condition. This explains why the crucial passage with Anania’s interior monologue during his ascent to the Gennargentu mountain (see 2.4, pp. 107–9) changes as follows: D’un tratto ricadde nelle sue cupe idee: un progetto stravagante gli brillò al pensiero. Uccidere la guida e farsi bandito. (A, II, 57/B, II, 307) [But all of a sudden he returned to his morose thoughts: An absurd plan enlightened his mind. To kill his mountain guide and become a bandit.]

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> Ma ad un tratto ricadde nelle sue cupe idee e un progetto stravagante gli attraversò la mente: farsi romito. (C, II, 217) [But all of the sudden he returned to his morose thoughts and an absurd plan crossed his mind – to become a hermit. (II, 186)]

In the last edition, though, Anania’s ‘cupe idee’ [morose thoughts] do not imply murder and robbery in the tradition of Sardinian banditry. At the centre of his imaginary is rather the solitude of the hermit (‘romito’ is an archaic equivalent of ‘eremita’ to be found in texts of Italian Romanticism), the outsider, the prophetic wanderer who is doomed to radical loneliness like Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, whom Anania mentions a few lines thereafter. Anania’s solitude as the existential definition of modernity emerges poignantly in the pivotal first chapter of the second part, when Anania arrives at the Italian capital. Rome, rather than the fantasized ‘patria eterna’ [eternal fatherland (A, I, 433/B, I, 182/C, I, 143)], epitomizes the disquieting metropolis of modernity. Paradoxically, through the usual pattern of ‘simplification’ and anti-emphatic reduction, the author more vividly traces the crisis of the modern subject in metropolitan isolation. Uscivano, camminavano e camminavano, si stancavano orribilmente, storditi dal rumore delle carrozze e dei tram, dallo splendore dei lumi, dal passaggio violento e dal rauco urlo degli automobili, e soprattutto dall’ondeggiamento della folla indifferente. Anania si sentiva triste come non mai; tra la folla, stretto al braccio del compagno, gli pareva d’esser solo in un deserto, in un mare tempestoso: gli pareva che se si fosse sentito male e avesse gridato nessuno lo avrebbe udito e soccorso, e che anzi la folla sarebbe passata attraverso il suo corpo senza guardarlo. (A, II, 434/B, II, 185) [They went out. They walked and walked. They grew terribly tired, numbed by the racket of carriages and streetcars, the splendour of lights, the violent and noisy cars passing by, and, most of all, by the swaying of the indifferent crowds. Anania felt morose as never before; among the crowds, tightly grasping his friend’s arm, it seemed to him like being alone in a desert, in a stormy sea: he felt that if he were to get sick and scream for help, no one would have heard or helped him. On the contrary, the crowds would have crossed over his body without looking at him.]

Cenere 123 > Uscivano, camminavano, si stancavano, storditi dal rumore delle carrozze e dallo splendore dei lumi, dal passaggio violento e dal rauco urlo delle automobili. Anania si sentiva triste, tra la folla; gli pareva d’essere solo in un deserto, e pensava che se si fosse sentito male e avesse gridato nessuno lo avrebbe udito e soccorso. (C, 144) [They went out. They walked. They grew tired, numbed by the racket of carriages, the splendour of the lights, and by the violent and noisy cars passing by. Ananias felt morose among the crowds; he felt alone in the desert, and he thought that if he were to get sick and scream for help, no one would have heard or helped him. (II, 131)]

Through the elimination of redundant phrases (see my emphasis in the first quotation), and the rhythmic use of punctuation (see ‘Anania si sentiva triste, tra la folla;’ in the second quotation), the implied narrator more dramatically highlights the modern essence of Anania’s solitude. In a scene closely reminiscent of Pirandello’s philosophical digressions in Il fu Mattia Pascal [The Late Mattia Pascal (1904)] about the inauthentic dimension of everyday existence, but also of Luigi Antonelli’s and Henrik Ibsen’s theatre, Anania and his friend Daga observe the desolation of an urban courtyard, with the clotheslines and the pulleys and strings suspended in front of their apartment window. Daga laughs. He embodies the Pirandellian definition of humour as ‘sentimento del contrario’ [feeling of the opposite] (see 4.2, p. 194), the grotesque laugh in front of the tragic, which the ensuing conversation articulates: – Guarda, – disse, – guarda come gli anelli e i laccetti di spago ballano. Sembrano vivi. Sembrano persone. E’ divertente. Anania guardò, e gli parve che in realtà gli anelli e i fili avessero dei movimenti di marionette. Battista proseguì: – Così è la vita; un filo di ferro attraverso un cortile sporco: gli uomini si agitano, sospesi sopra un abisso di miserie. – Non rompermi le scatole, – disse Anania, – sono abbastanza melanconico anche senza le tue considerazioni filosofiche. Usciamo, mi par di soffocare. (A, II, 434/B, II, 184) [– Look – he said – look how the pulleys and the strings bounce around. They look alive. They look like real people. It’s funny.

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Anania looked up, and it seemed, indeed, that the pulleys and threads moved like puppets. Battista went on: – Life’s like that: a clothesline across a dirty courtyard. Men get anxious, when suspended above an abyss of misery. – Don’t bust my balls, – said Anania. – I’m already sad enough even without your philosophical reflections. Let’s go out; I feel like I’m suffocating.]

Once again the reduction of the direct discourse in the revision enhances the essence of the dialogue in the terms of modernity: > – Guarda, Anania, guarda come gli anelli e i laccetti di spago ballano. Sembrano vivi. Così è la vita: un filo di ferro attraverso un cortile sporco: gli uomini si agitano, sospesi sopra un abisso di miserie. – Non rompermi le scatole – disse Anania – sono abbastanza melanconico! Usciamo, mi par di soffocare. (C, II, 144) [– Look, Ananias, look how the pulleys and strings bounce around. They look alive. Life’s like that: a clothesline across a dirty courtyard. Men get anxious, when suspended above an abyss of misery. – Don’t bust my balls, – said Ananias. – I’m already sad enough – Let’s go out; I feel like I’m suffocating. (II, 131)]

Rome, the urban backdrop of this theatre of the absurd, is deprived in the revision of too specific topographic connotations, as is evident in the description of the evening walk that follows the philosophical conversation between the two friends.24 The same device characterized the revision of passages about Cagliari, the first city in Anania’s quest for his mother. The consequence of this antiveristic process, which frees metropolitan landscapes from detailed references, is the heightened metaphorical significance of these two cities in the male protagonist’s cultural journey. Anania’s urban solitude deepens when the academic year begins. As a law student, he attends courses on civil and penal law. The undisciplined and disrespectful behaviour of his peers in the classroom while waiting for the professor intensifies his sense of isolation. But the professor does not disappoint his high expectations. Interestingly, the second revision draws more attention to the identity of the teacher and the content of his lectures. Whereas A and B mention only the last name, C specifies that the professor is ‘Enrico Ferri,’ the co-founder with Cesare Lombroso of the ‘Scuola positiva di diritto penale,’ which so deeply inspired young

Cenere 125

Deledda’s reflections on the reasons for delinquency in La via del male (see 1.1.b, pp. 30–5). Enrico Ferri was also the author of the preface to Alfredo Niceforo’s La delinquenza in Sardegna (1897), which repeatedly quoted Deledda’s early writings. In his study, based upon his ‘experimental’ observations during the Sardinian voyages with Paolo Orano commissioned by the Società Geografica Italiana and the Società Romana d’Antropologia, Niceforo had argued that the persistence of an ‘atavistic’ criminal pathology was determined by physical, historical, and sociological features of the Barbagia region. Ferri praised Niceforo’s work very highly. La delinquenza in Sardegna not only expanded with precision ‘le prime induzioni sistematiche che la scuola positiva traeva dallo studio dell’uomo delinquente nell’ambiente fisico e sociale’ [the first systematic inductions that the Positive School inferred from the study of the delinquent subject within his physical and social milieu (1977 [1897]: ii)], but also added a progressive political connotation to criminal sociology.25 It was this ‘sociologia socialista’ [socialist sociology] that instilled in young Deledda new hopes for the solution of Sardinia’s social plagues.26 Not surprisingly, then, Anania is deeply impressed by Ferri’s lectures, which help him understand the plight of the delinquent or, in a religious context, the sinner like his mother. A revealing addition in C, though, indicates that in those years Deledda is overcoming the tempting theories of positivistic determinism. As we already know, the 1906 edition of La via del male no longer features the dedication to Orano and Niceforo (see 1.1.b, pp. 34–5). The added passage in Cenere’s 1910 edition represents an implicit comment on the disappearance of that dedication. In A and B Anania’s reaction to the atmosphere in the lecture hall reads: Più tardi Anania prese anch’egli parte al chiasso ed ai tumulti studenteschi; ma nei primi giorni l’allegra spensieratezza, lo scetticismo, la vanità e l’egoismo dei compagni lo colpì tristemente: si sentì più che mai solo, diverso da tutti, e si pentì d’essere venuto a Roma. (A, II, 435/B, II, 186) [Later Anania, too, took part in the students’ noise and uproar; but in the first days the happy lightheartedness, the scepticism, the vanity, and the selfishness of his classmates struck him in a sad way. More than ever before, he felt lonely, different from all the others, and regretted coming to Rome.]

In the last edition the emphasis shifts from Anania’s reiterated lonely feelings to the intellectual significance of his experience in Rome:

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Anania si sentiva solo, triste fra tanta gioia, e gli sembrava di appartenere ad un mondo diverso da quello dove era costretto a vivere. Solo quando il professore cominciava a parlare, egli provava una commozione profonda, quasi un senso di gioia. Fantasmi di delinquenti, di suicidi, di donne perdute, di maniaci, di parricidi, passavano, evocati dalla voce possente del professore, davanti al pensiero turbato di Anania. E fra tante figure egli ne distingueva una, che passava e ripassava davanti a lui, ad occhi bassi. Ma invece di fissarla con orrore egli la guardava con pietà, col desiderio di stenderle la mano. (C, II, 145)27 [Ananias felt alone and unhappy amid such joy, and he seemed to belong to a different world from the one in which he was forced to live. Only when the professor began to speak did he feel profound emotion, almost a sense of elation. Evoked by the professor’s mighty voice, the ghosts of delinquents, of suicides, of fallen women, of maniacs, of traitors paraded before Ananias’s confused thoughts. And among so many characters, he distinguished one which kept reappearing before him with downcast eyes. But instead of staring at her in horror, he looked at her with pity, with the desire to reach out his hand to her. (II, 132)]

This new compassion derives from and goes beyond the acquisition of positivistic knowledge and imbues Anania’s monochromatic personality with some shades of psychological complexity. For this reason, it is not surprising to observe the disappearance of a portion of Anania’s interior monologue, which too clearly expressed the deterministic view of criminal sociology. During the bus ride back to his mountain village for the first time after Rome, Anania perceives the desolation of the peasants’ life and reflects upon human misery: – Ahimé, – sospirò lo studente, che misera cosa è l’uomo! Ovunque passa lascia l’impronta della sua miseria. E guardò il pastore dal viso olivastro e sarcastico ... e pensò che anche quella figura poetica era un essere incosciente e barbaro, come suo padre, come sua madre, come tutte le creature sparse su quel lembo di terra desolata, -nella cui mente i rei pensieri si svolgevano per fatale necessità come i vapori nell’atmosfera. (A, 44–5/ B, 279; see C, 197) [– Alas, – the student sighed – what a miserable thing a human being is! Everywhere they go they leave traces of their misery. And he looked at the shepherd with a sarcastic expression in his olive face ... and thought that even that poetical image was a reckless, barbaric being, like his father, like his mother, like all the creatures scattered on that desolate strip of earth

Cenere 127 – in whose minds criminal thoughts unfolded because of a fatal necessity, like vapours in the atmosphere.]

Anania’s thoughts on the necessity of ‘rei pensieri’ (also an ‘aulic’ expression of the Italian literary canon) – ‘criminal thoughts’ which, according to the theories of the Positive School, are inherent to primitive cultures and develop in correlation with natural laws – are completely erased in C. The elimination of this passage confirms Deledda’s overcoming of Positivism, and the opening to more problematic psychological analysis of the character. For this reason, the revisions indicate a progressive development of Anania’s character toward modernity and its existential uncertainties. In one instance, a minimal change from A to B, and from B to C, highlights Anania’s increasing insecurity in opposition to his loud ‘superman’ image. During their first encounter, the son does not quite know how to interact physically with his mother in disarray: Non gli venne neppure in mente di sedersi un po’ vicino a sua madre, di chiederle come aveva vissuto, di rivolgerle una sola parola di dolcezza e di perdono: il solo guardarla lo disgustava intensamente ... (A, II, 62) [It did not even came to his mind to sit for a moment next to his mother, to ask her about her life, to address her with only one gentle word of forgiveness: just a look at her would disgust him ...] > Per un momento gli venne in mente di sedersi un po’ vicino a sua madre, di chiederle come aveva vissuto, di rivolgerle una sola parola di dolcezza e di perdono: ma non poteva, non poteva ... (B, II, 320) [For a moment he thought of briefly sitting next to his mother, asking her about her life, addressing her with only one gentle word of forgiveness: but he couldn’t, he just couldn’t ...] > Gli venne in mente di sedersi accanto a sua madre, di chiederle come aveva vissuto, di rivolgerle una sola parola di dolcezza e di perdono: ma non poteva, non poteva ... (C, II, 227) [It occurred to him to sit down next to his mother, to ask her about her life, to say something sweet and forgiving, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t ... (II, 193)]

Despite Anania’s increasing indecision about manifesting his compas-

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sion toward his mother through body language, eventually the same feeling of paralysing disgust prevails in all three versions of the passage. Still, this and other textual variations related not only to Anania but also to Margherita28 consistently indicate the deepening of psychological analysis of the character on the way to modernity. Anania’s character, not unlike Pietro Benu and Maria Noina in La via del male, experiences in the variations from one edition to another the deepening of the modern theme par excellence, madness, which will be at the very centre of Il segreto dell’uomo solitario (see 3.3.c, pp. 175–7). The heightened attention to the illness of the unconscious that Freud was beginning to explore during the same years permeates the variation of a section on Anania’s tormenting doubts about the identity of his mysterious Sardinian landlady in Rome. The third-person narrative analyses the signs of Anania’s split personality – ‘lo sdoppiamento del suo io’ [his two selves (A, II, 613/B, II, 224/C, II, 164)] – torn between the irrational, ill, and sad child – ‘il bambino fantastico, appassionato e triste, col sangue malato’ [a dreamer of a little boy, passionate and sad, with bad blood (A, II, 613/B, II, 225/C, II, 164)] – and the rational being. The latter creature attempts to contrast the anguishing doubts and visions that daunt the inner child. Whereas in A and B the rational creature ‘non riusciva a liberarlo dall’ossessione’ [did not manage to free him from his obsession (A, II, 613/B, II, 225)], in C ‘non riusciva a liberarlo dalla sua ossessione, a guarirlo dalla sua follia’ [it did not manage to free him from his obsession, to cure him of his madness (C, II, 164, trans. mine)].29 The added phrase and the additional possessive adjective preceding ‘ossessione’ in C emphasize the psychoanalytical roots of Anania’s obsessive quest and place this character at the centre of the modern crisis of the subject, which Svevo and Pirandello articulate in their works through irony. Not surprisingly, minimal variations between the three editions in Anania’s interior monologues contribute to highlight the hidden centrality of the mother’s character, which is the true subject of this transgressive novel of formation. In a stream of consciousness Anania comments on the deep misery of his unrecognizable mother: Era poi davvero sua madre, quella? E se lo era, che significava, che importava? Madre non è la donna cha dà materialmente alla luce una creatura, frutto d’un momento di piacere, e poi lo butta nel mezzo della strada, in grembo al perfido Caso che lo ha fatto nascere. No quella donna lì non era sua madre: egli non le doveva niente. (A, II, 60) [Was she even really his mother, that woman? And if she was, so what? What

Cenere 129 did he care? A mother is not the woman who physically gives birth to a baby – the fruit of momentary pleasure – and then dumps it in the middle of the streets, in the lap of the same pure ‘chance’ that caused its birth. No, that woman there was not his mother. He owed her nothing.] > Era poi davvero sua madre, quella? E se lo era, che significava, che importava? Madre non è la donna cha dà materialmente alla luce una creatura, frutto d’un momento di piacere, e poi lo butta nel mezzo della strada, in grembo al perfido Caso che lo ha fatto nascere. No quella donna lì non era sua madre, non era una madre, sia pure incosciente: egli non le doveva nulla. (B, II, 315/C, II, 223; emphasis in the text) [Was she even really his mother, that woman? And if she was, so what? What did he care? A mother is not the woman who physically gives birth to a baby – the fruit of momentary pleasure – and then dumps it in the middle of the streets, in the lap of the same pure ‘chance’ that caused its birth. No, that woman there was not his mother; she was not a mother, even if by chance. He owed her nothing. (II, 190)]

The variations in the conclusion of the novel contradict Anania’s final reflection in the quoted passages above and articulate the meaning of the added phrase in B and C. To seize the significance of the amended conclusion is necessary to note that the extended interior monologue quoted below is a complete addition in B: Mai, come in quel momento, davanti al terribile mistero della morte, egli aveva sentito tutta la grandezza ed il valore della vita. Vivere! Non bastava soltanto vivere, muoversi, sentire la brezza profumata mormorare nella notte serena, per essere felici? La vita! La cosa più bella e più sublime che una volontà eterna ed infinita abbia potuto creare! – Ed egli viveva; ed egli doveva la vita alla misera creatura che ora gli stava davanti immobile priva di questo sommo bene. Perché egli non aveva mai pensato a ciò? Ah, egli non aveva mai capito il valore della vita, perché non avveva mai veduto [emphasis in the text] da vicino l’orrore e il vuoto della morte. Ed ecco che ella [emphasis in the text], ella sola s’era riserbata il compito di rivelargli, col dolore della sua morte, la gioja suprema di vivere: ella, a prezzo della sua propria vita, lo faceva nascere una seconda volta, e questa nuova vita morale era incommensurabilmente più grande della prima. Come un velo gli cadde dagli occhi; egli vide tutta la meschinità delle sue passioni, dei suoi odii e dei suoi dolori passati. Egli aveva sofferto perché sua madre aveva peccato, perché lo aveva abbandonato ed era vissuta nella colpa! Sciocco! Che impor-

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tava tutto ciò? Che importavano questi minimi fatti particolari, davanti alla grandezza della vita? Non bastava che Olì lo avesse fatto nascere, perché ella rappresentasse per lui la più meritevole delle creature umane, ed egli dovesse amarla ed esserle riconoscente? Egli singhiozzò ancora, col cuore pieno d’uno strano sentimento d’angoscia, attraverso il quale gli giungeva la pura gioja di vivere. Sì, egli soffriva: dunque viveva. (B, II, 357–8) [Never as in that moment, faced with the terrible mystery of death, had he felt all of the enormity and value of life. To live! Wasn’t it enough just to live, to move, to feel the fragrant breeze murmuring in the serene night in order to be happy? Life! The most beautiful and sublime thing that an eternal and infinite force was able to create. And he was alive. And he owed his life to the miserable creature who was now motionless before him and deprived of this marvellous gift. Why had he never thought of this? Ah, he had never understood the value of life, because he had never seen up close the horror and the emptiness of death. And here she was; she alone had reserved for herself the task of revealing to him with the pain of her death the supreme glory of life. At the price of her life, she gave him a second birth, and this new moral life was immensurably grander than the first. Something like a veil fell from his eyes; he saw all the shabbiness of passion, of his hatred, and of his past pain. He had suffered because his mother had erred, because she had deserted him and had lived in sin. Fool! None of that was important. What importance did these subtleties have in the big picture of life? Wasn’t it enough that Olì gave birth to him for her to epitomize the most worthy of human creatures, and for him to love her and be grateful to her?]

Anania’s more modern and, therefore, tormented and contradictory personality at the edge of madness turns upside down his previous statement about his mother not being ‘una madre, sia pure incosciente’ (B, II, 315/C, II, 223) [a mother, even if by chance (II, 190)]. In the revised editions, the added lengthy digression above points out the centrality of the mother’s character as source of life. Anania is suddenly able to see beyond appearances once the veil of illusion falls. The recurrence throughout the novel of the ‘veil’ image, already present in La via del male (see 1.8.b, p. 83), hints at Schopenhauer’s pessimism. One of the main threads of modern thought, Schopenhauer’s pessimistic vision of a universal suffering that derives from the unavoidable reappearance of illusions weaves through the texture of Deledda’s work and emerges

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more vividly in such later works as La danza della collana (see 4.3, pp. 195– 8). In Cenere, the revised text in B shows how this thematic thread is interwoven with the transgressive rewriting of the Bildungsroman, which places the mother character at the narrative centre. This is confirmed by the revision of the added paragraph in C, in which we find a revealing subtraction and addition. On the one hand, the adjective ‘morale,’ which qualified the new life beyond appearances that Olì donated to her son, disappears, thus underlining the value of the mother’s gesture of independence beyond the constraints of traditional morality. On the other, the final rhetorical question that Anania asks himself sees the addition of the key word ‘madre’ in italics: Non bastava che Olì lo avesse fatto nascere, perché ella rappresentasse per lui la più meritevole delle creature, la madre [emphasis in the text], ed egli dovesse amarla ed esserle riconoscente? (C, II, 255) [Wasn’t it enough that Olì gave birth to him for her to epitomize the most worthy of humans, a mother [sic, no emphasis], and for him to love her and be grateful to her? (II, 215)]

The subtle metamorphosis of the text sheds new light on the mother character as the narrative engine of the novel, as the one that is capable of being the active subject of the existential journey. For this reason, it is important to notice that the novel maintains the structural division between part 1 and part 2 throughout all three editions. As I have previously shown (see 2.5, p. 112), the division marks a specular symmetry in the male protagonist’s journey. Anania’s existential itinerary from the origin to the origin in search of the mother traces a narrative ‘M,’ which stands as a synecdoche for mother, the italicized key word added in C to the pivotal passage inserted in B about the meaning of life. The mother character, absent for two-thirds of the novel, re-emerges at the end to assert her identity by virtue of a radical gesture of silence. Olì’s suicide concludes her journey against social interdictions and moral stereotypes but also heralds potential developments of her son’s journey. Once again, textual variations of the conclusion in the three editions of the novel support my interpretation of Cenere as a further step toward modernity in the cultural journey of the author. Mortara Garavelli has convincingly argued that these changes are not ‘un mero ritocco lessicale’ [a mere lexical touch-up] but indicate rather ‘la correzione di un processo intorno al personaggio’ [the revision of a process concerning

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the character (1991: 152–3)]. It is worth taking a closer look at the concluding paragraphs in the three editions: E in quell’ora memoranda della sua vita, della quale sentiva di non sentire ancora tutta la solenne significazione, gli parve che quel mucchiettino di cenere fosse un simbolo del destino. Sì, tutto era cenere: la vita, la morte, l’uomo; il destino stesso che la produceva. Eppure, in quell’ora suprema, vigilato dalla figura della vecchia fatale che sembrava la Morte in attesa, e davanti alla spoglia della più misera delle creature umane, che era morta per il bene altrui, dopo aver fatto e sofferto il male in tutte le sue manifestazioni, egli sentì che anche fra la cenere può covare qualche scintilla, seme della fiamma luminosa e purificatrice, e sperò ancora nella vita. (A, 80) [He felt that he hadn’t yet learned the full, solemn significance of that memorable moment of his life. That small pile of ashes seemed to be a symbol of his destiny. Yes, everything was ashes: life, death, man, and the very destiny that produced it all. Yet in that supreme hour, watched over by the figure of the fatal old woman who seemed to be Death-in-Waiting, and in front of the remains of the most miserable of human beings, who after having created and suffered evil in all its manifestations, died for the good of others, he felt that there might be some sparks also among the ashes – the beginnings of a bright, purifying flame. And he hoped for life again.] > E in quell’ora memoranda della sua vita, della quale sentiva di non sentire ancora tutta la solenne significazione, gli parve che quel mucchiettino di cenere fosse un simbolo del destino. Sì, tutto era cenere: la vita, la morte, l’uomo; il destino stesso che la produceva. Eppure, in quell’ora suprema, vigilato dalla figura della vecchia fatale che sembrava la Morte in attesa, e davanti alla spoglia della più misera delle creature umane, che era morta per il bene altrui, dopo aver fatto e sofferto il male in tutte le sue manifestazioni, egli sentì che fra la cenere cova la scintilla, seme della fiamma luminosa e purificatrice, e sperò, e amò ancora la vita. (B, 360) [He felt that he hadn’t yet learned the full, solemn significance of that memorable moment of his life. That small pile of ashes seemed to be a symbol of his destiny. Yes, everything was ashes: life, death, man, and the very destiny that produced it all.

Cenere 133 Yet in that supreme hour, watched over by the figure of the fatal old woman who seemed to be Death-in-Waiting, and in front of the remains of the most miserable of human beings, who after having created and suffered evil in all its manifestations, died for the good of others, he felt that often there is a spark among the ashes – the beginnings of a bright, purifying flame. And he hoped. And he loved life again.] > E in quell’ora memoranda della sua vita, della quale capiva di non sentire ancora tutta la solenne significazione, gli parve che quel mucchiettino di cenere fosse un simbolo del destino. Sì, tutto era cenere: la vita, la morte, l’uomo; il destino stesso che la produceva. Eppure, in quell’ora suprema, vigilato dalla figura della vecchia fatale che sembrava la Morte in attesa, e davanti alla spoglia della più misera delle creature umane, che era morta per il bene altrui, dopo aver fatto e sofferto il male in tutte le sue manifestazioni, egli ricordò che fra la cenere cova la scintilla, seme della fiamma luminosa e purificatrice, e sperò, e amò ancora la vita. (C, 257) [He understood that he hadn’t yet learned the full, solemn significance of that memorable moment of his life. That small pile of ashes seemed to be a symbol of his destiny. Yes, everything was ashes: life, death, man, and the very destiny that produced it all. Yet in that supreme hour, watched over by the figure of the fatal old woman who seemed to be Death-in-Waiting, and in front of the remains of the most miserable of human beings, who after having created and suffered evil in all its manifestations, died for the good of others, he remembered that often there is a spark among the ashes – the beginnings of a bright, purifying flame. And he hoped. And he loved life again. (II, 217)]

While in A the idea that life can arise from death as spark from ashes is limited to experiential feelings through the repetition of ‘sentire’ [to feel] and the use of an ephemeral ‘anche fra la cenere può covare qualche scintilla’ [there might be some sparks also among the ashes’], in B ‘sentire’ is still iterated but balanced through a more generalizing ‘fra la cenere cova la scintilla’ [there is a spark among the ashes]. The vanishing of the adverb ‘anche’ [also], of the modal verb in the verbal phrase ‘può covare’ [there might be], and the replacement of the indefinite adjective ‘qualche’ [some] with the definite article ‘la’ [the] infuse the conclusion with the assertiveness that derives from the mother’s journey to liberation through silence. This forcefulness of expression sheds a much

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brighter light on the concluding sentence. While, in A, Anania’s renewed confidence is somehow limited to life in ‘e sperò ancora nella vita’ [and he hoped for life again], in B and C there is a much more radical openness through the emphatic isolation of ‘sperò’ [he hoped] between commas and the addition of ‘e amò ancora la vita’ [and he loved life again] as one of the possible meanings of the fundamental hope that Olì’s gesture has disclosed. The wider openness of the ending reaches toward future and past, as the last authorial intervention in C indicates. Anania’s acquisition of a new potential, which he had been unable to gain through his formal education in Nuoro, Cagliari, and Rome, is not confined to the experiential realm of feelings in the present, but extends to the intellectual dimension of his life and incorporates past through memory.30 This explains why ‘sentiva di non sentire’ [he felt that he hadn’t yet learned] in A and B turns into ‘capiva di non sentire’ [he understood that he hadn’t yet learned] and why the last ‘sentì’ [he felt] in A and B becomes ‘ricordò’ [he remembered] in C. The deeper psychological analysis of the male character and the more problematic reflections on the significance of the mother, which we have followed through an analysis of textual variations, have contributed to reinforce the centrality of the female’s character. The mother’s extreme gesture of independence functions to deepen the son’s interior life to the point of incorporating the past into the present and the future through reminiscence. And ashes, which symbolize the inextricable conjunction of death and life, become a mythical archetype according to the definition that Jung would offer in his seminal work Symbols of Transformation (1912) only two years after Cenere’s last edition was published. Archetypes as ‘living entities, which cause the praeformation [sic] of numinous ideas or dominant representations’ (Jung 1984: 244), connect the individual to the ancient, collective unconscious.31 According to Jung, it is never possible to ascribe precise meaning to archetypes, but only to interpret them in the constant proliferation of metaphors produced by the tension between conscious and unconscious, individual present and collective past. This is exactly the case with the ashes archetype, evoking the myth of the phoenix (Migiel 1985: 72), which emerges in its entire significance through the substitution of ‘sentì’ with ‘ricordò.’ What Mortara Garavelli defines as ‘l’intima maturazione del protagonista’ [the internal maturation of the protagonist (1991: 153)], visible in this and other previously analysed textual variations, is initiated by the mother’s choice of accompanying her son with the tiny bag filled with ashes, and continued through her extreme decision to interpret the

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meaning of the mythical archetype with a radical openness toward life. The centrality of the mother as the female protagonist of the transgressive novel of formation hidden between the lines of a more traditional male Bildungsroman, which the authorial revisions underline, qualifies Deledda’s Cenere as a modern text that is particularly suited to a filmic interpretation in the era of silent cinema. 2.7 Deledda and the ‘Seventh Art’ Deledda’s ‘inclinazione a seguire con interesse i fenomeni della modernità’ [inclination to follow with interest the phenomena of modernity (Cerina 2000: 26)], in addition to her fundamental attention to all visual aspects of her representation of Sardinia, is pivotal in leading her to interact with cinema, the quintessential art of modernity. The most significant occurrence of this interaction is the film Cenere, shot in 1916. Coincidentally, the same year saw the publication of the manifesto of Futurism on ‘La cinematografia futurista’ [‘Futurist Cinematography’]. Far from sharing the enthusiasm of Futurism for this new art ‘immensamente più vasta e più agile di tutte quelle esistenti’ [immensely more vast and agile than all the existing ones (Marinetti 1968: 120)]32 and the familiarity with cinema of several other contemporary authors, such as Bracco, Capuana, D’Annunzio, Di Giacomo, Verga, and Pirandello, Deledda in her collaboration with the film industry was relatively marginal. According to Gianni Olla, this collaboration is inscribed from its inception within the ‘coordinate cultural-produttive in cui muove i primi passi l’industria cinematografica’ [coordinates of cultural production in which the film industry makes its first steps (2000: 37)]. On the one hand, the film industry hinged on the dependence on the literary imaginary to be dignified as the ‘seventh art’33 and, therefore, exploited not only canonical masterpieces of the past, but also contemporary works by successful writers, who were also hired as scriptwriters.34 On the other hand, writers approached cinema as a source of success with a wide audience, a means of financial security, but also a somehow limiting factor in the creative process.35 This double-edged cooperation emerges in Deledda’s statement released for the Turin-based journal La vita cinematografica. Rivista quindicinale illustrata dell’industria cinematografica. The issue of 15 September 1913 featured the answers of some eminent Italian writers and playwrights to five quite specific questions related to cinema’s artistic autonomy and the potential degradation of the literary work through filmic adaptation.36 Deledda’s statement reads:

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Credo certo che il cinematografo, perfezionato a manifestazioni d’arte rappresentativa possa crearsi un degno avvenire. Per conto mio non ho nulla in contrario per lasciar ridurre qualche mio lavoro: la conoscenza dei paesaggi e dei costumi sardi presso i continentali è ancora così lontana dal vero! (Micciché 1972: 197; emphasis in the text) [I certainly believe that cinema could have a worthy future if it improves as a manifestation of representative art. As far as I am concerned, I am not against having some of my works adapted for the screen: the knowledge of Sardinian landscapes and customs that the people from peninsular Italy have is still so far from the truth!]

Although limited in scope and rather conservative in content – cinema is seen as representative art without an expressive autonomy – Deledda’s contribution to the survey indicates her openness to the quintessential art of modernity and her awareness of cinema’s immense educational potential as the most pervasive cultural industry. This explains Deledda’s didactic concern about cinema as a privileged means to convey ‘true’ information about Sardinian geographical and cultural identity beyond stereotypes among the same middle-class Italian audience that she had intended to ‘educate’ with her ethnological studies and La via del male (see 1.5, pp. 58–63). Once more, Deledda emerges as ‘intellettuale a tutto campo’ [a well-rounded intellectual (Olla 2000: 41)], deeply engaged in various expressions of modernity and cultural industry, from the theatre stage37 to the daily press38 and the film screen. Deledda’s interaction with cinematic art totals four occurrences: 1) Cenere, in 1916, just three years after her interview for La vita cinematografica; 2) Scenario sardo per il cinema, also in 1916, which never came to fruition; 3) La Grazia, in 1929, based upon the operatic libretto La Grazia authored by Deledda, Claudio Guastalla, and Vincenzo Michetti in 1921; 4) Il fascino della terra, a film script allegedly written by Deledda and playwright Luigi Antonelli,39 which has been lost, but is mentioned by Deledda’s long-time friend Lina Sacchetti. For an intriguing analysis of Scenario sardo per il cinema, La Grazia, and Il fascino della terra, and a contextualized reading of the numerous films and TV productions inspired by Deledda’s works after her death, I refer to Olla’s seminal book. Here I would like to highlight the interwining of Deledda’s script Scenario sardo per il cinema and Duse’s film Cenere, for they were conceived at the same time. Ferdinando Cordova has recently found Deledda’s typewritten, seven-

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page-long script for the Scenario sardo per il cinema among the documents belonging to journalist Olga Ossani Lodi. A militant writer in favour of the international feminist movement and the modernization and democratization of Italian society,40 Ossani Lodi, also known by the pen name of Febea, was a good friend of both Deledda and Duse. She had facilitated the negotiations between Duse, Deledda, and the movie studio Tiber of Rome, which was interested in the Cenere project before Duse decided on Ambrosio, Turin, in the hope of greater artistic independence. The title of the Scenario script, on a separate white page, carries the handwriting of Olga Ossani Lodi, but a clear reference to this text is contained in the following letter of May 1916, which Deledda sent to Duse: Ieri notte le persone che mi chiesero un film sardo mi hanno telefonato sollecitando una mia decisione. Ho chiesto qualche giorno per rispondere, e vengo a lei per chiedere consigli. Come le dissi si tratterebbe di un lavoro che non ha nulla, neppure lontanamente a che vedere con Cenere. Questa resterebbe una cosa solamente Sua; ora e sempre; è una cosa ormai sacra, diventata per me grande solo perché illuminata dalla sua anima. D’altra parte sono informata che c’è chi lavora per far apparire questo, sullo schermo cinematografico, una Sardegna fotografica e commerciale, e per amore della mia isola, mio primo amore, non vorrei adesso lasciarmi sfuggire l’occasione di farla apparire io quale essa è. Mi dica, mi dica lei come devo fare. Il nostro sogno resterebbe ugualmente intatto e puro, perché in Cenere lei deve essere solamente lei, Eleonora Duse qual’è adesso, amore e dolore assieme, madre e figlio anima intrecciata di luci e di ombre, senz’altro colore esterno. La Sardegna, Grazia Deledda, tutto deve sparire intorno a lei: lei sola deve vivere, spirale verso l’infinito; dolore e amore, perno intrecciato della nostra vita mortale. (Manuscript, Fondazione Cini, Venezia, as quoted in Cara 1988: 114) [Yesterday night the people who had requested a Sardinian film called pressing for my decision. I asked for a couple of days before I could answer, and I am now asking you for advice. As I told you, this work would have nothing to do at all with Cenere. Cenere would remain your and only your work; now and always. Cenere is now a sacred thing, which has acquired great significance for me because your soul has infused it with its light. On the other hand I am aware that there is someone who is working to portray a photographic and commercial Sardinia on the screen, and now I would not want to miss the chance to depict my island, my first love, as it is, because I love it.

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Tell me, please, do tell me how I should proceed. Our dream would still remain unsullied and pure, because in Cenere you should be only yourself, Eleonora Duse as she is now, love and pain together, mother and son, a soul in which light and shadow are intertwined, without any other external colour. Sardinia, Grazia Deledda, everything must disappear around you. You are the only one who ought to live on the screen, like a spiral toward infinity, a twisted pivot of our mortal life.]

This revealing letter follows several encounters between Duse and Deledda at the Eden Hotel in Rome, in which the two artists discussed the direction that the film should take (Cara 1988: 114–16). Deledda was certainly an admirer of Duse, whom she had asked in 1908 to play Annesa’s role in the dramatic adaptation of L’edera. Duse declined the offer for personal reasons, which she confirmed by quitting the theatre stage the following year.41 Despite the mutual esteem for each other’s artistic talent, Deledda’s letter discloses the author’s unwillingness to participate in co-writing the film script of Cenere. The reason appears to be a subtle distrust of the cinematic industry and its manipulation of the literary text, in accordance with mainstream views of that time on the literature/film interaction. Moreover, Deledda indicates a more specific cause for distancing herself from the realization of Cenere, which is the opportunity to write her own ‘Sardinian film,’ i.e. the Scenario sardo per il cinema discovered in Olga Ossani Lodi’s papers. Initially Deledda wrote some notes for Duse’s filmic endeavour (Olla 2000: 129, n. 2) and gave her indications about geographic settings in the Tuscany mountain area of Alpi Apuane, which on screen could replace the Sardinian mountain region of Barbagia, not within reach during the war.42 Still, with her distinctive discretion Deledda distanced herself from the film in progress and the finished product, as the epistolary excerpts quoted above and at the beginning of this chapter attest. It comes as no surprise that Duse, following the May 1916 letter, preferred to ask other intellectuals of Sardinian origin about insular traditions rather than Deledda, who was certainly an expert on the subject. One of Duse’s Sardinian sources was the same positivist anthropologist Paolo Orano who, along with Alfredo Niceforo, had deeply influenced Deledda’s deterministic Weltanschauung in her early works (see 1.1.b, pp. 30–2). Duse, though, decides to follow her own vision of the film, rather than Orano’s wealth of folkloric information. In a letter to the antropologist after meeting with him and reading his book, Duse specifies that

Cenere 139 Il romanzo che ho scelto ... è in sé un’opera d’arte ... da anni possiede una sua vita personale, una vita breve ed eterna, simile all’eterna e breve storia d’amore che il libro racconta ... Amiamo i libri che amiamo ... per quel non so che di inafferrabile ... che l’anima non trova nella vita ... Il libro di Grazia Deledda è solo una storia di dolore e d’amore. Ma la vostra abbondanza di leggende, di storia sarda, il libro non le contiene. Comunque va avanti, s’innalza per altre vie. (As quoted in Cara 1988: 18; emphasis in the text)43 [The novel that I chose ... is a work of art in itself ... for years it has had its own personal life, a brief and eternal life, similar to the love story that the book recounts ... We love the books that we love for that incomprehensible elusiveness ... that a soul does not find in life ... Grazia Deledda’s book is only a story of pain and love. Yet the book does not contain the wealth of legends and Sardinian history that your work entails. In any event Deledda’s book goes its own beautiful way.]

Paradoxically, not Duse’s film, anchored in this quintessential vision of suffering and love intertwined in the central character of the mother, but Deledda’s own Scenario sardo per il cinema would deliver a folkloric and easily marketable image of Sardinia. The script of the Scenario, which never reached the movie theatres, presents a complex love story framed in the ancient ritual of the pilgrimage to the sanctuary of St Francis. Maria, the female protagonist, reminds us of La via del male’s protagonist not only for her first name, but also for her love story haunted by sociological divides. She has been promised by her parents, in particular her greedy mother reminiscent of Zia Luisa in La via del male, to a rich and elderly landowner. Maria, though, is deeply in love with a poor shepherd, who has been forced by injust accusation to join the bandits.44 After a dramatic kidnapping for ransom of Maria’s father and his liberation through the just bandit, the two young lovers marry secretly with the blessings of a priest and Maria’s parents. The newlyweds fulfil their dreams of love and freedom and succeed in escaping the landowner and the ‘carabinieri’ by embarking upon a sailboat. With a touch of irony on this unusual happy ending for Deledda’s narrative, the ‘carabinieri’ mistakenly imprison the dismayed landowner and his maid, who had betrayed the lovers. As this short summary indicates, the Scenario epitomizes Deledda’s double vision of cinema expressed in her response for La vita cinematografica: a powerful ‘manifestazione di arte rappresentativa’ [manifesta-

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tion of representative art] that, as such, can instil new educational effectiveness into literary texts. In the specific case of Scenario, motion pictures can convey information about Sardinian traditions and landscapes through beautiful images and dramatic but at the same time entertaining stories. Lina Sacchetti, Deledda’s long-time friend in Cervia, confirms this double vision in her memoirs: Si racconta che a Viareggio nell’estate 1914, assistendo alla proiezione dei paesaggi della Sardegna, e rivedendo i suoi luoghi e la sua casa, la scrittrice si sia commossa e abbia riconosciuto che il cinematografo ha delle virtù evocatrici di straordinaria efficacia. Un film che abbia per sfondo la Sardegna, ne rappresenti le costumanze più caratteristiche e originali, o il paesaggio così pittoresco, poteva divenire anche per lei motivo di legittimo orgoglio e di intensa soddisfazione. Perciò interpellata, si pose all’opera: creò un dramma in tre episodi, a intonazione fantastica e avventurosa, ponendo in rilievo il concetto etico profondamente umano delle vicende. La vita dei protagonisti che si è esaurita e corrotta lontano dalla propria terra, troverà nello stesso sentimento di nostalgia la forza di risollevarsi, ancorandosi al passato, e col ritorno alla terra amata che serba il suo perdono e aiuta alla rigenerazione. Attraverso pellegrinaggi, danze, riti religiosi, vita nomade e quasi selvaggia dei pastori, trionfa la visione della terra che assume il ruolo di personaggio principale. Il film è annunciato a grandi titoli: ‘Il fascino della terra. Persone, costumi, luoghi di Sardegna al cinematografo.’ E della visione e della interpretazione del romanzo, si occupa con passione Luigi Antonelli, scrittore di teatro; mentre una qualificata compagnia di attori e di attrici fa un viaggio in Sardegna, cercando di far rivivere, nelle inquadrature sceniche, le bellezze e le suggestioni dei grandi orizzonti sardi che ispirarono l’artista. (Sacchetti 1971: 89–90) [It is said that Grazia Deledda, when in Viareggio during the summer of 1914, attended a screening of Sardinian landscapes. When the writer saw her places and her home, she was moved and recognized that cinema has an extraordinarily powerful evocative potential. A film with Sardinia as a backdrop, a film that would portray Sardinia’s most typical and original traditions or its picturesque landscapes, could also generate her legitimate pride and intense satisfaction. For this reason, when she was asked to, she began to work. Deledda created a play with three episodes of fantastic and adventurous nature, in which she underscored the moral and deeply human vision of the plot. The life of the protagonists, which was depleted

Cenere 141 and spoiled far away from their homeland, would find the energy to rise again in the same nostalgic feeling, through its roots in the past and going back to their beloved country, which offers forgiveness and regeneration. What prevails is a vision of her homeland that plays the main role through the representation of pilgrimages, dances, religious rituals, and the nomadic and almost wild shepherds’ life. Deledda’s film is announced in capital letters: ‘The Fascination of the Land. People, Customs, and Places of Sardinia through Film.’ Playwright Luigi Antonelli passionately deals with the vision and interpretation of the text, while a qualified acting company travels to Sardinia, in the attempt to re-enact in the shots the beauty and the fascination of the vast Sardinian horizons that inspired the artist.]

Despite the unclear fate of this filmic text, Sacchetti’s memoirs underline the same folkloric elements that Deledda had underscored in her own words defining ‘la vera Sardegna’ [the true Sardinia]. As Olla convincingly argues, Deledda ‘di fatto, si abbassò a compilare un catalogo degli stereotipi più ovvi legati ai propri romanzi’ [actually lowered herself to compile a list of the most obvious stereotypes related to her novels (2000: 49)]. In the Scenario sardo per il cinema and, very likely, in Il fascino della terra Deledda herself carved narrative topoi, landscape images, characters’ psychology, and conflict mechanisms, which would almost paralyse the cinematic imaginary of Sardinian film, whether inspired by Deledda’s works or not (Olla 2000: 56–92). This digression on Deledda’s interaction with film form enables us to seize by contrast the significance of Duse’s Cenere in the context of modernity, which is ingrained in the transgressive rewriting of the novel of formation at the very centre of Deledda’s Cenere. Pivotal, albeit hidden, in the novel, the mother’s character acquires her centrality as female protagonist of the novel of formation in Duse’s film. 2.8 Duse’s Cenere and the Resymbolization of the Female Bildungsroman Shot in 1916, Cenere represents the only venture into film by Eleonora Duse. It constituted, moreover, her comeback after a ‘time of silence’ that had seen her absent from the stage since 1909. Her health undermined by tuberculosis, her spirit depressed by the voluntary and yet painful end of her relationship with Gabriele D’Annunzio, Duse spent those years immersed in the study of medieval and Renaissance art and architecture. Her study of art history was to mould the visual and spatial dimension of her film, as scripts and letters suggest.

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Not only for intellectual reasons, but also for practical, economic ones, Duse was drawn to cinema at the beginning of the First World War. The substantial donations that she had received from a German patron had been frozen in German banks at the outbreak of the hostilities between Germany and Italy.45 In a letter to her daughter Enrichetta, Duse writes with pride and enthusiasm about the proposal of collaboration made by the internationally renowned American film director D.W. Griffith: ‘Quanti viaggi avrei fatto mia vita [sic] in attesa “del Viaggio,” quello buono, liberatorio!!!’ [How many journeys I have made in my life, awaiting ‘The Journey,’ – the real one, the deliverance!!! (letter, 25 September 1915 in Cara 1988: 9; trans. Weaver 1984: 303)]. Eventually, the actress would not be able to seize the opportunity of working with Griffith because of the escalating international hostilities. For this reason, she begins to consider more seriously the offers that she receives from Italian film producers. First, she has high hopes for a proposed collaboration with a prestigious Roman film studio,46 as her letter to daughter Enrichetta confirms: ‘sono ingaggiata per un lavoro ... dopo tanto tempo, qui a Roma, mi ha cercata una grande società per iniziare una produzione di “contro cinema,” per iniziare cioè qualcosa di bello e di degno, in contrapposizione alla bestialità di opere stupide! Di queste opere stupide ce ne sono abbastanza’ [I was contracted for some work ... for a long time, here in Rome, they wanted me to start up a large firm to make ‘contre-cinéma,’ that is, to initiate something beautiful and worthy against the stupidity of stupid works! (letter, 30 March 1916, in Cara 1988: 12; trans. Weaver 1984: 306)]. However, Duse soon realizes that the Roman movie company rather intends to exploit her renowned theatrical image for financial reasons, which are deeply opposed to her artistic approach to cinema. After few months of negotiations, she reaches an agreement with producer Arturo Ambrosio of Turin. In a letter to a friend, she raves about her project: ... Intanto qui il contratto per la mia film sta per essere firmato, e le condizioni, te lo mostrerò, sono assai considerevoli. / Così sia. La scelta del lavoro è per intero di mia scelta, e ho trovato una cosa assai bella. Te ne parlerò a voce ... Che gioia ritentare di poter sognare, inventare, agire! / Cara, affrontare la mia film, è, per me, come un problema spirituale, e sono mesi che mi esercito: spero, credo, confido! [... Meanwhile I am about to sign the contract for my film, and the conditions of the agreement – I’ll show you – are quite remarkable. / Amen. The

Cenere 143 choice of the work is entirely mine, and I found something truly beautiful. I’ll tell you in person ... What a joy to reattempt to be able to dream, invent, act! My dear, to confront my film is, for me, like a spiritual problem, and I have practised for months: I hope, I believe, I trust! (Letter, 16 May 1916, in Cara 1988: 12)]

The repeated emphasis on the aesthetic dimension of her first film in the correspondence underscores Duse’s artistic approach to cinema. More specifically, the proposed project with Griffith was inspired by ‘le varie figure femminili dipinte da Michelangelo nelle lunette della Cappella Sistina ... Lo studio sarebbe dunque stato incentrato esclusivamente sulla gestualità, sui drappeggi, sulle luci’ [the female figures depicted by Michelangelo in the lunettes of the Sistine Chapel ... Thus, the work should have hinged exclusively on the gestures, the drapes, the lights (J. L. Courteault-Deslandes, ‘Eleonora Duse attrice cinematografica – Un’opera incompiuta,’ 19, as quoted in Cara 1988: 45)]. In Cenere, the most evident influence of Duse’s study of art history is the resonance of Giotto. In another letter to her daughter, Duse writes: ... In Cenere, ciò che è così bello (lasciamelo dire) non è la tua vecchia madre, ma il tono calmo (ombre) e tragico e dolce delle inquadrature. In Cenere io ho avuto la fortuna d’un bambino bellissimo (il piccolo Anania) ... e dopo la morte di Rosalia, le ultime inquadrature tutte impostate esattamente su Giotto, e vedere questa nobiltà senza posa, questa dolcezza calma come l’aria della estate, quella tristezza rassegnata, quel dolore che non urla e che non fa nemmeno un gesto – infine Giotto! Quello ho ben capito e riprodotto e ciò è così riposante, proprio al cinema dove tutti non fanno che correre. (Courteault-Deslandes 24, as quoted in Cara 1988: 46) [In Cenere – let me tell you – it’s not your old mother, but the calm tone (shades), the tragic and tender tone of the takes. In Cenere I was so fortunate to have an extremely beautiful child (little Anania) ... and after Rosalia’s death, the last takes are all based on Giotto. I look at that loftiness without respite, at that tenderness as calm as summer air, that resigned sadness, that sorrow which does not scream or make a gesture – all this is Giotto, at last! I have well understood and reproduced all this, and this is so relaxing, especially on screen, where everyone is constantly running around.]

The first filmic reference in this letter pertains to the opening sequence of four takes. The first two long shots underline the horizontal dimen-

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sion where the mother and her little son are still united through a tender embrace. In the third and especially fourth take, though, the vertical dimension prevails. The view of an open gallery in the backyard of a farmhouse replaces the low stone wall with the flowing stream that made up the background of the first take. The lighting from the left brings to the fore the vertical column motif in the shades projected on the right wall of the house. Furthermore, the verticality is emphasized when the child enters the scene. He is standing between two columns of the gallery while his mother is kneeling next to him. The mother is wearing black except for a white headscarf. The recently introduced dolly camera takes in a medium close-up of the woman, who is tying the amulet around the child’s neck. As we might recall, the ‘ricetta’ scene at the start of the novel marked the mythic-sacred dimension that framed the narrative as a whole (see 2.2, pp. 98–9). Eleonora Duse appears to rewrite this segment in the spirit of Giotto’s art. According to Cara’s compelling interpretation (1988: 48–51), the verticality of the colonnade and the interplay of light and shade refer the spectator immediately to the architectural component of Giotto’s works in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua and in the Cappella Peruzzi in Santa Croce, Florence,47 and to the architecture of the Church of St Francis in Assisi. The references to Giotto in Duse’s correspondence support Antonio Cara’s insightful conclusion that Giotto is central to the aesthetic and emotional framing of the film. Duse thus demonstrates a remarkable sensitivity in rewriting the literary text as cinematic text. The cinematic text, in turn, because of its specific visual signifier, can perfectly render the ‘narrare visivo’ [visual narration (Di Zenzo 1979)] that characterizes Deledda’s writing. Alberto Frattini has offered a fascinating analysis of Deledda’s use of chromatic adjectives, which capture the essence of a landscape, announce an internal metamorphosis of a character, or enhance the lyric significance of a noun, in particular in the short-story collection that carries the suggestive title Chiaroscuro (1912) (1972: 322–3). From the privileged point of view of an art historian, Maria Elvira Ciusa has analysed the deep relationship between Deledda and her younger sister Nicolina – a painter herself and perceptive illustrator of a number of Deledda’s works. Ciusa traces the intriguing complementary evolution of Grazia’s writing and Nicolina’s painting from naturalism to impressionism, symbolism, and expressionism on the wavelength of European avant-garde movements of modernity (1987: 165). The same stylistic development is confirmed through the collaboration that Deledda entertained with the exuberant

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Sardinian and Tuscan art scene of the early twentieth century (Ciusa 1992: 121).48 The silent film Cenere, therefore, is imbued with art, for it embodies the fusion of the artistic productions of two highly intellectual and artistic women. Both Deledda and Duse draw on an intense study of literary, philosophical, and artistic expressions, and integrate themselves into the European cultural tradition. Interestingly, cinema, as the upstart art form of modernity, allowed the two artists to collaborate in the most harmonious way, thus complementing the public centrality of the ‘diva’ of Italian theatre with the partially self-chosen social marginality of the selftaught Sardinian author. Duse’s aptitude as a film director and interpreter shows her receptive openness toward the potential of the new cinematic forms, which the ‘Primo manifesto per la cinematografia futurista’ of 11 September 1916 characterized as follows: ‘Il cinematografo è un’arte a sé. Il cinematografo non deve dunque mai copiare il palcoscenico. Il cinematografo, essendo essenzialmente visivo, deve compiere anzitutto l’evoluzione della pittura’ [Cinema is an art for itself. Cinema, therefore, shall never copy the theatrical stage. Because cinema is visual in its very essence, it must first of all carry out the evolution of painting (Marinetti 1968: 119–20)]. Cenere thus acquires a multifaceted significance. From the point of view of cultural history, this film interweaves the central, mainland female artistic experience of Eleonora Duse with the marginalized, insular female intellectual identity of Grazia Deledda. From the point of view of film history, it dwells at the intersection of several creative expressions, such as literature, theatre, and art. Duse alluded to the expressive significance of her film in a suggestive passage in the correspondence: ... La sola cosa che m’ha angosciato là dentro fu che quei signori dell’Ambrosio volevano una riproduzione della vita. Io ho sempre invece cercato ... una trasposizione di questa ... Forse, vi è in quella trasposizione di vita ad arte, una parola, non visibile, ma pur trasparente, in quel film, per uno che sia iniziato alle visioni dell’anima ... (As quoted in Cara 1988: 49) [... The only thing that caused me anguish there was that the gentlemen of Ambrosio wanted a reproduction of life. On the contrary, I have always striven ... for a transposition of it ... Perhaps, in this transposition of life into art there is a word, not visible, but still transparent, in that film, for someone who is initiated into the visions of the soul ...]

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Although Duse succeeded in implementing her interpretive style as a director and female lead in the film, she had to compromise with the producer in the choice of the male lead actor. Film producer Ambrosio had imposed Febo Mari on a reluctant Eleonora Duse, in the hope that his fame would attract a large audience.49 Mari’s over-emphatic style in the role of Anania causes an imbalance in the production. His exaggerated acting and miming of spoken words contrast with the sober intensity of Duse’s interpretation as an actor and a director. While only the measured gesture and the intense gaze nourish Duse’s forceful acting, her directing is all anchored in space and light. 50 After completing the film shooting, Duse writes once more to her daughter: ‘Il film è bello. C’è qualche difetto, ma l’impronta è bella; una sola è l’innovazione ... ecco: mai in tutto il film io parlo. La bocca chiusa, sì o no con la testa, e ci sono dei no molto tristi’ [There are some flaws, but the imprint is beautiful; the innovative aspect is only one ... that is, during the whole film I never talk. My mouth shut, yes or no with my head, and there are some very sad ‘nos’ (as quoted in Cara 1988: 75)]. Even if the audience cannot hear him, Mari talks and screams constantly in front of the camera. Duse, on the contrary, concentrates exclusively on the expressive silence of gestures and the interplay of light and shadow. While in Mari’s interpretation cinema is ‘teatro filmato’ [filmed theatre], for Duse the new medium is ‘arte plastica autonoma’ [autonomous plastic art (Courtault-Deslandes 19, in Cara 1988: 76)]. In an undated letter to Giovanni Papini, Duse complained bitterly about ‘the journey from word to cinema’ that Sardou’s Odette, a classic piece of her repertory, had made in the silent interpretation by film star Francesca Bertini. The factual information conveyed through images would reduce Sardou’s drama to ‘a news item. The exterior of a poor life, displayed by machine ... Trash-shame! And nothing that stimulates the soul – nothing that, after the word, frees imagination! – Nothing of what is not seen and weaves life; nothing of the inevitabilities that form it’ (Weaver 1984: 305; emphasis in the text). Precisely this expressive and liberating potential of film art, which Futurism’s manifesto articulated, renders Cenere a ‘pietra miliare nella storia del cinema’ [a milestone in film history (Olla 2000: 128; Brunetta 1988: 87–8)]. Its innovative power resides not only in Duse’s acting and directing style, but also in the essence of its interaction with the literary text. For Cenere belongs to the privileged category of ‘opere cinematografiche coscientemente nate per interpretare, con lo sguardo di un artista, le parole di un altro artista’ [film works consciously

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born to interpret, with the eye of an artist, the words of another artist (Olla 2000: 63)]. Film critic Gianni Olla reads Duse’s script as a two-voice tragedy. Its intensity and experimental character derive from the ‘smontaggio’ [dismantling] of Deledda’s novel, or the elliptical deconstruction of the narrative (126, 44). The first ‘voice’ – Anania’s – has as a visual counterpart the foreshortened landscape of the windy Gennargentu mountains. The physical presence of Rosalia/Olì is intensified by artistic allusions and particularly the sacred space of Giotto’s art (Olla 2000: 127 and Cara 1988: 46).51 The artistic frame foregrounds the intense physicality of Duse’s performance, an acting style that had won her international acclaim. As Lucia Re convincingly argues, Duse managed to break out of the classical acting tradition and the naturalistic code of delivery in order to shape her very specific style and persona, as Sarah Bernhardt did, albeit with different results (2002: 121). ‘L’uso espressivo del corpo e del silenzio e il grande repertorio somatico e gestuale della Duse (soprattutto i gesti delle mani, la concitazione nervosa, l’uso dello sguardo e l’apparenza di essere “in trance”)’ [The expressive use of body and silence, and the wide-ranging somatic repertory (above all the hand gestures, the nervous excitement, the use of the gaze and the appearance of being entranced (122)] characterized Duse’s acting style not only on the theatre stage, but also – and even more strikingly – on the silent screen. Duse’s legendary ‘incarnazione della naturalità, della sincerità e della profondità’ [embodiment of naturalness, sincerity, and depth (130)] derived from her astonishingly modern ability to analyse or, as Re suggests, psychoanalyse her characters from within. In a letter of 1884, Duse referred to her female roles as follows: Io non guardo se hanno mentito, se hanno tradito, se hanno peccato – se nacquero perverse – purché io senta che esse hanno pianto – hanno sofferto o per mentire o per tradire o per amare ... io mi metto con loro e per loro e le frugo, frugo non per mania di sofferenza, ma perché il compianto femminile è il più grande e dettagliato, è più dolce e più completo che non il compianto che accordano gli uomini. (As quoted in Re 2002: 132) [I don’t care if they have lied, betrayed, sinned – if they were born perverted – as long as I feel that they have suffered for lying or betraying or loving ... I line up with and for them, and I search them, I search them not because I’m obsessed with suffering, but because female compassion is the largest

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and most detailed sentiment; it is sweeter and fuller than the pity that men grant.]

It is clear that Duse applied not only her acting style but also her ‘psychoanalysing’ approach to Rosalia/Olì’s character, thus bringing to light the unconscious of the novel’s female protagonist and the hidden narrative of female formation in Deledda’s Cenere, in other words the structural and thematic thread that weaves the novel into the narrative texture of modernity. Film historian Gian Piero Brunetta argues that, when compared with the performances of Italian stars of silent cinema, such as Francesca Bertini or Lyda Borelli, Duse’s quintessential use of body language and light expressed her search for new ways to implement the young art of film (1988: 87). As Duse wrote in a letter, Il cinematografo è un campo tutto nuovo ... e il primo errore consiste nel fatto che versiamo vecchio vino negli otri nuovi. La maggior parte di noi è gente già guastata dal teatro, abituata all’aiuto della parola ... E’ molto più facile d’esprimere un sentimento quando abbiamo l’aiuto della parola, della voce ... Il cinematografo ha bisogno di tutt’altri mezzi, ma offre delle possibilità che il teatro non può dare. (As quoted in Brunetta 1988: 87–88) [Cinema is a completely new field ... and the first mistake is to pour new wine in an old barrel. Most of us are already spoiled by theatre, used to the help of words ... It’s much easier to express a feeling when we can count on the help of words and voice ... Cinema needs completely different means, but also offers opportunities that theatre cannot give.]

In the case of the silent movie Cenere, cinematic art offers Duse the opportunity to illuminate the apparently marginal character of the mother in the novel. The visual medium of modernity inspires Duse not to use words, but to infuse the intensity of her physical and at the same time deeply psychological acting in her body language and her silence. For this reason, the centrality of Rosalia/Olì emerges forcefully in the film. The most silent character in the novel, from which she is absent for three-quarters of the narrative, Olì succeeds in voicing her independence: ‘Io sono libera ... e me ne andrò’ (II, 232) [I’m a free woman ... And I’m leaving (II, 197)] (see 2.5, p. 110). This utterance does not occur in the film, but here Rosalia is constantly present, and her perva-

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sive silence in the novel is transposed into the compelling fusion of physicality and spirituality of Duse’s acting and directing. The imbalance between Duse’s and Mari’s acting styles leads us to the reasons that define the novel Cenere as a work that lends itself in a remarkable manner to filmic rewriting. The son’s exaggerated gestures of masculine power that threaten the mother during the reunion at Zia Grathia’s highlight in contrast the solemn force of the mother’s final decision of silence, which the sequence ‘L’attesa’ [Awaiting] forebodes. Anania, Zia Grathia, and Olì had arranged that if Margherita accepted his conditions -- living together with him and his repentant mother -- he would send home the ‘ricetta’ wrapped in a white handkerchief. If she refused to share Anania’s alleged ‘moral’ mission, the ‘ricetta’ would be wrapped in a coloured handkerchief (Cenere II, 235, Ashes II, 199). In the novel, a dramatic exchange of letters between Anania and Margherita follows the agreement. In the film, we witness only Rosalia’s desperate wait for an answer. Eventually, when the ‘ricetta’ comes back wrapped in a coloured handkerchief, the climax is reached. A desperate Rosalia presses the patterned fabric on her eyes and leaves Zia Grathia’s house in order to undertake her final journey. At this point, the intertitles read: ‘Tutto è cenere ... la vita, l’uomo, la morte, il destino’ [Everything is ashes ... life, man, death, destiny]. These are the words that introduce Rosalia’s last walk through the woods that she had once traversed with her little son on their way from Fonni to Nuoro. At the end of her wandering, Rosalia thoughtfully regards the amulet and kisses it. In that silent gesture resides the choice for freedom that the forthcoming suicide corroborates in the most extreme and tragic way. When the final film sequence opens, Anania enters Zia Grathia’s house to find his mother lying on the ground. He kneels down and kisses his mother’s hand, which still holds the ‘ricetta.’ Immediately after the intertitle ‘Madre’ [Mother], we see Anania kissing his mother’s head – very likely a further iconic reference to Giotto.52 He then joins the people from the village who are carrying Rosalia’s body in the funeral procession that we follow in a long distance shot. The last title card reads ‘Cenere’ [Ashes], established as a keyword through the repeated cross-cutting to the funeral procession. In the original script, as reported in Cara’s study (1988: 113), there was a subsequent title card: ‘Monologo di Anania sulla vita donatagli. – E amò la vita. Libero’ [Anania’s monologue about the gift of life made to him. – And he loved life – Free]. Certainly, Duse had to shorten her initial script

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because of budget cuts imposed by producer Ambrosio, whom Duse had trusted after the failed negotiations with Cines in Rome (see 2.8, p. 142).53 As her correspondence suggests (Cara 1988: 21, Signorelli 1938: 281–2), Duse resisted the producer’s pressures to insert sequences referring to Anania’s erotic adventures in Rome or to a mythic Sardinian rural life, intended to appeal to larger middle-class urban audiences. On the contrary, she preferred to realize a quintessential version of her script in order to cope with the unexpected financial restrictions. It is worth noting, though, that the original script presented only a brief prologue about Anania’s childhood first in Fonni and then in Nuoro. The two subsequent sections of the script started with Anania’s dramatic walk on the Gennargentu where he reads Margherita’s critical letters, thus omitting Anania’s novel of formation in Cagliari and Rome. The conclusive written word that follows ‘Madre’ is, again, ‘Cenere,’ the utterance that joins the literary and the filmic texts. The penultimate intertitle with ‘Madre’ again emphasizes the role of Duse’s interpretation of Deledda’s work in shedding new light on the apparently shadowed female protagonist of the novel. The paradoxical meaning of ashes – death that often hides the spark of life (Cenere II, 257, Ashes II, 217) – coincides with the paradoxical, extreme, final gesture of the mother. She chooses the most radical silence of death by cutting her throat in order to express her will and continue her life in her son, who, in the final words of the omniscient narrator in the novel, ‘sperò, e amò ancora la vita’ (II, 257) [And he hoped. And he loved life again’ (II, 217)] (see 2.6, p. 133). The critical response at the time of the film’s release was, to say the least, controversial (Cara 1988: 41–4, 117–19, Olla 2000: 160–1). An insightful review appeared in the Roman newspaper Il Messaggero under the pen name ‘Gipi’ the day following the first screening on 20 March 1917. The author lauded Duse’s ‘rara e fine genialità’ [rare and fine genius] which ‘ha compreso la scena muta, e quelli che sono i suoi originali e potenti mezzi di espressione e figurazione ed ha operato quella riforma che da tutti si attendeva, da tutti era auspicata’ [has understood the silent stage, and its original and powerful means of expression and representation, and has implemented the reform that everyone waited and hoped for (as quoted in Cara 1988: 117; emphasis in the text)]. If this film critic was able to grasp Cenere’s profound novelty in the contemporary debate on the ‘seventh art,’ a review that appeared under the initials ‘f.c.’ in Cagliari’s newspaper L’Unione Sarda on 15 June 1924, following the first screening in the Sardinian capital after Duse’s death (!),

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bitterly attacked the film as a ‘profanazione volgare’ [crude defamation] of Sardinian identity and traditions. The author indicted Duse and Deledda as well for sharing the responsibility of misrepresenting Sardinian people for the ‘fratelli d’oltremare’ [oversea brothers] as ‘caricature pietose di una razza inferiore di pastori e buffoni’ [pitiful caricatures of an inferior race of shepherds and buffoons (as quoted in Olla 2000: 160– 1)] for financial profit. It is well known that the film was in reality a financial débâcle (Olla 2000: 159, Weaver 1984: 316), and Ambrosio had delayed the payment for the shootings for months, to the point that Duse was forced to pawn her pearl necklace. The producer had launched Duse’s filmic debut with resonant words in a special issue of L’Arte muta, but shortly after the release abandoned the production and sold off the distribution rights. Duse was already thinking about a new film project on Angela da Foligno when she commented on the reception of her work in the same letter to Enrichetta in which she revealed Giotto’s seminal influence on Cenere: M.me Berthelot, Papini ed un pittore ultra moderno, hanno riconosciuto i Giotto ... subito, e questa è stata una tale gioia per me! E la stampa non ha detto nulla su ciò, siccome davanti a me non osano criticarmi, dicono che un mio film è troppo bello per la massa incolta, ironia d’ignoranza – imbecilli! Ipocriti, perversi, come se io non capissi che il mio film d’arte, con una donna, dritta con i capelli bianchi, non è il loro genere. (CourteaultDeslandes 28, as quoted in Cara 46) [Mme Berthelot, Papini, and a very contemporary painter recognized Giotto ... right away, and this was such a great joy for me! And the press did not spend a word on this. Since they do not dare criticize me openly, they say that a film of mine is too beautiful for the ignorant masses, what ironic ignorance – idiots! Perverted hypocrites! As if I would not understand that my art film, with a woman, standing and with white hair, is not their kind.]

My analysis of the novel/film interaction highlights a further meaning of this ‘film d’arte.’ Duse’s film expresses its artistic value as a rewriting or resymbolization of the fundamental idea of the novel. According to Millicent Marcus’s insightful analysis, the good adapter, aware of the unique properties of literary and cinematic form, must first infer from the textual source a preliterary idea – one that

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stands prior to its written expression. In other words, adapters must operate according to the fiction (and it is only a fiction) that they are reversing the author’s creative process. Having arrived at this preliterary idea by induction, the adapter must then deduce its cinematically appropriate form ... that bodies forth the abstractions and sentiments of the precursor text. (1993: 15)

The adaptive strategy that Duse implements in Cenere indicates the mother as the ‘preliterary idea ... that stands prior to its written expression’ in Deledda’s Cenere. On the one hand, the mother is almost completely absent for three-quarters of the novel’s plot, although she is constantly present between the lines of the story as the source of the narrative energy that traces an ‘M’ in the unfolding of the male protagonist’s novel of formation (see 2.5, p. 112). In the filmic adaptation, on the other hand, the mother’s character is foregrounded. Eleonora Duse’s adaptation, direction, and acting highlight the affirmative force of silence and its liberating potential (Della Terza 1989: 278, Izzo 1999), thus inseparably intertwining the literary and the cinematic texts. 2.9. A Partial Conclusion In the first part of this chapter I have argued that the novel Cenere represents an eloquent rewriting in the spirit of modernity of the classical Bildungsroman, for it is centred on a male protagonist unable to use the cultural opportunities that he has encountered through his mother’s self-sacrifice. In the second part, I have lingered on the novel-film relationship, which underscores the modern openness of the novel Cenere to contamination by different artistic codes. The film Cenere appears to be a rewriting of the homonymous novel that enriches the literary source by revealing its true narrative force. While Duse as a script-writer omits the account of Anania’s novel of formation, Duse’s directing and acting focus on the preliterary nucleus of the textual source. The symbolic ashes unmask the mother’s true novel of formation hidden between the lines of the son’s novel of formation. Therefore, the mother emerges as the only assertive character of the narrative capable of imposing her will through self-negation and silence. The paradox implied by the title of the novel – ashes that are remainders of death but also glimmering signs of life – is enhanced through the cinematic recodification.

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Duse herself alluded to this paradox when she presented in a letter to her daughter the Deleddian novel that had mesmerized her E’ un libro sulla Sardegna ... fatto d’azione, di sogno, e senza crudeltà sensuale, ma pieno di ‘pietà’. Qualcosa tra la ... [sic] di De Musset, René Chateaubriand e, a capirlo bene, qualcosa della ‘sete’ sete d’amore (e di pene) di Nietzsche. (Letter, 4 May 1916, in Cara 1988: 13) [It’s a book about Sardinia ... it’s made of action and dream. It lacks sensual cruelty but it’s full of ‘compassion.’ Something between De Musset, René Chateubriand, and, if one is able to fully understand it, something of Nietzsche’s ‘thirst,’ Nietzsche’s thirst for love (and sorrows).]

To conclude this chapter, I would like to emphasize Deledda’s modern ability to ‘metabolize’ extremely diverse cultural experiences, which will enable the Sardinian writer to seize the archetypal significance of Zarathustra and give a later narrative rendition of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra in her Cristiano, the male protagonist of Il segreto dell’uomo solitario. In this capacity, Grazia Deledda emerges as a European writer and intellectual of modernity, far beyond the critical labels by which she has been stigmatized, truly ‘la scrittrice più libera che il secolo abbia avuto’ [the most independent writer that the century ever produced (Bo 1992: 41)].

3 Active Nihilism and Nietzsche’s Uebermensch: Il segreto dell’uomo solitario

‘Wer ist uns Zarathustra? Wie soll er uns heissen? Und gleich mir selber gabt ihr euch Fragen zur Antwort. / Ist er ein Versprechender? Oder ein Erfüller? Ein Erobernder? Oder ein Erbender? Ein Herbst? Oder eine Pflugschar? Ein Arzt? Oder ein Genesener? / Ist er ein Dichter? Oder ein Wahrhaftiger? Ein Befreier? Oder ein Bändiger? Ein Guter? Oder ein Böser?’ (Nietzsche, ‘Von der Erlösung,’ Also sprach Zarathustra, 1968: 6.1: 175) [‘Who is Zarathustra to us? What shall we call him? and, like me, you answer your own questions with questions. / Is he a promiser? Or a fulfiller? A conqueror? Or an inheritor? A harvest? Or a ploughshare? A physician? Or a convalescent? / Is he a poet? Or a genuine man? A liberator? Or a subduer? A good man? Or an evil man?’ (‘Of Redemption,’ Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 1969b: 161)]

Il segreto dell’uomo solitario (1921) belongs to Deledda’s late works, such as La danza della collana (1924) or Annalena Bilsini (1927), dislocated in the symbolism of psychological landscapes that have left the Sardinian topography behind. Paradoxically, while Deledda’s major novels have often been targeted for their restricted and folkloric identity, her less Sardinian novels have been criticized for the opposite reason, as duller expressions of the archaic culture that nurtured Deledda’s narrative (Sapegno 1971). My analysis of Il segreto dell’uomo solitario intends to point out one of the possible reasons for this shift in critical appreciation. This reason, I argue, coincides with Deledda’s significance in the light of modernity. Through a self-acquired cultural identity that stretched beyond Sardin-

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ian authors and Italian classics to include Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Ibsen, Hugo, Stendhal, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Sterne, and others, Deledda emerges as a European voice of modernity, albeit rooted in Sardinian soil. In this chapter, I explore Deledda’s ability to perceive and translate into narrative structures and characters the most intriguing elements of Nietzsche’s active nihilism after reflecting upon Schopenhauer’s passive nihilism in Colombi e sparvieri (1912) (see 4.4, pp. 198–210). In Il segreto dell’uomo solitario, the ‘unspeakable secret’ (Migiel 1994) often at the heart of Deledda’s novels from La via del male (1896) to La chiesa della solitudine (1936) is once again the violation of moral and societal rules, but in its most provocative – i.e. most comprehensive – variation. At the very centre of modernity, Cristiano, the protagonist of the novel, tries to cope with madness, thus posing the ethical and logical question about normality and abnormality, reason and folly, rationality and irrationality, truth and falsity, life and death. The plot of Il segreto dell’uomo solitario is devoid of events, almost ‘polverizzato’ [pulverized (Piromalli 1968: 110)] and, like its characters, reduced to quintessential particles. The loneliness of Cristiano, the man who lives in a little house between the beach and the moor, is only a fragment of the universal solitude that the symbolic landscape evokes. In this surreal environment, suspended between sand dunes and sea, Cristiano’s silent physical relationship with the peasant woman Ghiana represents his only tie with life. Yet the construction of a nearby house and the arrival of his neighbours disrupt and eventually destroy Cristiano’s hermitage forever. The new family consists of Sarina, a young middleclass lady, her elderly husband Giorgio, who is affected by neurasthenia and yearns for peace, and their helpful servant. Giorgio, once a wealthy country doctor of modest origin, had married Sarina after saving her from a life-threatening, undisclosed illness. Soon after their arrival, Giorgio dies overcome by madness. The encounter between Cristiano and Sarina, which had kindled in both an intense longing for life, could finally lead to an open relationship based upon love and respectful of conventional moral rules. At this point, though, the story separates from the plot through the insertion of a long flashback, in which Cristiano narrates his Bildungsroman to Sarina. After spending a modest childhood in one of the many metaphysical metropolitan landscapes à la De Chirico distinctive in Deledda’s late narratives,1 Cristiano managed to graduate from college, thanks to his widowed mother’s labour and the financial support of their landlord. Nothing troubled the young man’s happiness and his unconditional love for his caring mother, until she

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took the initiative to arrange a wealthy marriage for him to the daughter of the recently deceased landlord. From the beginning, the newlyweds experienced tensions, which arose especially after Cristiano’s mother fled to America with her young lover to start a new life. The love-hate relationship between Cristiano and his wife became so dangerous that she succeeded in hospitalizing him in a mental health institution or ‘casa di salute’ (1085)2 under the charge of attempted homicide. Cristiano was released only eight years later following the natural death of his wife. He sought, though, to remain distant from the world of the ‘healthy’ and took shelter in the mythical solitude of a ‘paese del vento’ [The Land of Wind, title of the 1931 novel]. After Cristiano’s flashback and the revelation of his alleged madness, Sarina mysteriously disappears. The novel abruptly concludes with an open ending, in which Cristiano leaves the scene to go ‘in cerca del suo bambino’ [in search of his child (1100)], who is the fruit of his relationship with Ghiana. According to Francesco Di Pilla, Il segreto dell’uomo solitario constitutes the definitive overcoming of determinism à la Zola and psychologism à la Bourget that were ingrained in Deledda’s earlier narrative. Il segreto dell’uomo solitario witnesses a ‘grande maturazione’ [great maturation (Di Pilla 1982: 124)], which opens up to modernity the scope of Deledda’s ‘sardità,’ her narrative rootedness in Sardinian culture, society, and landscape. If, as Di Pilla convincingly argues, the first key element of young Deledda’s ‘sardità’ was the narrative reflection upon inequality between Sardinian social classes in La via del male, the revisions of that early novel and the parallel writing and revising of Cenere indicate the progressive and tormented opening of Deledda’s narrative to modernity’s formal and thematic threads. This explains why the second key element of Deledda’s ‘sardità’ – the awareness of the deep crisis of Sardinian identity at the turn of the century – prevails in such mature works as Cenere or Colombi e sparvieri. There, the novels of formation of the male protagonists, Anania and Jorgj respectively, result in the failed attempts to reshape their lives according to the intellectual voices of modernity to which they refer, i.e. Nietzsche, among others, for Cenere’s Anania and Schopenhauer for Colombi e sparvieri’s Jorgj. Nietzsche and Schopenhauer nurture the intertextual dialogue of Deledda’s late works, Il segreto dell’uomo solitario and La danza della collana in particular. Moreover, the two philosophers of nihilism deepen Deledda’s focus on the radical crisis of ethical values and epistemologic certainties. Thus, while the theme of madness with its subversive potential was already emerging from La via del male (1896) to

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Elias Portolu (1903), Cenere (1904), Colombi e sparvieri (1912), and L’incendio nell’oliveto (1918),3 in Il segreto it becomes the quintessential cipher of modernity, absolutely detached from any regional or deterministic connotation. Deledda’s ‘sardità’ as consciousness of the alienation inherent to the dysfunctional condition of the Sardinian intellectual between the old and the new, the margin and the centre of the unified Italian nation, turns into an existential category, into a narrative metaphor of the crisis of the modern subject.4 In other words, Deledda’s ‘sardità’ has paradoxically nurtured her modernity. Therefore, the issues of geographic, cultural, linguistic, and gender marginality ingrained in her narrative situate Deledda’s work at the heart of the discourse of modernity in Italian and European literature. While Cristiano subsumes the contradictory and complementary characteristics of the male models with which the young autobiographical Cosima identifies (Sanguinetti Katz 1994b), he also represents the ‘superamento’ of Grazia-Cosima’s world through her fictional characters (Guglielminetti 1992: 90). Through Cristiano, Deledda continues an intertextual dialogue with Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra (1883), which is explicitly present in her ‘Sardinian’ novel Cenere (1904) (see 2.4, pp. 107–8). In spite of her supposed ‘incultura’ (Momigliano 1968: 596), Deledda reads Nietzsche in depth by questioning D’Annunzio’s vitalistic and decadentistic interpretation of the Uebermensch. My analysis of narrative and linguistic structures of Il segreto dell’uomo solitario will highlight the open terms of the intertextual discourse between Deledda and Nietzsche. In my interpretation, the open ending of the novel epitomizes the intriguing intellectual journey of a female, allegedly ‘regional,’ writer at the beginning of the last century who is able to open up the biblical God of a patriarchal tradition to the Dio dei viventi (1922) after confronting him with Zarathustra’s ‘God is dead.’ 3.1. Nietzsche Reception in Italy during the Early 1900s Before I attempt to unveil the ‘secret’ of Deledda’s novel in the light of Nietzschean thought, I would like to provide a brief overview of Nietzsche’s reception in Italy around the turn of the century. My intention here is to underline how independently and critically Deledda absorbed the most controversial aspects of Nietzsche’s philosophy as they emerge in thematic threads and narrative structures of Il segreto. Certainly Nietzsche would have excluded Grazia Deledda from the

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ranks of superficial readers and interpreters of his works, to whom he refers in the following passage from Ecce homo: Wer etwas von mir verstanden zu haben glaubte, hat sich etwas aus mir zurecht gemacht, nach seinem Bilde, – nicht selten einen Gegensatz von mir, zum Beispiel einen ‘Idealisten;’ wer nichts von mir verstanden hatte, leugnete, dass ich überhaupt in Betracht käme. (‘Warum ich so gute Bücher schreibe,’ Ecce homo 1969a: 6.3: 298) [He who thought he had understood something in my work, had as a rule adjusted something in it to his own image – not infrequently the very opposite of myself, an ‘idealist,’ for instance. He who understood nothing in my work, would deny that I was worth considering at all. (‘Why I write such excellent books,’ 1911: 57)]

In Germany, Nietzsche’s work remained almost unknown to a broader audience and deliberately ignored by the academic readership until Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, the philosopher’s enthusiastic and manipulative sister,5 undertook the first systematic reorganization and publication of Nietzsche’s works in twelve volumes between 1895 and 1899.6 As Gianni Vattimo has noted, the interest in Nietzsche in Germany at the turn of the century ‘focused either on his biography ... or on the significance his thought had assumed for literature and the plastic arts’ (Vattimo 2002: 169). Among the writers of the twentieth century, ranging from Kafka to Musil, Rilke to Thomas Mann, and Strindberg to Gide, who embedded Nietzsche’s destabilizing voice of modernity in the texture of their narratives is also Grazia Deledda. In Il segreto, as I will indicate in the following pages, the theme of madness, at the centre of Nietzsche’s early biographical attention, illuminates the secret quest of the protagonist for a creative way to experience Zarathustra’s active nihilism. Considering the limited resonance of Nietzsche’s philosophy among his German contemporaries, Italian and particularly French translations appeared extremely early. In 1898, the Turin-based publishing house Fratelli Bocca inaugurated the publication of Nietzsche’s works with Beyond Good and Evil translated by Edmondo Weisel. By 1922, Fratelli Bocca had released six editions of this work. Thus Spoke Zarathustra followed in 1899, and in 1906 a completely new version by Renato Giani was published, which saw eleven editions by 1951. In 1905 The Joyful Wisdom, translated by Antonio Cippico, and in 1910 Ecce homo, translated by

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Adolfo Oberdorfer, were published by Fratelli Bocca as well.7 In 1907, the influential Italian philosopher of Idealism, Benedetto Croce, supports the publication of The Birth of Tragedy edited and translated by Mario Corsi and Attilio Ranieri, and in 1909 P.E. Pavolini edits and translates an anthology of Nietzsche’s poetry for the publisher S. Landi in Florence. As I will point out in the conclusion of this chapter, Deledda read Thus Spoke Zarathustra in its first Italian translation of 1899, i.e. in the years of her rewriting of La via del male (between 1896 and 1906) and her writing and revising of Cenere (between 1903 and 1910). Given Deledda’s early interest in Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, it is legitimate to assume that she was acquainted not only with the preceding and succeeding Italian translations of Nietzsche’s works of moral critique, i.e. Beyond Good and Evil and The Joyful Wisdom, but also with the numerous French translations published by the ‘Societé du Mercure de France.’8 Most likely Deledda was also aware of the controversial critical reactions to Nietzsche’s philosophy in Italian literary journals, in particular the Nuova Antologia, which published in instalments, among other Deledda novels, Cenere in 1903 and La via del male for its series ‘La biblioteca romantica della Nuova Antologia’ in 1906. Nietzsche spent very productive and calm periods of his wandering life in Italy between 1876 and 1889. After Genoa, Rapallo, Sorrento, Venice, Rome, and Messina, his Italian journey culminated in Turin, ‘der erste Ort in dem ich möglich bin’ [the first place in which I am possible (letter to Heinrich Köselitz, alias Peter Gast, 20 April 1888, Briefe, 3.5: 299; Selected Letters 1969c: 295)]. He stayed in the ‘würdige und ernste Stadt’ [dignified and serious city (letter to Heinrich Köselitz, alias Peter Gast, from 7 April 1888, Briefe, 3.5: 285; Selected Letters 1969c: 291] from April 1888 to January 1889, when he displayed the unmistakable signs of a deep mental disorder that prompted his admission to a psychiatric hospital in Basel and later in Jena.9 In Turin, Nietzsche wrote Ecce homo, The Case of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, The Twilight of the Idols, and the ‘Transvaluation of All Values,’ from which The Antichrist emerged (Vattimo 2002: 164). Despite his predilection for Italy, the Italian reception of Nietzsche’s work did not confirm the intellectual and emotional affinity that the German philosopher felt for the cradle of classical and Mediterranean culture. According to Gaia Michelini’s detailed analysis, the first article to officially introduce Nietzsche’s philosophy to a broad Italian audience was ‘La bestia elettiva’ [‘The Beast Who Wills’] by Gabriele D’Annunzio, in the Roman newspaper Il mattino of 25 September 1892 (1978: 17).

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The topic, the widespread decadence of the European aristocracy, allowed D’Annunzio to refer, albeit superficially, to the Uebermensch as ‘Superuomo.’ The ‘Superuomo’ would become the key and most lasting aspect of Nietzsche’s philosophy to be filtered in D’Annunzio’s works and in Italian culture for the first two decades of the twentieth century.10 In 1893, D’Annunzio authored a series of three articles for La tribuna on Nietzsche’s Il caso Wagner, which he defined ‘un bizzarro libello’ [an odd libel (D’Annunzio 1913: 585)] probably because it condemned with sharp irony the mystic, ‘decadent’ dimension of Wagner’s music that D’Annunzio extolled. D’Annunzio’s 1894 Il trionfo della morte [Triumph of Death] abounds with erudite references to Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, which should lead main character Giorgio Aurispa in his unended quest to implement his Will to Power and dominate the world through art. The conclusion of the preface to the novel underlines that ‘noi tendiamo l’orecchio alla voce del magnanimo Zarathustra, o Cenobiarca; e prepariamo nell’arte con sicura fede l’avvento dell’ “Uebermensch,” del “Superuomo”’ [we listen attentively to the voice of magnanimous Zarathustra, oh Cenobiarch, and prepare through art with solid faith the coming of the ‘Uebermensch,’ the ‘Superuomo’ (1967: 14)]. Despite his effort to downplay Nietzsche’s influence on his work in the ode ‘Per la morte di un distruttore’ [‘On the Death of a Destroyer’], Nietzsche’s ideas represent for D’Annunzio not only ‘pensieri fraterni’ [brotherly thoughts (‘Per la morte di un distruttore’ 1950: 479)]. The prophetic image of ‘il Barbaro enorme’ [the enormous Barbarian (482)] kindles the glowing myth of the Dannunzian Superuomo, which would intensify after Il trionfo della morte in Le vergini delle rocce [The Virgins of the Rocks (1895)] with Claudio Cantelmo, explode in Il fuoco [Flame (1900)] with Stelio Effrena, and disintegrate in Forse che sì, forse che no [Perchance Yes and Perchance No (1910)] with Paolo Tarsis.11 D’Annunzio’s reading of Nietzsche’s Uebermensch announced in Zarathustra emphasizes the crisis of Italian culture at the end of the nineteenth century, torn between the materialistic positivism of Ardigò and Lombroso and the mystic spiritualism of Terenzio Mamiani and Ettore Zoccoli.12 The general reaction to Nietzsche’s philosophy from the philosophical and literary readership reflected in duller tones Dannunzian manipulations of Nietzsche’s most destabilizing cultural and ethical criticism. Still, from the very beginning some isolated voices point out that the geniality and sincerity of his work place Nietzsche much further than his disciples, particularly D’Annunzio, who has introduced and dis-

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torted Nietzsche’s thought (G. Dal Monte, ‘Filosofia e letteratura fin de siècle – Federico Nietzsche e Gabriele D’Annunzio’ 1896, in Stefani 1975: 26). Even Zoccoli warns of the easy misunderstanding of Nietzsche’s philosophy through Dannunzian literary mediations.13 As Manuela Angela Stefani notes, ‘fino alla metà del ’900 in Italia manca una precisa linea interpretativa del pensiero di Nietzsche: la critica alla sua filosofia si ispira per lo più al buon senso e si appiglia ai suoi aspetti più appariscenti: la morale, l’anticristianesimo, il superuomo, la volontà di potenza’ [until the middle of the twentieth century in Italy there is not a precise focus in the interpretation of Nietzsche’s thought. Common sense inspires mostly the critique of Nietzsche’s philosophy, which clings to its most striking traits: morality, anti-Christianity, the Superman, and the Will to Power (1975: 6)]. With some exceptions, Nietzsche’s philosophy is reduced to the philosopher’s mental illness. A case in point is the first article about Nietzsche written by philosopher Emilio Morselli and published 1894 in Pensiero italiano. Morselli, the author of La crisi della morale (1895), focuses on Nietzsche’s ‘malattia nervosa’ [mental illness] as the inspiring source of his aristocratic thought, which opposes all intellectual and spiritual movements aiming at curbing the expansion of the individual power: Christianity, scientific thought, democracy, and pietistic moralism. Morselli views Nietzsche as an aristocratic thinker undermined by madness, a ‘filosofo alla moda’ [a fashionable philosopher], which is ‘sorella della morte’ [death’s sister 1894: (29)]. Morselli’s article sets the tone for the more academically oriented and theoretically informed discussion of Nietzsche’s philosophy which followed D’Annunzio’s literary rendition of the Superuomo and the Will to Power. Yet again, Nietzsche’s philosophy was first of all linked to his mental illness.14 Secondly, Nietzsche was interpreted as the loudest voice of individualism against all egalitarian, collective movements, from democracy to socialism, and, for this reason, sometimes also connected to Max Stirner’s radical egoism (Vattimo 2002: 170).15 The consequence of this interpretive focus was that the Uebermensch became the element of Nietzsche’s thought that almost exclusively attracted his readers. Equated to the violent degeneration of egoistic instincts or to the only salvation for the individual against the increasing mediocrity of the masses, the ‘Superuomo’ in D’Annunzio’s novels or in Morselli’s article is far from the complex and tormented image of modern solitude and cultural and moral critique that Nietzsche’s prophetic Uebermensch embodies. In Italy, only writers confined to the margins of the literary canon, such as Deledda from her Sar-

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dinian context, and Svevo from his Trieste vantage point, are able to absorb the most problematic elements of Nietzsche’s Uebermensch and ingrain them in their narratives.16 The dialectic between the margin and the centre of unified Italian culture enables them to reflect upon the modern crisis of the Western subject within a critical perspective, which expresses the multifaceted texture of European culture at the beginning of the last century. This receptiveness to Nietzsche’s asystematic thought was certainly lacking in the first monographic study on Nietzsche authored by moral philosopher Ettore Zoccoli. His book on Federico Nietzsche: La filosofia religiosa – la morale – l’estetica appeared first in 1898 for the Modena publisher Vincenzi e Nipoti, and then in 1901 for the same Fratelli Bocca publishing house that released the first Italian translations of Beyond Good and Evil and Thus Spoke Zarathustra. It is, therefore, justified to assume that Deledda was at least familiar with Zoccoli’s study. Most likely, the young Deledda had also read Zoccoli’s first article on ‘Federico Nietzsche,’ which appeared in the 1897 volume of Rivista per le Signorine of Milano, directed since 1894 by Sofia Bisi-Albini, which had regularly featured texts by the Sardinian writer.17 Zoccoli published an article with the same title in La vita internazionale, 14 (1899): 40–4, and a contribution on Zarathustra in Il Marzocco, 30 April 1899. While he deserves the credit for recognizing the intrinsic link between D’Annunzio’s mediation of Nietzsche and the generalized misunderstanding of Nietzsche’s theory (1899a: 41), Zoccoli faults Nietzsche for not following the only ‘positive’ trends of German philosophy, i.e. Kantism, Hegelism, and Marx’s socialism. On the contrary, Nietzsche trod the (self) destructive path ‘della più inflessibile e violenta negazione contro tutto ciò che lo circonda’ [of the most inflexible and violent negation of everything surrounding him (Zoccoli 1898: 26)]. For this reason, Zoccoli defines Nietzsche in a subsequent article as ‘la vittima mentale e geniale di un terribile momento di transizione’ [the mental victim of genius of a dreadful transitional moment (Zoccoli 1900: 615)]. Certainly deeper and more complex is the second monograph on Nietzsche, written by Francesco Orestano. In his Le idée fondamentali di Nietzsche nel loro progressivo svolgimento (1903), the young philosopher, fluent in German and well informed about Nietzsche’s reception in Germany, criticizes the reduction of Nietzsche’s philosophy to his mental disorder and proposes an overall interpretation that takes into account Nietzsche’s thought and its apparent contradictions as a continuous becoming. For this reason, Orestano opposes the superficial compari-

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sons between Nietzsche’s Will to Power and Schopenhauer’s or Darwin’s Will to Life. Nietzsche’s ethics is opposite to the ‘dilettantismo’ [amateurishness] for which Zoccoli had reproached Nietzsche. On the contrary, Nietzsche’s belief embodies the heroic acceptance of life in its entirety and the overcoming of a vengeful tradition through the radical acknowledgment of suffering as the necessary step toward active nihilism. Orestano’s emphasis on the tragic turn of Nietzsche’s philosophy, in particular in his late works, highlights in Papini’s words ‘che il Nietzsche comune, il Nietzsche dei salotti e dei giornali è ben diverso dal vero Nietzsche. Si scopre che il filosofo tedesco non era un egoista ed un immorale, ma un uomo che pensa agli altri uomini, soffre della decadenza europea, sogna una nuova civiltà’ [that the common Nietzsche, the Nietzsche of society gossip and newspapers, is rather different from the true Nietzsche. One discovers that the German philosopher was not a selfish and immoral person, but rather a person who thinks of others, suffers for the European decadence, dreams of a new civilization (review of Orestano’s book in La Critica 2 (1904): 63–6, as quoted in Michelini 1978: 192–3)]. Despite his apparently deeper understanding of Nietzsche’s overcoming of passive nihilism in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Orestano evolved into the official philosopher of fascism after Gentile. Eventually, Orestano contributed to Nietzsche’s distortions and misunderstandings in the ‘salotti and giornali,’ which he had originally rejected.18 One voice of these distortions and misunderstandings was Paolo Orano’s. The Sardinian-born anthropologist of Positivism, to whom Deledda had dedicated the 1896 edition of La via del male (see 1.1.b, pp. 34–5), saw in Nietzsche a failed follower of Schopenhauerian pessimism and scientific Positivism rather than an original thinker. According to Orano, Nietzsche’s only original concept, the Uebermensch, would represent the solution of Nietzsche’s anguish, but would disintegrate with its author’s philosophy in ‘barocca ed esaltata sceneggiatura’ [baroque and overexcited scenario (‘Friedrich Nietzsche. Di lui e a proposito di lui,’ Rivista politica e letteraria 12.3 (1900): 78–92, as quoted in Stefani 1975: 58]. Most likely Deledda knew Orano’s views about Nietzsche’s contradictions as much as she was informed about the debate on Nietzsche’s dangerous and contradictory ethics and aesthetics, voiced through the Nuova Antologia. In 1900, also prior to the philosopher’s death on 25 August 1900, several articles on Nietzsche appeared in the Nuova Antologia, which featured Deledda’s Elias Portolu in five instalments the same year.19 A summary of the widespread commonplaces about Nietzsche’s

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thought, the article by Giacomo Barzellotti that appeared in the Nuova Antologia after the philosopher’s death hinges on Nietzsche’s mental illness, on the asystematic character of his thought, and on the destructive power and egoistic violence of his concept of the Superman. Interestingly, though, Barzellotti’s ‘La filosofia di Federigo Guglielmo Nietzsche’ also criticizes the inability of the anachronistic Italian version of Positivism to read Nietzsche’s works in depth, as had been the case with Schopenhauer’s. The ‘deficienza di preparazione e coltura filosofica’ [deficient knowledge and philosophical culture (1900: 600)] easily leads to the manipulation of Nietzsche’s thought through ‘i nostri politicanti in cerca di luoghi comuni e di frasi da fare effetto’ [our petty politicians in search of commonplaces and impressive sentences (612)]. The result is a perilous ‘contagio nietzscheano, aiutato a diffondersi tra noi anche da uno scrittore d’ingegno alto ma fuorviato’ [Nietzschean infection, spreading among us with the help of a writer of genius who went astray’ (613)] in which the reader does not hesitate to recognize D’Annunzio.20 At the beginning of this digression on Nietzsche reception in Italy during Deledda’s time, I underlined the (mis-)leading role that D’Annunzio played in Nietzsche’s Italian critical journey. Yet, thanks to D’Annunzio’s distortion of Nietzsche’s thought, the ‘Superuomo’ and his Will to Power acquired wide popularity. D’Annunzio’s emphatic literary rendition of the Superuomo envisioned Wagner’s decadent artist rather than Zarathustra’s message of active nihilism through the radical acceptance of life in its painful wholeness after a genealogical critique of morality. The superficiality of D’Annunzio’s manipulative interpretation of Nietzsche’s thought caused a generalized distrust. Nietzsche’s destabilizing ideas, seen as consequences of his mental illness, evoked, like socialism and anarchism, fears of social and individual upheavals. This fearful reaction expressed the general discontent of Western civilization that Freud would analyse a few years later21 and the specific crisis of Positivism and Spiritualism in Italian culture. The first decade of the new century, though, witnesses the development of Italian society toward imperialistic and repressive foreign and interior policies, which would profit from irrationalistic mystique in order to fill the gap left by the crisis of positivistic certainties and transcendent moral values. The three cultural journals founded in 1903, Papini and Prezzolini’s Il Leonardo, Corradini’s Il Regno, and Croce’s La Critica, respectively propose aestheticism, nationalism, and Idealism as responses to the crisis of Positivism and Spiritualism. Whereas La Critica represents the only bulwark against mounting irrationalism and fascism,

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Il Leonardo and Il Regno reinvigorate the critical debate on Nietzsche by stressing those elements that would offer an easy justification for the adventure of irrationalism and nationalism. No wonder, then, that Papini criticizes Nietzsche’s philosophy because it epitomizes his will to react with violent heroism – in itself positive – to his illness (1905: 82–9). In a previous article, Papini had already indicated that ‘per ora l’unico che in Italia appaia continuatore del Nietzsche è il Morasso’ [for the time being, the only one in Italy who seems to be Nietzsche’s successor is Morasso (1904: 25)]. Despite Mario Morasso’s claims of independence from Nietzsche in favour of Stirner, his article ‘L’arte per il dominio e le idée estetiche di Federico Nietzsche’ included in his book L’imperialismo artistico (1903) uses Nietzsche’s aesthetics to justify the Will to Life as Will to Power against all limitations derived from moral or societal conventions. Therefore, Nietzsche’s aesthetics of the Dionysian principle can contribute to implement the ‘ansia di dominio’ [anxiety for power] of an epoch in which ‘la genialità la volontà e l’impero foggiarono uomini e popoli duri, decisi, che impongono e non si lasciano diminuire’ [the genius, the will, and the empire forged hard and resolute men and peoples, who impose themselves and do not let anybody diminish them (1903: 289)]. The aim of this artistic Will to Power is ‘il rinvigorimento della volontà e [la] restaurazione dell’impero’ [the strengthening of the will and the restoration of the empire (289)]. Poles apart from D’Annunzio’s rhetoric and Morasso’s manipulation, Deledda appropriates the most common and misinterpreted elements of Nietzsche’s reception – solitude and madness, the overturning of moral and logical hierarchies, and the acceptance of life as the inextricable intertwining of joy and pain through the active nihilism of the Eternal Recurrence – and imbues them in Il segreto dell’uomo solitario with the thought-provoking and disquieting interpretive openness of modernity. 3.2. Open Narrative Structure and the Metaphorical ‘S’ As Vittorio Spinazzola points out, ‘Il segreto ha una struttura quasi giallistica, scandita in funzione d’una scena conclusiva a forte effetto drammatico e melodrammatico’ [Il segreto has almost the structure of a de-tective story, in which the suspense culminates in a conclusive scene with strong dramatic and melodramatic effects (1981b: 948)]. The plot unfolds within one year, from spring to spring, more specifically from Easter to Easter, thus indicating the promise of a new beginning in natural and religious terms. The first twenty pages of the

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narrative culminate in the encounter between Cristiano and Sarina. For the protagonist, the slow but inevitable descent from his hermitage to the world begins here: La strada gli si svolgeva davanti come un largo nastro di colore carnicino, fra due bordi di cespugli verdi, sopra uno dei quali – quello a destra – scintillava l’azzurro del mare; ed egli aveva l’impressione che fosse quel nastro a trascinarlo, ritirandosi davanti a lui, tanto che non sentiva di camminare. (981) [The way unwound in front of him like a wide, flesh-coloured ribbon, between two edges of green bushes, above one of which was the sparkling blue of the sea. He was under the impression that it was that ribbon dragging him along while receding from him, in a way that he did not feel himself walking.]

The images of Cervia, the resort on the Adriatic Sea where Deledda spent every summer after 1920, certainly inspired the numerous descriptions of the coastal scenery. Once more, we experience the ‘narrare visivo’ [visual narration (Di Zenzo 1979, Cerina 2000: 17–21)] which characterizes the expressive power of Deledda’s writing and hints at the writer’s fruitful exchanges with the Italian artistic scene between the First and Second World Wars (Ciusa 1987: 1992). What is particularly striking in the landscape descriptions, or depictions, of this novel, is the recurring image of the ribbon (963, 981, 1032). The metaphorical ‘S’ of the winding path that leads Cristiano from isolation to the human community through the wanderings of logos and eros absorbs not only most images of the landscape between the solitary man and the world, but also the main pauses of the plot. Phonetically, the voiceless sibilant in the middle of ‘nastro’ [ribbon] is amplified in the noun and adjective of the title (‘Il segreto dell’uomo solitario’), at the beginning of the novel (951),22 and even in the names of the two protagonists (Cristiano, Sarina Sarini). The first brief encounter between Cristiano and Sarina represents the first turning point in the narrative ‘S.’ The subsequent long dialogue between Cristiano and Sarina appears to be even more relevant to the narrative structure, for it constitutes the exact centre of the novel and at the same time the median point of Cristiano’s descent to the human community. The main voice of the dialogue is Sarina’s, which explicitly articulates Cristiano’s fears of fragmentation (1012) when he is con-

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fronted with ‘il dolore e il disordine’ [the pain and disorder (1011)] of Giorgio’s mental illness. ‘Sono malattie in cui non è vero che la coscienza si spegne: rimane come sepolta sotto il cumulo di macerie dell’organismo distrutto, ma è viva, è vigile, e vede forse più che la coscienza nostra di sani ... per questo non l’ho mai abbandonato, né ho permesso di chiuderlo. Che orrore, se lei sapesse, quelle case di salute! Si trattano ancora i pazzi come ossessi: invece sono, ripeto, più vicini di noi alla verità. Se desiderano morire ... perché non lasciarli morire?’ (1016) [‘With certain illnesses, it is not true that consciousness dies out: it lies somehow buried under the heap of debris of the destroyed organism, but is alive, is vigilant, and sees perhaps more than the consciousness of us, healthy people ... For this reason, I have never abandoned him, nor have I ever allowed him to be locked up. If only you knew how horrible those mental health institutions were! There, they still treat the mad as obsessed, although they are – I repeat – closer to the truth than we are. If they wish to die, why shouldn’t they be permitted to?’]

The borderline between illness and health, reason and folly, becomes even thinner in the next dialogue, which occurs shortly thereafter during a walk to the seashore. This time, though, it is Cristiano’s turn to develop Sarina’s reflections to the extreme. She has just confessed that she had even considered taking her sick husband’s life in order to free him and herself from endless suffering: ‘La libertà? Esiste? Sappiamo noi se dopo morti saremo liberi? Anche in vita abbiamo l’illusione di trovar libertà. Dove è? Si rompe tutto intorno a noi, si corre, si fugge, si ricade sempre nella rete che mescola gli uomini e li avvinghia gli uni agli altri solo perché sono uomini. Lei uccide un malato; ne trova subito un altro. Siamo tutti malati, tutti schiavi gli uni degli altri.’ (1018) [‘Freedom? Does it exist? Do we know if we will be free after death? During our life, too, we have the illusion of finding freedom. Where is it? Everything breaks around us, we run around, flee away, and fall back into the net that mixes up humans just because they are human beings. You kill a sick person and you find another one right afterward. We are all sick, all slaves of each other.’]

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Sarina’s first statement enables Cristiano to articulate his vision of life, similarly to the maieutic action of the Socratic method. I have already pointed out that these two dialogues occur at the centre of the novel, in the median point of the narrative ‘S’ that represents the solitary man’s journey to life in the community. In Il segreto, as in Cenere and Colombi e sparvieri, it is the task of a female character to unmask the lies that, according to Nietzsche’s critique of Western metaphysics, support moral conventions. In the second part of the novel, we encounter several authorial reflections that relate to crucial themes of Nietzsche’s philosophy. In particular, they refer to the overturned hierarchy between mind and body in favour of the latter, the critique of the notion of ‘truth,’ and the provocative, nihilist attitude of Nietzsche’s new subject. 3.3. Nietzschean Themes of Modernity 3.3.a. Mind and Body The unfolding of Cristiano’s ‘sentimental education’ is often hindered by his inability to experience the ‘serena voluttà’ [serene pleasure] that he had felt once when immersing his body in the warm sand on the beach after swimming in the sea. While lying on the beach and observing with a whole encompassing pleasure the ‘gioco continuo, eguale, armonioso nel suo monotono movimento di scompiglio’ [continuous, steady, harmonious play in its monotonous movement of confusion (990)] of the waves on the seashore, Cristiano feels a sudden, violent threat at the unexpected view of Sarina and her dog. Yet, ‘a poco a poco il sopore voluttuoso interrotto dall’arrivo del cane lo riprendeva: gli sembrava di dover stare tutta la vita così, sospeso fra il cielo e la terra, anche lui come la luce, come la nuvola’ [little by little the voluptuous drowsiness that the arrival of the dog had interrupted captured him again: it seemed to him as if he ought to remain for all his life like that, suspended between the sky and the earth, like the light, like the cloud (991)]. The ‘sopore voluttuoso’ indicates the profound pleasure of loosening the control of rationality and, therefore, experiencing a radical integration into the ceaseless flux of being that the rhythmic fluctuation of the waves gestures: ‘e l’uomo provava piacere a guardarlo, affondato nella sabbia calda dove immergeva le mani con la sensazione di toccare qualche cosa di vivo come una carne così tenera che gli si scioglieva tra le dita’ [and the man experienced pleasure by watching it while immersed in the

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warm sand. He plunged his hands in it, with the feeling of touching something alive like a piece of meat so tender that it melted through his fingers (990)]. Cristiano is well aware of the equation between happiness and recognition of the physical dimension of life. At the commencement of fall, tormented by his own solitude and by the news of a world torn apart by hatred and war, Cristiano recognizes – in a typical free indirect discourse with syntactic signs of Sardinian orality (Lavinio 1992: 70) – that to overcome sadness and depression ‘[m]angiar bene bisogna, Cristiano, e tener solido il corpo, del quale l’anima non è che una miserabile serva’ [eating well is necessary, Cristiano, and keeping the body strong as well, of which the soul is but a miserable servant (999)].23 The return to earth and the recognition of a new supremacy of the body represent the call of life in its multifaceted complexity in the evolution of Cristiano’s character, initially marked by the mystic asceticism of Schopenhauer’s contemplator, which characterized the male protagonist of Colombi e sparvieri (see 4.4, pp. 198–210). Sarina, the female protagonist of Il segreto, becomes the herald of that call. In one of the numerous interior monologues that punctuate the narrative, Cristiano reflects upon Sarina’s significance: ‘Cristiano, la donna è là e ti chiama. Per pietà, per desiderio, per curiosità o per amore? Per tutto questo, e perché siete soli nella solitudine. Va, va: è la vita stessa che ti richiama: non è più la voce della contadina interessata e animalesca; è la voce di una donna intelligente, che domani sarà libera ... Puoi ritornare ad amare, ad essere amato: puoi crearti di nuovo una famiglia ... Puoi ritornare uomo ...’ (1020) [‘Cristiano, the woman is over there and is calling on you. Out of pity, desire, curiosity, or love? Out of all this, and because you both are lonely in the solitude. Go, go: life itself is calling on you. It’s not any longer the voice of the selfish and animal peasant woman; it’s the voice of an intelligent woman, who tomorrow will be free ... You can love and be loved again. You can build a family again ... You can be a human being, again ...’]

The authorial voice relates Cristiano’s inability to ‘prendere la gioia’ [seize joy (1024)] with ‘le parole scritte [che] non avevano più significato per lui’ [the written words which no longer had a meaning for him (1025)]. For this reason, Cristiano closes his book, which stands, as a synecdoche, for the intellectualism of traditional culture that had hindered him from grasping life.

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Sarina embodies life, ‘la vita stessa in persona, oppressa dal dolore ma sempre tesa a liberarsene e a cercare la gioia’ [life itself in person, overwhelmed by sorrow but always aiming at liberating itself and seeking joy (1038)]. Thus, Sarina coincides with the primeval, earthly dimension of life: ‘Ella passò oltre; ed egli rimase qualche tempo così, a baciare la terra, coi capelli confusi con l’erba; triste e felice come se la terra fosse la donna e l’erba i capelli di lei’ [She went by. He remained for some time in that position, kissing the earth, his hair muddled with the grass, sad and happy as if the earth were the woman and the grass her hair (1040)]. The return to life in its wholeness implies the overturning of the hierarchy established by Western metaphysics between consciousness and body. This is the theme of Zarathustra’s discourse on ‘The Despisers of the Body.’ After realizing that ‘it was suffering and impotence – that created all afterworlds’ (Nietzsche 1969b: 59), Zarathustra had exhorted his fellow human beings in search of happiness beyond good and evil ‘no longer to bury the head in the sand of heavenly things, but to carry it freely, an earthly head which creates meaning for the earth’ (60). The contempt for the body in Platonic-Christian morality, which culminated in its denial through asceticism, is, according to Nietzsche’s analysis, a sign of profound insecurity. The Western subject, to begin with the prevailing Apollonian principle of classical order and form over the Dionysian principle of liberated (and liberating) chaos, attempted to remove his fears of the becoming by hypostatizing the immanent world in transcendent essences and values. The result is a culture of ‘ressentiment’ against earthly life and vengeful moral norms, which can only cause sickness and unhappiness in a mutilated subject: ‘It was the sick and dying who despised the body and the earth, and invented the things of heaven and the redeeming drops of blood: but even these sweet and dismal poisons they took from the body and the earth’ (60). Therefore, Zarathustra urges his followers to ‘listen rather ... to the voice of the healthy body; it is a purer voice and a more honest one ... and it speaks of the meaning of the earth’ (61). Still, Nietzsche’s emphasis on the body, as Vattimo demonstrates in his deep analysis of Nietzsche’s late works and posthumous notes on The Will to Power, does not intend to simply revert the hierarchy of consciousness and body in favour of the latter: ‘The body serves only as a “guiding thread” to obtain clarity over the “multifariousness” of the self, in opposition to that reductionism which morality and metaphysics have always founded upon the hegemony of consciousness’ (2002: 133). The body, as Zarathustra explains to its ‘despisers,’

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encompasses the corporeal and the spiritual, the irrational and the rational. As a child says ‘I am body [Leib] and soul [Seele],’ the novel human being that represents a bridge toward the Uebermensch should accept the body as a ‘great intelligence [eine grosse Vernunft], a multiplicity with one sense, a war and a peace, a herd and a herdsman’ because ‘your little intelligence [kleine Vernunft] ... which you call “spirit” [Geist], is also an instrument of your body, a little instrument and toy of your great intelligence’ (Nietzsche 1969b: 61–2). 3.3.b. The Notion of Truth As a consequence of the critical stand toward rationalism, which is implied in the two central dialogues of Il segreto, another typically Nietzschean theme emerges: the critique of the notion of truth. Aware that ‘i progetti fatti nel cercare la solitudine erano stati vani’ [the plans of seeking solitude had been in vain (1025)], Cristiano appears to accept the essence of his name. Namely, he recognizes the intrinsic relationship between a new vision of truth and ‘un ritorno a Dio’ [a return to God (1026)] as ‘Dio dei viventi.’ For the ‘God of the Living,’ which Deledda would explore in the homonymous 1922 novel, eros and agape, the two complementary forms of love, are harmoniously intertwined: Sapeva d’illudersi, eppure tendeva l’orecchio. E perché la sua illusione non poteva essere realtà? Egli sogghignava e palpitava, nel suo lettuccio, mentre gli oggetti intorno apparivano e sparivano alla luce dei lampi. Niente era vero: non esisteva, di vero, che il suo sogno. ‘Dio, Dio’ gemeva ... ‘potessi credere e amare ancora, poiché la vita è amore, e senza amore è morte ...’ (1026) [He knew he was deceiving himself, still he pricked up his ears. Why couldn’t his illusion be real? He was grinning and quivering in his tiny bed, while things around appeared and disappeared in the lightning. Nothing was real. Nothing was real but his dream. ‘God, God,’ he moaned ... ‘could I only believe and love again, for life is love, and without love is death ...’]

The recognition of a deep bond with eros as vital force underlines here the etymological meaning of religion (from Latin ‘ligare,’ to bind) in the sense of a divine tie with life in all its expressions. Furthermore, it represents a positive response to Zarathustra’s nihilistic announcement that ‘God is dead’ for it opposes a God of life and love to a God of fear and punishment. The epistemological aspect of this recognition entails the

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questioning of a normative truth, which recurs in several passages of the third and last part of the novel. Cristiano’s desperate recognition that ‘niente era vero’ [nothing was real] besides his dreaming about love as primal expression of life results from his acknowledgment that treading the Schopenhauerian path of asceticism and solitude can only alienate human beings from the joy that resides in accepting life in all its expressions. ‘Gioia!’ egli brontolò. ‘Noi ti rinneghiamo e ti disprezziamo come la volpe l’uva. Ti sei tanto negata, tanto invano abbiamo tentato di prenderti che abbiamo finito con l’odiarti: e adesso, a lungo andare, se ti offri non ti accettiamo, non perché non crediamo in te ma perché non abbiamo più la capacità di prenderti.’ (1024) [‘Happiness!’ he mumbled. ‘We renounce and despise you like the fox with the grapes. You have denied yourself so often, and we have attempted to grasp you so often in vain that we ended up hating you. And finally now, if you offer yourself, we don’t accept you, not because we don’t believe in you, but because we are no longer able to seize you.’]

Cristiano’s ‘constatazione oramai sicura che i progetti fatti nel cercare la solitudine erano stati vani’ [now sure observation that his plans of seeking solitude had been in vain (1025)] goes hand in hand with the remark that ‘le sue piccole cose intorno non lo volevano più’ [his little things around him did not want him any longer (1025)]. It is worth noticing that, for the convalescent Zarathustra in the isolation of his cave, awakening to new health means being able to perceive and accept the joyful dancing of the little things, the eternal recurrence of joy and sorrow, of birth and death, the fact that ‘the middle is everywhere’ (Nietzsche 1969b: 234). Similarly, overcoming solitude and vengefulness means for Cristiano being able to go ‘verso la casa dei vivi con un senso di religione’ [toward the house of the living with a sense of religion (1027)], with the sense of his belonging to the world in all its manifestations. His new alertness to life in its most minuscule facets is very reminiscent of the ‘refinement of the organ’ that, in one of Nietzsche’s posthumous notes, defines the new aptitude of the Uebermensch as artist ‘to detect the smallest and the most fleeting of things’ (Nachlass Early 1888 – Early 1889, as quoted and translated in Vattimo 2002: 142). The passage continues with a characterization of the ‘strength’ of the Uebermensch as ‘a feeling of power in one’s muscles, as suppleness and pleasure in movement, as dance, as lightness

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and presto.’ In the same spirit, the implied narrator comments on Cristiano’s reaction to the fulfilment of his love dream: E Cristiano balzò come un bambino, corse ad aprire e gridò di gioia. Nella notte i fiori dei peschi s’erano aperti: sopra ogni fiore brillava una ghirlandina di rugiada: e fili iridescenti, collane sottilissime di perle correvano da una cima all’altra della siepe. (1060) [And Cristiano jumped to his feet like a child, ran to open the door, and cried out in joy. During the night the flowers of the peach trees had opened up: on each flower a garland of dew twinkled: and iridescent threads, like the thinnest pearl necklaces, ran from one end of the hedge to the other.]

In his analysis of compassion as a psychological mechanism that results in shame and revenge in the name of morality, Zarathustra declares: ‘As long as men have existed, man has enjoyed himself too little [hat der Mensch sich zu wenig gefreut]: that alone, my brothers, is our original sin! And if we learn better to enjoy ourselves [uns zu freuen], we best unlearn how to do harm to others and to contrive harm’ (Nietzsche 1969b: 112)].24 The connection between the unmasking of morality and the quest for a joy that is capable of encompassing recurring pain and illness as manifestations of life underlines the inextricable link between love and truth. Not an objective truth, but a truth that Sarina identifies with the quest for love, joy, and life as an active breaking away from the past toward the future: ‘Finché siamo assieme e ci amiamo tutto è verità ... Tutto sta a procurare di non soffrire oltre, di rompere ogni legame col passato e cominciare da domani una nuova vita’ [As long as we are together and we love each other, everything is truth ... What matters is to try not to suffer further, to break all ties with the past, and begin a new life tomorrow (1095)]. The utmost difficulty in implementing an immanent ‘redemption’ of humanity from the ‘spirit of revenge’ inherent to the Platonic-Christian tradition is to be able to overcome passive nihilism, the resigned acceptance of suffering, absurdity, insecurity. Zarathustra describes the consequence of embracing the perspectivism of interpretations over dogmatic truth in painstakingly modern terms. Observing the present and the past, the prophet of the Eternal Recurrence of the Same ‘always discovers the same thing: fragments, and limbs and dreadful chances – but no

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men!’ (Nietzsche 1969b: 160). Zarathustra’s moan – an echo of Schiller’s sixth Letter on the Aesthetic Education of Man (Vattimo 2002: 117) – points out alienation and fragmentation of the subject. Human beings will ultimately experience madness if unable to cope actively with their fate and their past, if incapable of embarking upon life as upon a creative, artistic experiment.25 In The Joyful Wisdom, which concludes Nietzsche’s central phase of radical cultural criticism, it is ‘The Madman’ – also the title of the famous aphorism 125 – who announces in despair that ‘God is dead!’ and that his murderers were exactly those who created morality to conceal its non-moral basis and rationality to conceal its non-rational basis. Only the ‘madman,’ whose logic is beyond the binary oppositions of true /false and good /evil, is able to take on his shoulders ‘the heaviest burden,’ described in the homonymous aphorism 341 as follows: Wie, wenn dir eines Tages oder Nachts, ein Dämon in deine einsamste Einsamkeit nachschliche und dir sagte: ‘Dieses Leben, wie du es jetzt lebst und gelebt hast, wirst du noch einmal und noch unzählige Male leben müssen; und es wird nichts Neues daran sein, sondern jeder Schmerz und jede Lust und jeder Gedanke und Seufzer und alles unsäglich Kleine und Grosse deines Lebens muss dir wiederkommen, und alles in der selben Reihe und Folge ... Die ewige Sanduhr des Daseins wird immer wieder umgedreht – und du mit ihr, Stäubchen vom Staube!’ ... Die Frage bei allem und jedem ‘willst du dies noch einmal und noch unzählige Male?’ würde als das grösste Schwergewicht auf deinem Handeln liegen! Oder wie müsstest du dir selber und dem Leben gut werden, um nach Nichts mehr zu verlangen, als nach dieser letzten ewigen Bestätigung und Besiegelung? (Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, 1973: 5.2: 250) [What if a demon crept after thee into the loneliest loneliness one day or night, and said to thee: ‘This life, as thou livest it at present and hast lived it, thou must live it once more, and also innumerable times; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh and all the unspeakably small and great in thy life must come to thee again, and all in the same series and sequence ... The eternal sand-glass of existence will ever be turned once more – and you with it, you speck of dust!’ ... The question with regard to all and everything: ‘Dost thou want this once more, and also for innumerable times?’ would lie as the heaviest burden upon thy activity. Or how wouldst thou have to become favourably inclined to thyself and to life, so as to long for nothing more ardently than for this last eternal sanctioning and sealing? (Nietzsche 1910: 271)]

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Not by coincidence, the last aphorism of The Joyful Wisdom in its original 1882 edition (342, ‘Incipit Tragoedia’) introduces Zarathustra as the one who will renounce solitude to ‘descend into the deep’ (1910: 272). His mission is to distribute to mankind his tragic wisdom, his active nihilism that embraces life as the Eternal Recurrence of the Same, ‘until the wise have once more become joyous in their folly, and the poor happy in their riches’ (1910: 272). Although far from appropriating Zarathustra’s prophetic tone, Cristiano shares with him the secret of an alternative wisdom, which guides him in his descent from ascetic isolation to human chaos, to life ‘beyond good and evil.’ 3.3.c. The Secret of Madness Cristiano’s interior monologue, partly quoted above (see 3.3.b, p. 171), on the disappearance of a founding truth represents the third turning point in the diegetic S-shaped trajectory of the novel, which results in a conclusion open to multiple interpretations. This narrative turn enables Cristiano to unveil the secret of his solitude to Sarina and, at the same time, provides the reader with the means to unveil the intertextual clue behind Cristiano’s secret. ‘Io sono stato pazzo: così, almeno, affermava mia moglie, che mi fece prendere, mi fece chiudere in una casa di salute’ [I was insane. This, at least, maintained my wife, who ordered my internment in a mental health institution (1085)]. In the long flashback that precedes his confession, Cristiano indicates that at the source of his alleged madness was his ability to see too clearly ‘lo scheletro di tutte le cose, e anche nelle più apparentemente belle e compatte vedev[a] il disordine e la fragilità’ [the skeleton of everything, and also in the apparently most beautiful and solid things he saw disorder and fragility (1083)]. As suggested in the first aphorism of Human, All-Too-Human, a deconstructive and experimental attitude, similar to the ‘closest observation’ of a chemical analysis, in Nietzsche’s words ‘a chemistry of the moral, religious, aesthetic ideas and sentiments,’ could lead to the disquieting discovery that ‘the most beautiful colours have been obtained from base, even despised materials’ (Nietzsche 1909a: 14). The Nietzschean argument of the ‘human, all too human’ origins of logical and moral principles is connected with the theme of the mask. Gianni Vattimo has chosen the concept of the ‘mask’ as guiding thread for his seminal interpretation of Nietzsche’s work in its entirety (1974), for it intertwines the philo-

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sophical relationship between what is and what appears to be, already central in Schopenhauer’s thought, with the themes of illusion, art, and symbolic activity that become increasingly central in Nietzsche’s late reflections on the Will to Power. With his fascinating elucidation of Nietzsche’s problematic concept of the Will to Power as art, Vattimo has revitalized Heidegger’s hermeneutic reading of Nietzsche’s philosophy (2002: 178–82). Central to Vattimo’s analysis is the difference between the ‘bad’ and the ‘good’ mask.26 On the one hand, the mask constitutes a socially determined hiding device, a net of conventional representations born out of insecurity.27 On the other hand, the mask represents a creative production of symbols, which acknowledges the vanishing of moral and logic foundations in favour of the interplay of interpretations (Vattimo 1974: 18). The latter concept of the mask has also inaugurated postmodern readings of Nietzsche’s philosophy. It is, though, in the spirit of modernity that Deledda’s ‘solitary man’ links his alleged ‘madness’ to his rejection of the mask as the superimposed image of rational and social conventions on the multifaceted and chaotic reality of the Self. Anna Dolfi has characterized the late Deleddian novels as expressions of an extreme ‘scarnificazione’ [disembodiment], i.e. the process of stripping representation down to the bare essentials, the ‘vita nuda’ [naked life (1992: 54)]. This idea relates to the Pirandellian ‘maschere nude’ [naked masks] and Nietzschean ‘bad’ masks, as the authorial voice suggests after Cristiano’s confession: ‘Eppur non si pentiva d’aver parlato: gli pareva d’essersi tolto una maschera, anche davanti a se stesso, e di potersi finalmente stendere nudo nel suo dolore’ [Noneteheless, he did not regret speaking up. It seemed to him as if he had removed a mask, also before himself, and he could finally lie down naked in his sorrow (1085)]. Cristiano’s deepest sorrow originates from the recognition and acceptance of the absent borderline between truth and illusion, rationality and irrationality, sanity and insanity. Cristiano reminds Sarina that ‘è vero che tu un giorno dicevi: i pazzi sono più vicini di noi alla verità’ [it’s true that one day you said: Mad people are closer than us to the truth (1086)]. With these words Cristiano highlights the central theme of the novel in the relationship between madness and truth. By means of this recognition, Cristiano can continue his journey back to life with a new awareness of his difference: ‘Certo, io sono diverso dagli altri uomini: sono fuori dalle loro leggi: ma chi ha ragione? Io o loro?’ [For sure, I am different from the other people, I am outside of their laws, but who is right? Are they right or am I? (1094)]. At the source of Cristiano’s difference is his awareness of an inescap-

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able mixture of good and evil, reason and folly, truth and falsehood. This consciousness causes the decisive tear in the veil of illusions, which Schopenhauer advocated as a first step toward the individual liberation from the universal will (see 4.3, pp. 195–8). For this reason, the male protagonist differentiates himself from his female counterpart: ‘Sara, sei di qua, nel mondo delle illusioni, mentre io sono già, da tanti e tanti anni, fuori di esso, di là dalla vita mortale’ [Sara, you are on this side, in the world of illusions, whereas I have already been many many years on the other side of it, beyond mortal life (1097)]. Precisely his conscious being ‘fuori dell’umanità’ [outside humanity (1096)], reminiscent of Zarathustra’s prophetic condition outside logical and moral dichotomous principles of Western civilization, empowers Cristiano to overcome the ultimate illusion of pure solitude and pursue his search of the contradictory meaning of life. 3.3.d. Active Nihilism This attitude of active nihilism renders the protagonist of Il segreto capable of establishing a different relationship with time. Sarina, still wrapped in the illusion of a new, perfect happiness with Cristiano, had proposed to ‘rompere ogni legame con il passato e cominciare da domani una nuova vita’ [break all ties with the past and begin a new life from tomorrow on (1095)]. In contrast to her, Cristiano acquires the ability to accept the possible repetition of experiences in which sorrow and joy are inextricably interwoven. For, as Zarathustra rhetorically proclaims, ‘Did you ever say Yes to one joy? O my friends, then you said Yes to all woe as well. All things are chained and intertwined together, all things are in love’ (Nietzsche 1969b: 331–2). In the spirit of his radical questioning of truth, morality, and madness, Cristiano embraces a vision of life which negates a strictly linear temporality. The sheer succession of past, present, and future would imply an evolutionist concept of time in accordance with Positivism and historicism, where each moment carries its significance in relation to the previous and the subsequent one. This ‘Oedipal’ structure of time (Vattimo 1974: 249–81) entails the dissociation between the event and its significance and between the part and the whole. This fragmentation does not bestow happiness upon the human subject. As Zarathustra suggests in the discourse ‘Of the Vision and the Riddle’ (Nietzsche 1969b: 180), the only way to reach happiness, the joyous sense of fulfilment and belonging, and the meaningful ‘in-dividuum,’ ‘not divided’ – as the etymology suggests – between body and consciousness, is to overcome the passive

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nihilism with a courageous decision for life. When, in Zarathustra’s enigmatic vision, the shepherd finally bites the snake that is suffocating him, he is reborn to new life: ‘No longer a shepherd, no longer a man – a transformed being, surrounded with light, laughing!’ (Nietzsche 1969b: 180). It is this decision that overcomes the paralysing effects of historical knowledge discussed in the second of the Thoughts out of Season. It is this ‘creative will’ that can defeat fragmentation and destruction. Thus, the Will to Power that the shepherd’s decision embodies rejects fate as something that simply determines human existence. Rather, the Will to Power actively incorporates the dreadful ‘It Was’ of the past and thus creates ‘a new precondition of humanity’s happiness’ (Vattimo 2002: 119–20). The conclusion of the novel underscores the Zarathustrian theme of accepting the Eternal Recurrence of the Same in the spirit of active nihilism. Like Zarathustra in the final chapter ‘The sign,’ Cristiano wakes up after a night of tormented dreams. Sarina has left him because he has rejected her compassion. Sarina’s pity offends Cristiano, who is ‘fuori dell’umanità’ [outside humanity (1096)], and he does not hesitate to point out the interchangeability of dream and reality to her, who is still entrapped in the ‘mondo delle illusioni’ [world of illusions (1097)]. Sarina’s compassion belongs to the morality of sublimated virtues, which Zarathustra has unmasked as lies: ‘Pity teaches him to lie who lives among the good. Pity makes the air stifling for all free souls. For the stupidity of the good is unfathomable’ (Nietzsche 1969b: 204–5). Sarina’s compassionate behaviour would accept Cristiano’s ‘secret’ in the name of morality and rationality, and not because ‘foolishness’ and ‘wisdom’ are ‘mingled with all things’ (Nietzsche 1969b: 186). For this reason, Sarina’s pity confirms Zarathustra’s conclusion that ‘whatever harm the wicked may do, the harm the good do is the most harmful harm!’ (229). Sarina’s faith in conventional morality and truth is harmful because it prevents Cristiano and herself from reaching happiness together. This goal embodies the affirmation of life as the acceptance of pain and joy inextricably intertwined through active nihilism. Whereas Sarina is, in Zarathustra’s words, captured by ‘a narrow belief, a hard, stern illusion’ (Nietzsche 1969b: 286), Cristiano is a ‘free spirit and wanderer’ (286) who is led by ‘courage’ as ‘adventure and joy in the unknown’ (313). This openness to adventure, experiment, hypothesis, which Nietzsche had defined as health and strength in aphorism 382, ‘Die grosse Gesundheit’ [Great Healthiness], of The Joyful Wisdom, can provide the modern subject with happiness. For ‘precisely the least thing, the gentlest, lightest, the rustling of a lizard, a breath, a moment, a twinkling of an eye – lit-

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tle makes up the quality of the best happiness’ (Nietzsche 1969b: 288; emphasis in the text). Cristiano’s point of view in the enigmatic conclusion of the novel highlights those ‘least things’ that provide happiness and express his ‘healthy’ attitude toward nihilism, in other words his aptitude to make the fundamental decision that embraces life in its perpetually recurring mixture of joy and sorrow. A sudden change of verbal tenses from the diegetic past perfect and imperfect to a mimetic present tense infuses the conclusion of the novel with dazzling immediacy: E’ già dunque tardi, verso mezzogiorno, l’ora in cui il sole rende più felici le cose. Quanto tempo hai davvero dormito, Cristiano! ... Poi cominciò a inquietarsi ... Tuttavia un vago terrore lo spinse ad andare ... Tutto è come prima, intorno a lui: il prato è ancora tutto coperto di margherite e di ranuncoli, tutto il paesaggio è fiorito; solo il comignolo della casa bianca è privo del suo fiore di fumo. (1099) [It is already late, around noontide, the time when the sun makes things the happiest. How long have you really slept, Cristiano! .... Then he began to worry ... Yet a vague fear prompted him to go there ... Everything is now as it was before around him: the lawn is covered with daisies and buttercups, flowers bloom everywhere; only the chimney of the white house lacks its white smoke flower.]

‘Noontide’ is also a key image in Zarathustra’s journey to mankind. In the fourth and last part of the poem a digression titled ‘At noontide’ vividly depicts Zarathustra’s absolute happiness in the hour when the world has ‘become perfect’ (Nietzsche 1969b: 287) in silence and stillness: ‘As such a weary ship rests in the stillest bay: Thus do I now rest close to the earth, faithful, trusting, waiting, fastened to it by the finest threads’ (288). In this bay of calm Zarathustra is able to appreciate ‘an ancient brown drop of golden happiness’ (288) and ‘the least thing, the gentlest, lightest ... – little makes up the quality of the best happiness’ (288; emphasis in the text). Still, this time of all-around joy and stasis contains the problem of making a decision, embracing all aspects of life, and actively accepting the negative of the Eternal Recurrence. For this reason Zarathustra urges himself to re-embark upon his journey: ‘Up! ... You noontide sleeper! Very well, come on, old legs! It is time and past time, you have still a good way to go’ (288).28 At the end of Nietzsche’s poem, Zarathustra ‘emerged from his bed ... like a morning sun emerging from

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behind dark mountains,’ capable of making the fundamental decision that epitomizes active nihilism and the constructive acceptance of the Eternal Recurrence of the Same. Zarathustra resumes his journey to search for his ‘children,’ whom he associates with his ‘work’ (see 3.4, p. 181), with his creative drive and symbolic productivity, and lastly with his Will to Power, as indicated in Zarathustra’s teaching ‘On the Higher Men’: ‘Where your whole love is, with your child, there too is your whole virtue! Your work, your will is your “neighbor:” let no false values persuade you otherwise!’ (Nietzsche 1969b: 301; emphasis in the text). Therefore, Thus Spoke Zarathustra concludes with the open quest for the prophet’s children, who embody the significance of active nihilism. I believe that Zarathustra’s open ending contributes to illuminate, if not solve, the enigmatic closure of Il segreto. The active recognition from Cristiano’s point of view that ‘[t]utto è come prima’ [everything is now as it was before (1099)] corresponds to the disquieting awareness of the random repetition of ‘questa collana di giorni che è la vita’ [this necklace of days that is life’ (La danza della collana, 1945: 1008)]. This heightened consciousness enables Cristiano to continue his journey toward a new, creative phase of his life, beyond the opposition of good and evil: ‘Poi, un giorno, passato il primo impeto di dolore e di sdegno, andò in cerca del suo bambino’ [Then, one day, after the first outburst of pain and rage, he went in search of his child (1100)]. Whereas the beginning of the novel hinged on the solitude of the protagonist, the ending overturns the initial image and projects Cristiano’s journey toward life and creativity, which childhood epitomizes. 3.4. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra In the course of my analysis of Cristiano’s narrative journey, I have referred to passages of Nietzsche’s late works, mainly Thus Spoke Zarathustra, to illuminate the significance of Deledda’s novel in the light of modernity. Il segreto marks, thus, a definite maturation of Deledda’s early openness to themes and forms of modernity, which we have followed in depth through the textual metamorphoses of La via del male and Cenere. Far from establishing a strict parallelism between Nietzsche’s philosophical poem and Deledda’s enigmatic novel, here I would like to draw attention to some fundamental common structural threads that allow and enliven the intertextual dialogue between the two works. Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and No One deploys an existential journey that is very similar to the quest of Deledda’s

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‘solitary man.’ In the ‘Prologue’ the third-person narrator recounts how the thirty-year-old Zarathustra had gone to the summit of a mountain for the enjoyment of his spirit and his solitude. After ten years of loneliness, though, he felt compelled to go down to the valley, share his wisdom, and spread the message that ‘God is dead!’ (Nietzsche 1969b: 41; emphasis in the text). In front of a crowd in the market-place, Zarathustra declares his intention to teach them ‘the Superman. Man is something that should be overcome’ (41; emphasis in the text), for ‘the Superman shall be the meaning of earth!’ (42; emphasis in the text). At he end of his perilous voyage, Zarathustra faces a new departure in search of his children: ‘Mein Leid und Mitleiden – was liegt daran! Trachte ich denn nach Glücke? Ich trachte nach meinem Werke! / Wohlan! Der Löwe kam, meine Kinder sind nahe, Zarathustra ward reif, meine Stunde kam: – / Dies ist mein Morgen, mein Tag hebt an: herauf nun, herauf, du grosser Mittag! ’ / Also sprach Zarathustra und verliess seine Höhle ... (Nietzsche 1968: 6.1: 404; emphasis in the text) [‘My suffering and my pity – what of them! For do I aspire after happiness? I aspire after my work! / Very well! The lion has come, my children are near, Zarathustra has become ripe, my hour has come! / This is my morning, my day begins: rise up now, rise up, great noontide!’ / Thus spoke Zarathustra, and left his cave ... (Nietzsche 1969b: 336)]

Even considering only the beginning and the ending of Zarathustra’s journey, the intertextual references to Nietzsche’s work in the narrative syntax of Deledda’s Il segreto dell’uomo solitario come to the fore. The zigzag wanderings of the Nietzschean prophet announcing a new dimension of life ‘beyond good and evil’ are present in the ‘S’-shaped structure of Cristiano’s journey from isolation to humankind in search of his child. Since both Cristiano and Zarathustra have been ‘driven from fatherlands and motherlands’ because of the destabilizing message that they announce, the latter’s words apply to both prophetic characters: So liebe ich allein noch meiner Kinder Land, das unentdeckte, im fernsten Meere: nach ihm heisse ich meine Segel suchen und suchen. / An meinen Kindern will ich es gut machen, dass ich meiner Väter Kind bin: und an aller Zukunft – diese Gegenwart! (Nietzsche 1968: 6.1: 151; emphasis in the text)

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[So now I love only my children’s land, the undiscovered land in the furthest sea: I bid my sails seek it and seek it. / I will make amends through my children for being the child of my fathers: and to all the future – for this present! (Nietzsche 1969b: 144)]

Giovanna Cerina has noticed that the proper name ‘Cristiano’ indicates Deledda’s characteristic ‘sforzo di metabolizzare esperienze diverse, di far dialogare realtà culturali distanti tra loro, quella della sua regione e quella nazionale ed europea’ [effort to metabolize different cultural experiences, the one connected with her region and the one related to a national and European culture (2000: 11)]. We could use the same metaphorical expression – ‘metabolize’ – to define the cultural significance of Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In the pounding questions of Zarathustra’s discourse ‘Of Redemption,’ which I quoted at the beginning of this chapter (see p. 154), Nietzsche hinted at his manipulation of the historical Zarathustra. According to a recent interdisciplinary study on Zarathustra, Nietzsche aimed at ‘engineer[ing] an epistemic break in the received history of Greek philosophy and Christian morality ... as a means of restoring the “irrational” or Dionysian dimension’ (Rose 2000: 2). Nietzsche’s representation of Zarathustra joined classical sources and nineteenth-century interpretations of Zoroaster or Zarathustra, the prophet from Iran and founder of Mazdaism who lived between 1000 and 600 BC.29 A philologist by training, Nietzsche knew well Greek and Latin sources about Zarathustra’s teaching that are found in Diogenes Laertius, Heraclitus, Plutarch, Pliny, and others. Moreover, German historicism experienced in those years a renewed interest in the Avesta, the sacred book of Mazdaism. Between 1883 and 1885, while Nietzsche was working on his Zarathustra (1883–5), more than thirty studies on the Zend-Avesta appeared in German, and an equal number was published in other European languages (Rose 2000: 178–80). In contrast to predominant interpretations of his times, Nietzsche highlighted in the Zoroastrism or Mazdaism the dualism between the divine principles of good and evil against the monotheism of the JudeoChristian tradition. In Ecce homo he stated: ... was die ungeheuere Einzigheit jenes Persers in der Geschichte ausmacht, ist gerade dazu das Gegenteil. Zarathustra hat zuerst im Kampf des Guten und des Bosen das eigentliche Rad im Getriebe der Dinge gesehen, die Uebersetzung der Moral in’s Metaphysische, als Kraft, Ursache, Zweck an

Il segreto dell’uomo solitario 183 sich, ist sein Werk ... Zarathustra schuf diesen verhängnisvollsten Irrthum, die Moral: folglich muss er auch der Erste sein, der ihn erkennt. (Nietzsche 1969a: 6.3: 365) [ ... that which distinguishes this Persian from all others in the past is the very fact that he was the exact reverse of an immoralist. Zarathustra was the first to see in the struggle between good and evil the essential thing in the working of things. The translation of morality into the realm of metaphysics, as force, cause, end-in-itself, is his work ... Zarathustra created this most portentous of all errors, – morality; therefore he must be the first to expose it. (Nietzsche 1911: 133)]

In that disillusioned commentary on his work that was Ecce homo, Nietzsche pointed out that his audience did not grasp the ironic gap between the historical figure of Zarathustra and his fictional rendition. According to Nietzsche, while the former had created morality as the dichotomous opposition of good and evil, the latter overcame the conflict of the opposite principles, for he freed the Western subject from the oppression of historical knowledge. This explains why, in the hermeneutic interpretation of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, the Will to Power expresses the liberation from the past and its signs, which facilitates the liberation of the symbolic activity (Vattimo 1974: 304, 354), and coincides eventually with art (Vattimo 2002: 134–47). Since the historical Zarathustra had allegedly been the first one to commit the fatal mistake of creating morality, the fictional Zarathustra becomes in Nietzsche’s work the first one to unmask that error and hint at a way of overcoming it by accepting the inevitable intertwining of good and evil. In the course of the Western reception of the Persian prophet, a persisting link between Zoroaster and Jesus has been established since the Renaissance (Rose 2000: 4–5). Even in recent years critical studies have found an interpretative key for Nietzsche’s Zarathustra in the New Testament (Richards 1990: 4, Hollingdale 1969: 27–8).30 Nietzsche himself saw in his reference to Zarathustra ‘a challenge to the Christian scheme, or concept of salvation history’ (Rose 2000: 5). In a letter to Malwida von Meysenburg of April 1883 he wrote: Es ist eine wunderschöne Geschichte: ich habe alle Religionen herausgefordert und ein neues ‘heiliges Buch’ gemacht! Und, in allem Ernste gesagt, es ist so ernst als irgendeines, ob es gleich das Lachen mit in die Religion aufnimmt. (Nietzsche 1981: 3.1: 363)

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[It is a wonderful story: I have challenged all religions and made a new ‘sacred book’! And, in earnest, it is as serious as no other book, even if it introduces laughter into religion.]

Even more interesting for the hermeneutic interpretation of the Will to Power as art is a further reference to the manuscript of Zarathustra in Nietzsche’s letter to publisher Ernst Schmeitzner of 14 February 1883: ‘Es ist eine “Dichtung” oder ein fünftes “Evangelium,” oder irgend Etwas, für das es noch keinen Namen giebt’ [It is a ‘poetical work’ or a fifth ‘gospel,’ or something else for which there is no name (Nietzsche 1981: 3.1: 327)]. It is the subversively Christian stance of Nietzsche’s ‘Dichtung’ and ‘fünftes Evangelium’ that inspires Zarathustra’s message that ‘der Mensch ist Etwas, was überwunden werden muss’ for ‘der Mensch eine Brücke sei und kein Zweck’ (Nietzsche 1968: 6.1: 244–5) [Man is something that must be overcome’ (for) ‘man is a bridge and not a goal (1969b: 215–16)]. After overturning the ‘old professorial chairs’ and laughing over the past and the ‘decayed expiring glory’ of metaphysical assumptions, Zarathustra can educate his disciples ‘in Eins zu dichten und zusammen zu tragen, was Bruchstück ist am Menschen und Räthsel und grauser Zufall’ (Nietzsche 1968: 6.1: 244) [to compose into one and bring together what is fragment and riddle and dreadful chance in man (1969b: 216)]. For this reason, he can define himself ‘als Dichter, Räthselrather und Erlöser des Zufalls’ (Nietzsche 1968: 6.1: 244) [as poet, reader of riddles, and redeemer of chance (1969b: 216)]. According to Carl Gustav Jung – whose theory of archetypes has inspired some intriguing interpretations of Deledda’s work (e.g. Dolfi 1979, Magistro 1988, Sanguinetti Katz 1994a, Zambon 1989) – Zarathustra epitomizes the archetype of the sage, who offers spiritual guidance to the individual in coping with unsolved problems of his time. For this reason, the interest in Zarathustra recurs in epochs characterized by a deep religious crisis: Zarathustra’s purpose is of course to cure the problem of the time: that is why the old man appears. As Nietzsche himself says, he took the figure of Zarathustra because the original Zoroaster brought the moral conflict into the world; and as the moral conflict is now at its culmination, he must appear again in order to do something to cure it. The pairs of opposites which were separated through the moral conflict ought to be brought together again ... We cannot say the side of the spirit is twice as good as the

Il segreto dell’uomo solitario 185 other side; we must bring the pairs of opposite together in an altogether different way, where the rights of the body are just as much recognized as the rights of the spirit. ( Jung 1988: 233, 235)

My analysis of Il segreto dell’uomo solitario has indicated that, in order to understand the protagonist’s secret, it is necessary to open an intertextual dialogue with Friedrich Nietzsche’s ‘fifth gospel,’ as the philosopher himself defined Thus Spoke Zarathustra. One could say that at the centre of this intertextual dialogue the same question arises that Nietzsche had explicitly asked his disciples with regard to Zarathustra: ‘Who is Cristiano to us?’ Because of the open structure of the protagonist’s Bildungsroman – from initial solitude through the wanderings of logos and eros to his final departure in search of his child, and from passive to active nihilism – the answer could become a new question: ‘Is he a good man? Or an evil man?’ Only the metabolization of different experiences in the spirit of modernity, the typically Deleddian ‘sincretismo pagano-religioso’ [pagan-religious syncretism (De Giovanni 1999: 21)], could enable the Sardinian writer to seize the archetypal significance of Zarathustra and give a narrative rendition of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra in her Cristiano. Her novel seeks to reconstruct as a ‘poetic unity’ the fragmented reality, the mystery of reason and madness, of good and evil, or – referring to Jung’s analysis of Thus Spoke Zarathustra – the ‘pairs of opposites.’ 3.5. Toward a Morality of Modernity: A Partial Conclusion In contrast to D’Annunzio’s most influential interpretation of Nietzsche as ‘il grande distruttore’ [the great destroyer (Disertori 1980: 61)] and Nietzsche’s predominant reception during the early 1900s (see 3.1, pp. 157–65), Deledda suggests a narrative interpretation of Nietzsche that anticipates certain hermeneutic readings of Nietzsche’s nihilism, from Heidegger to Gadamer and Vattimo. Nietzsche, his prophet Zarathustra, and Cristiano, Zarathustra’s literary rendition in Il segreto, are ‘destroyers’ who are able to ‘construct’ a morality ‘beyond good and evil,’ a morality capable of accepting multiple truths and overturning traditional values. Grazia Deledda, like Italo Svevo, another peripheral and, arguably for this reason, deeply European writer of the early twentieth century, reads Nietzsche’s Zarathustra beyond the ‘superman’ mythology. In Il segreto Deledda hints at the destabilizing elements of Nietzsche’s thought that feminist and postmodern theories have privileged.31

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According to Momigliano, ‘l’interesse che spinge la Deledda a scrivere è morale’ [the interest that drives Deledda to writing is of a moral nature (1954: 79)]. It is my conviction that we have to reinterpret this fundamental moral interest in the context of Deledda’s self-acquired European culture of modernity, which includes authors ranging from Schopenhauer to Hugo, from Tolstoy to Nietzsche. We could imagine that the intertextual discourse with Zarathustra inspired Deledda’s following statement from a 1905 letter to the general consul of France in Trieste: Io sono invece orgogliosa; non perché ho scritto dei romanzi che ottennero fortuna, ma perché mi sento cosciente, forte, superiore a tutte le piccolezze e i pregiudizi della società ... Se fossi nata uomo sarei stato un solitario; sarei vissuto in un eremo fra le braccia immense della grande Natura, donde sarei sceso solo di tanto in tanto fra gli uomini per studiarli e compassionarli ... (As quoted in Momigliano 1954: 89) [On the contrary, I am proud; not because I have written successful novels, but because I feel conscious, strong, superior to all pettiness and prejudices of society ... Were I born as a man, I would have been a solitary man, I would have lived in a hermitage between the immense arms of the great Nature, from where I would have come down to the human beings only once in a while in order to study them and show them my compassion ...]

At the origin of the moral and artistic driving force of Deledda’s work is the astonishing self-awareness that one can see already emerging in an early letter dated 1899, about the first geographic turning point in Deledda’s biography, the move from Nuoro to Cagliari. Although she feels lost when she departs from her roots, the young writer looks down at the crowd in one of the railroad stations on the way to the capital city of Sardinia and writes: Pensai al mio essere, alla mia coscienza di artista, alla superiorità che sento di avere sulla folla, alla potenza occulta che illumina l’anima mia anche quando il dolore la opprime, e mi sentii forte e invincibile nella mia piccolezza, nella mia fragilità, nella mia solitudine. (As quoted in Momigliano 1954: 84–5) [I thought about my being, my consciousness as an artist, the superiority that I felt looking at the people down there, the secret power that lights up

Il segreto dell’uomo solitario 187 my soul even when the pain is oppressive. Then I felt strong and invincible in my littleness, in my frailty, in my solitude.]

The secret of this artistic and existential self-awareness probably lies in a volume carrying Deledda’s handwritten note ‘morto in manicomio’ [dead in a mental hospital] that I located among the books of the Deledda family library still in the hands of the writer’s heirs. The title of this ‘Libro per tutti e per nessuno,’ as the subtitle reads, is Così parlò Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by Edmondo Weisel and published in 1899 by the Bocca Brothers in Turin.

4 Passive Nihilism and Schopenhauer’s Contemplator: La danza della collana

In a letter of 20 May 1923 to young writer Marino Moretti, Grazia Deledda, already internationally known and soon to be awarded the Nobel Prize, dwells on the silent pleasure of the ‘solitudine volontaria’ [voluntary solitude] that she enjoys in her sheltered Roman backyard. There, she savours the ‘felicità vegetale’ [vegetable happiness] of her assiduous creative work, in which her ‘pensieri sono fili di strane erbe che si muovono al vento, i palpiti del cuore le foglie della robinia che si staccano ad una ad una dal ramo’ [thoughts are strange blades of grass moving in the wind, while heartbeats are the leaves of the robinia, which come off the branch one at a time]. Finally, the meditative author adds some information about her work: ‘Ho finito un racconto che secondo le mie intenzioni si svolge in una grande città e dimostra il vano affanno delle nostre più forti passioni, l’amore, l’ambizione, l’istinto di apparire da più di quel che siamo. L’ho intitolato La danza della collana’ [I have completed a story that, according to my intentions, unfolds in a big city and demonstrates the vain worries that derive from our strongest passions: love, ambition, and the impulse to seem like more than what we are. The title is The Dance of the Necklace (Lettere a Marino Moretti, 1959: 51, 53)]. This tension between the natural dimension of esse [being and essence] and the human dimension of operari [doing and acting]1 pervades the narrative journey of the protagonists of La danza della collana. Their journey could be defined as the quest for unveiling the roots of the illusions that, according to Schopenhauer, define human life as suffering: love, riches, power, and all other incarnations of the Will to Live. La danza della collana, published in 1924 for Treves, Milan, represents, along with Il segreto dell’uomo solitario, the most conscious and disquieting expression of modernity in Deledda’s production. It is, therefore, not by

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coincidence that even a sympathetic critic such as Eurialo De Michelis shows a very limited interest in this late work. Only Antonio Baldini saluted the release of La danza della collana with insightful reflections. In his appreciative 1924 article about the evolution of Deledda’s writing, the critic underscores how Il segreto dell’uomo solitario and La danza della collana represent a new stage in Deleddas creativity, for they are ‘romanzi d’una più scarna costituzione, con pochi personaggi e quasi nessuna distrazione, sopra uno sfondo d’ambienti infinitamente meno caratterizzati, più lineari e mordenti’ [novels of leaner constitution, with few characters and almost no distractions, over a background of milieus infinitely less characterized, more linear and biting (678)]. With a powerful metaphor Baldini stresses that in La danza ‘sembra quasi di sentire scricchiolare le giunture della narrazione, a tal punto l’autore l’ha voluta quasi scorporare per ridurla alla nudità essenziale’ [the author almost wanted to disembody the narrative to reduce it to its quintessential nudity, to the point that one has the impression of hearing the joints of the narrative creak (678)]. Baldini’s perceptive comments, though, did not have much critical resonance at that time. De Michelis’s seminal study of Grazia Deledda e il Decadentismo focuses on the ‘carattere ansiosamente sperimentale, quasi di un noviziato artistico non mai giunto a fine’ [anxiously experimental character, almost a never completed artistic apprenticeship (1938: 48)] of Deledda’s narrative in its entirety, which is for this very reason suspended between Naturalism and Decadentism. In the case of this late novel, though, De Michelis overlooks its ‘experimental’ character. ‘La apparente scarnezza del racconto – he writes – è in effetti macchinosa di situazioni, di fatti’ [The apparent leanness of the story is in reality complicated with situations and facts (188)], thus engendering an imbalance of a markedly symbolistic work. The ‘scarnezza’ [leanness] of La danza della collana is already apparent in the fragmented development of its plot. Another ‘solitary man’ like Cristiano in Il segreto, Count Giovanni Delys is a modern wanderer in the booming urban landscape of Rome in the early twentieth century. The aim of his journey is to obtain a precious, symbolic pearl necklace that belonged originally to his late mother. Knowing that Maria Baldi has inherited the jewel, Giovanni rings her doorbell. The charming young lady who opens the door, though, is Maria Baldi’s niece, who shares with her aunt not only the same home but also the same name. A Goethian ‘elective affinity’ immediately unites Giovanni Delys and the young Maria Baldi. Mesmerized by the prospect of a life journey together, nur-

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tured with the spiritual and physical love that she has never encountered before, the young Maria does not hesitate to let Giovanni believe that she will inherit the valuable necklace from her aunt. Maria hopes that the illusion of her wealth will convince Giovanni to propose to her despite their different social origins. After a revealing conversation with the elder Maria Baldi, Giovanni becomes aware of the young Maria’s deceit, but he carries forth his own deceptive secret about his hidden motive for entering Maria Baldi’s life. Shortly thereafter, the wedding between Giovanni and the young Maria is celebrated with the elder Maria Baldi’s consent. Rooted in this intertwined play of illusion and disillusion, of truth and falsehood, the marriage begins with a journey. A crucial stop in the newlyweds’ honeymoon takes place in a villa by the sea, in which Giovanni spent his childhood. From there Giovanni writes the elder Maria an enigmatic letter, in which he depicts the disturbing image of a blind and mad female singer who unveils the emptiness of worldly illusions, such as love and wealth. Upon receiving Giovanni’s writing, the elder Maria feels the compelling need to change her life and renounce her own worldly illusions. For this reason, she rejects the love of a physician, who proposed to her with honest and passionate words, and relinquishes the material wealth that the priceless necklace epitomizes. When Giovanni calls the elder Maria from the villa by the sea inviting her to visit with him and his wife and to meet their newborn daughter, she accepts. Indeed, the elder Maria is determined to donate the pearl necklace to her grand-niece in order to bestow upon her the gift of a symbolic life, liberated from illusion and sufferance. Yet, when Giovanni carefully places his little daughter in the arms of the elder Maria, the latter discovers with anguish the ultimate secret of the girl’s symbolic blindness. In order to grasp the significance of this short novel beyond the naturalistic realm of facts to the realm of modern consciousness, it is essential to highlight the ‘anxiously experimental character’ that De Michelis pointed out in Deledda’s narrative as a whole. From this perspective, La danza della collana articulates another crucial stage of Deledda’s own journey through modernity. After exploring the significance of Nietzsche’s active nihilism in Il segreto dell’uomo solitario, Deledda’s self-acquired cultural identity dwells on the most disconcerting aspects of Schopenhauer’s passive nihilism. 4.1. The ‘Scarnificazione’ of the Narrative Structure Anna Dolfi, one of the most insightful critics of Deledda’s work, has revisited De Michelis’s metaphorical expression ‘scarnezza’ [leanness] with

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regard to the narrative structure of La danza. Instead of the static, abstract term ‘scarnezza,’ Dolfi uses the dynamic, concrete term ‘scarnificazione’ [literally the act of stripping the flesh from the bone of the narrative] to define the distinctive aspect of this novel. For La danza, according to Dolfi, aims at representing ‘non più dei fatti, delle tragedie, dei conflitti profondamente allusivi alla vita, ma la vita stessa, così com’è, “terribile e bella nella sua nudità,” nuda appunto e elementare, simbolica, come un tempo il paesaggio sardo’ [no longer facts, tragedies, or conflicts that are deep allusions to life, but life in itself, ‘terrible and beautiful in its nudity,’ a naked, bare, and symbolic life, reminiscent of Sardinian landscape in Deledda’s early novels (1992: 54)]. The ‘scarnificazione’ of places, characters, and actions is a dynamic process that, for this reason, coincides with the daring literary journey of the author and the disconcerting existential quest of the protagonists for meaning and happiness. This distinctive trait of the novel emerges clearly already in its opening paragraph, which suspends the plot in the atemporality of the present tense chosen to suggest a natural process of ‘scarnificazione,’ or reduction to bare essence: ‘La corteccia dell’inverno si screpola’ [The bark of winter is cracking (997)].2 The plot unfolds from winter to the spring of the following year in a spiral-shaped structure that discloses multiple developments. The chronological itinerary from winter to spring through a complete natural cycle frames the male protagonist’s journey from the sea to the city, and back to the sea. His first stop is ‘la città nuova’ [the new city], which refers to the rapidly growing urban outskirts of Rome, the recent capital city of the unified Italian nation and a society rushing through industrial expansion. This symbolic borderline between city and countryside takes shape like a ‘montagna di costruzioni, che dà all’aria umidiccia un sapore di calce e di ragia, [da cui] scendono i fiumi delle strade ancora non terminate; fiumi di selci arginati dai marciapiedi di granito’ [mountain of new buildings, which instils in the unpleasantly humid air the taste of lime and turpentine, from which the rivers of yet unfinished streets flow; rivers of flintstone embanked by granite sidewalks (997)]. ‘Un uomo, sceso anche lui dalla città lungo queste strade’ [a man, who came down, he too, along these streets (997)], stands out against the backdrop of this barely sketched urban landscape, reminiscent of the unsettling representations of the city in the futuristic art of Umberto Boccioni and in the metaphysical paintings of Giorgio De Chirico. ‘Un uomo,’ an indefinte and therefore universal human being, is the tentative explorer and the subject of a literal and metaphorical quest along this symbolic borderline between city and countryside and

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between culture and nature. Count Giovanni Delys intends to find Maria Baldi in order to regain possession of a precious jewel belonging to his family. Giovanni’s mother had been forced to pawn her valuable pearl necklace to overcome the financial débâcle of the family derived from her late husband’s squandering habits. Thus, the necklace could represent for the young count the beginning of a new middle-class life, the opening of a lawyer’s office in the capital, the founding of a new family, and, more importantly, the end of that condition of elegant and sophisticated solitude in which he senses the danger of physical and psychological self-destruction. For, as Giovanni tells the young Maria Baldi in their first romantic conversation, he is ‘un solitario, forse un sognatore, forse anche un mistico‘ [a solitary man, perhaps a dreamer, perhaps also a mystic (1007)]. To him, the pearl necklace signifies not only a potential new beginning, but also ‘la collana di giorni che è la vita’ [the necklace of days that is life (1008)], of which the ‘filo’ [string] is ‘il caso’ [chance]. It is sheer chance, indeed, that makes Giovanni acquainted with Maria Baldi. At first, though, this is not the elder Maria Baldi who jealously guards the rare jewel, but the young and attractive Maria Baldi, her niece. The elder Maria Baldi has brought up her homonymous niece in accordance with her brother’s last will. The young Maria does not suspect the reason behind Giovanni’s visit and, hoping to bridge the social gap between her humble origins and Giovanni’s aristocratic background, lets him believe that she is entitled to inherit the precious jewel from her aunt. The consonance of personalities between Giovanni and the young Maria, who declares, ‘sono anch’io una solitaria, una sognatrice’ [I am a solitary woman and a dreamer as well (1010)], ignites their reciprocal love and the promise of continuing their journey together, as Giovanni affirms: ‘[C]osì, spero, attraverseremo le difficoltà e le bruttezze della vita per incontrarci davvero in un punto che sia la sosta ultima e migliore del nostro viaggio terreno’ [In the same way, I hope, we will happily go through the difficulties and ugly things of life to truly meet in a place that ought to be the last and best stop of our earthly voyage (1010)]. The elder Maria consents to the wedding between her niece and Giovanni and assures the latter that she will leave the young Maria her wealth. The apparent resolution of the conflict determines, though, a sense of guilt in the young Maria that involves all the three characters in the fragmented search of expiation that culminates in the disquieting image of the novel’s conclusion. As Anna Dolfi remarks, the narrative of La danza ‘tende sempre più a configurarsi come avventura dell’interiorità’ [tends more and more to symbolize the adventure of inner life

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(1979: 152)], and this explains the presence of several literary topoi that express the crisis of the modern subject. 4.2. Topoi of Modernity: The Double and the Mask The homonymy of the two female protagonists of the novel, the elder Maria Baldi and the young Maria Baldi, presents the theme of the double and the exchange of identity that had already surfaced in its male variation in Deledda’s early short story ‘Un piccolo uomo’ [A Little Man], included in Le tentazioni [Temptations (1899)]. Present in the Western artistic imaginary since Greek comic theatre with the twin brothers of Plautus’s Menaechmi (third century BC), and the servant Sosia, identical to the god Mercury, of Plautus’s Amphitryon, the theme of the double has always reached to the deepest psychological structure of the subject and questioned the notion itself of the in-dividuum, the undivided kernel of identity that modern psychology and psychoanalysis have investigated and interpreted. From E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Der Sandmann [The Sandman (1817–18)] to R. L. Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), Romanticism broadened the menacing horizon of individual fragmentation through the artistic renditions of the double, which has thus developed into one of the most disconcerting ciphers of modernity. Suffice it to mention only Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Sharer (1910), Dostoyevsky’s The Double (1865–6), and, in Italian literature, Pirandello’s Il fu Mattia Pascal [The Late Mattia Pascal (1904)]. In La danza, the theme of the double sets the narrative engine and the existential quest of the protagonists in motion. The narrating voice underscores the central function of the theme when the solitary wayfarer reads the deceptive name ‘Maria Baldi’ on the mysterious door that seals the isolated house with the green shutters: ‘ “Maria Baldi” e poiché è proprio questa Maria Baldi che egli cerca, si fa di nuovo coraggio per salire e tendere il dito onde premere il bottone del campanello’ [‘Maria Baldi’ and, since it is exactly this Maria Baldi that he is looking for, he gathers courage to go up, stretch his finger and press the doorbell (998)]. The lady with ‘l’aspetto di farfalla’ [the look of a butterfly] who is about to leave when she opens the door gives an affirmative response to Giovanni Delys’s anxious question, ‘Lei è la signorina Baldi?’ [Are you Miss Baldi?]. Yet, as will become apparent later, she is not the Maria Baldi who is the aim of Giovanni’s visit. The narrating voice, though, prepares and underscores the misunderstanding and the exchange of identity through the ironic insertion of the demonstrative adjective ‘questa’

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[this] and the unexpected use of the present tense. These linguistic choices mirror the grotesque image of a ‘mulatto ubriaco’ [drunk mulatto (998)] that Giovanni recognizes as his own ‘ridicolo viso’ [ridiculous face] in the brass studs on the housedoor. It is interesting to note that in this novel as in other late works, such as, to a different extent, the autobiographical narratives Il paese del vento (1931) and Cosima (1937), the presence of ironic interventions of the narrating voice intensifies and uses repeatedly the sudden switch from the diegetic past tense to the mimetic present tense. The effect of estrangement that this tense shift immediately causes reminds the reader not only of Shklovsky’s formalism, but also of Pirandello’s theory of L’umorismo [On Humor (1908)] as ‘sentimento del contrario’ [feeling of the opposite (1974: 113)]. In his analysis of the destabilizing role of irony in literary representation, Pirandello points out the critical task that reflection fulfils in the course of artistic creation: highlighting the inconsistencies of reality and the infinite contradictions hidden behind the masks that, according to Pirandello’s poetics, ‘la forma’ [form] imposes on ‘la vita’ [life]. In La danza the theme of the double, central for the artistic representation of the crisis of the modern subject, is inextricably interwoven with the theme of the mask, which Pirandello’s theatre brings to the foreground with Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore [Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921)]. The intertwining of the two topoi of modern fiction that most deeply express the fragmentation of the subject, the double and the mask, with the contrast between appearance and reality frequently recurs in the utterances of the omniscient narrator. In most cases, this disillusioned consciousness emerges from the point of view of the elder Maria Baldi: ‘[S]entiva che nel dramma di quei due che dicevano di amarsi e s’ingannavano a vicenda in un gioco di maschere al veglione anche lei forse verrebbe involontariamente travolta’ [She sensed that she would be overwhelmed as well by the drama of those two, who said that they would love each other while they deceived each other in a play of masks at an all-night dance (1030)]. Moreover, the elder Maria Baldi articulates the contrast between appearance and reality in a conversation with her suitor, who would like to acquire the land around her house to build a private clinic. The elderly and jovial gentleman is a ‘dottore in medicina, e lo studio, il lavoro, la ricerca, sono i compagni della [sua] vita’ [medical doctor, and study, work, and research are the companions of his life (1052)]. To him, who voices the optimism of Positivism and its confidence in the rational abil-

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ity to know and steer human life, the elder Maria Baldi adopts a sceptical stance: ‘Chi sa? Non sempre le nostre azioni corrispondono al nostro modo di sentire: la vita è, dopo tutto, una commedia’ [Who knows? Not always do our actions correspond to our feelings: life is, after all, a comedy (1054)]. The elder Maria Baldi’s scepticism is rooted in Schopenhauer’s pessimistic philosophy and particularly in the dualism between phenomenon and noumenon at its centre. 4.3. Schopenhauerian Themes of Modernity Schopenhauer’s masterpiece, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung [The World as Will and Representation (1818, 1844)], appeared first in 1818, but, for reasons that I will highlight in the section on Schopenhauer’s reception, it was ‘rediscovered’ only in the second half of the nineteenth century and hailed for its profound pessimism. 4.3.a. The Dualism between Phenomenon and Noumenon The point of departure of Schopenhauer’s pessimistic philosophy is Kant’s distinction between phenomenon, the level of appearance that encompasses any object or occurrence perceived by the senses and understood through intellectual categories, and noumenon, the deeper level of the ‘Ding an sich’ [Thing-in-itself]. In Kant’s philosophy, ‘noumena are the external source of experience but are not themselves knowable and can only be inferred from experience of phenomena. Although inaccessible to speculative reason, the noumenal world of God, freedom, and immortality is apprehended through man’s capacity for acting as a moral agent’ (Flew and Priest 2002: 286). Schopenhauer revisits the Kantian distinction between phenomenon and noumenon, overturns its rationalistic optimism, and infuses it with irrationalistic pessimism. Kant approached the phenomenon as the only knowable aspect of the world for human intellect and the noumenon as the constantly longed-for aim of moral endeavour. On the contrary, Schopenhauer considers the phenomenon to be the sheer representation of the individual subject, mere appearance, the veil of Maya that wraps the subject’s insight of the object and hinders the subject’s ability to know the root of the empirical representation of reality. Borrowing the doctrine of Maya from oriental philosophy to express poetically what Kant had theorized in the Critique of Pure Reason and Plato had recounted

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in the myth of the cave in the Republic, Schopenhauer explains in The World as Will and Representation that in the Vedas and the Puranas ‘the work of Maya is stated to be precisely this visible world in which we are, a magic effect called into being, an unstable and inconstant illusion without substance, comparable to the optical illusion and the dream, a veil enveloping human consciousness’ (1958: 1: 419). For Schopenhauer, the Will is the kernel of the phenomenal representation. As indivisible and irrational noumenon, the Will coincides with the blind striving to live by objectifying itself in the different individuals according to the principium individuationis. In Schopenhauer’s words, The will, considered purely in itself, is devoid of knowledge, and is only a blind, irresistible urge, as we see it appear in inorganic and vegetable nature and in their laws, and also in the vegetative part of our own life. Through the addition of the world as representation, developed for its service, the will obtains knowledge of its own willing and what it wills, namely that this is nothing but this world, life, precisely as it exists. We have therefore called the phenomenal world the mirror, the objectivity, of the will; and as what the will wills is always life, just because this is nothing but the presentation of that willing for the representation, it is immaterial and a mere pleonasm if, instead of simply saying the ‘will,’ we say ‘the will-to-live.’ (1958: 1: 275)

Thus, individuals are driven by the Will-to-Live, their egoistic instincts, their selfish desires for goals that reveal themselves to be pure illusions in the very moment of their attainment, which leaves a sense of emptiness and boredom. 4.3.b. The Aesthetics of Contemplation and Music To defuse the painful and meaningless circle of need and boredom, which implies violence against each other and intensifies the universal suffering on earth, is necessary to tear Maya’s veil of appearance. The first way to escape the subjugation to the Will is the aesthetic contemplation of the ideas, the higher forms of objectification of the Will. The various forms of art offer to different degrees the opportunity to evade the painful realm of individual and contrasting representations of the Will. Beyond the hierarchy among the arts, though, music stands out because it surpasses the ideas as intermediaries between the noumenal and phenomenal world by directly representing the noumenon. ‘Music

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expresses in an exceedingly universal language, in a homogeneous material, that is, in mere tones, and with the greatest distinctness and truth, the inner being, the in-itself, of the world, which we think of under the concept of will, according to its most distinct manifestation’ (Schopenhauer 1958: 1: 264). Schopenhauer forcefully expresses the unique liberation from sorrow and need that the musical experience provides: ‘The inexpressible depth of all music, by virtue of which it floats past us as a paradise quite familiar and yet eternally remote, and is so easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from its pain’ (1958: 1: 264). 4.3.c. The Ethics of Compassion and Asceticism The next step toward the complete liberation from the tyranny of the Will belongs to the realm of ethics and is expressed by justice, then goodness, and finally asceticism. The profound understanding of the negative nature of phenomenal joy as mere absence of suffering due to the temporary satsifaction of a need can become a ‘quieter’ of the Will-to-Live, the ‘silencing and suppressing all willing’ (Schopenhauer 1958: 1: 308). Thanks to this revealing knowledge, the individual can finally reach unity with other human beings and experience love as compassion: Therefore, whatever goodness, affection, and magnanimity do for others is always an alleviation of their sufferings; and consequently what can move them to good deeds and to works of affection is always only knowledge of the suffering of others, directly intelligible from one’s own suffering, and put on a level therewith. It follows from this, however, that pure affection (agape, caritas) is of its nature sympathy or compassion. (Schopenhauer 1958: 1: 375; emphasis in the text)

The ultimate form of the knowledge as ‘quieter’ of the Will in all its expressions is, according to Schopenhauer, asceticism: ‘The will now turns away from life; it shudders at the pleasures in which it recognizes the affirmation of life. Man attains to the state of voluntary renunciation, resignation, true composure, and complete will-lessness’ (1958: 1: 379). This final step toward liberation can be expressed through chastity, the renunciation of sexual fulfilment, through poverty, the intentional giving away of personal property ‘to alleviate the sufferings of others’ (1958: 1: 381), and finally through holiness, the most comprehensive and con-

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crete experience of ‘the denial of the will-to-live’ (1958: 1: 383; emphasis in the text). Schopenhauer’s pessimistic view of the ultimate reality as the Will underscores on the one hand a profoundly atheistic view of life, on the other hand a universality of suffering, which fosters ‘sympathy for others, based on the recognition that we are only phenomenally distinct from others while in reality we are one’ (Urmson and Rée 1989: 294–5). This ‘anti-dualistic conception of man as a single entity viewed under the aspects either of body or of will’ entails a ‘pessimistic emphasis upon the distorting and covert forces of the will,’ an idea that was to inspire Freud (Flew and Priest 2002: 366). This pessimistic Weltanschauung, the focal attention on the liberatory role of arts and music, and the criticism of moralism in conjunction with the ethics of sympathy derived from the recognition of universal suffering, are the themes that link Schopenhauer to the most representative voices of modern crisis, from Nietzsche to Freud, Richard Wagner to Henri Bergson, and Thomas Mann to Italo Svevo and Grazia Deledda. 4.4. A Step Back: Schopenhauer’s Veil and Deledda’s 4.4. Colombi e sparvieri Prior to becoming the implicit narrative engine of La danza, Schopenhauer appears explicitly in Colombi e sparvieri [Doves and Sparrow Hawks (1912)]. Albeit a seemingly typical ‘Sardinian novel’ written during Deledda’s most productive years, Colombi e sparvieri indicates the progressive maturation of Deledda’s ‘sardità,’ according to Di Pilla’s insightful analysis of Il segreto dell’uomo solitario (1982: 124). The inequality between social classes in Sardinia, which was at the root of the tragic story of love and death between Maria and Pietro in La via del male (see 1.1.a, pp. 26–7), is also the immediate cause of the broken relationship between Columba, the daughter and niece of rich landowners, and Jorgj, who comes from a poor shepherd family. The sociological conflict, though, becomes a moral and cultural clash, for Columba follows the traditions and unwritten laws of her rural society, whereas Jorgj opens up his horizons while studying in Nuoro. Jorgj, like the historical figure of Ignazio Biotte who inspired the character, represents ‘il Prometeo barbaricino’ [Prometheus from Barbagia (Sinesi 2004: xiii)]. Like the mythical character, Jorgj of Colombi e sparvieri, ‘nel momento in cui cerca di condurre con sé il fuoco di una civiltà altra e tenta di trasmettere valori e conoscenze diverse ai suoi concittadini, va incontro il

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più delle volte ad un destino di emarginazione sociale’ [when he attempts to take with him the fire of a different civilization and to convey diverse values and knowledge to his fellow citizens, is doomed to social marginalization (Sinesi 2004: xiii)]. The dysfunctional condition of the Sardinian intellectual between the old and the new of the recently unified Italian nation becomes the magnifying glass of the crisis of the modern subject. When a burglary occurs in Columba’s home, Jorgj becomes the prime suspect because of a long-lasting feud between the two families. The unjust accusations and, more tragically, the fact that Columba shares her family’s distrust and breaks the engagement, cause in the victim a paralysis of neurotic origin, which confines Jorgj to motionless bed life in the solitude of his poor hovel. While resigning himself to his condition of immobility and injustice, Jorgj shares his feelings and thoughts with a few visitors. The first visitor is young Pretu, who assists Jorgj and listens to Jorgj’s ‘confessione.’ The reading of his journal aloud in first person narrative provides a long autobiographical flashback up to the inception of the paralysis. Then we encounter a second visitor, the problematic character of Father Defraja. A priest-philosopher, Father Defraja suffers from tuberculosis and, from a Schopenhauerian point of view, believes that ‘le passioni umane, l’odio, il piacere, l’amore della donna, gli onori e i poteri sono simili ai fuochi di gioia in una sera di festa’ [human passions, hatred, pleasure, the love for a woman, honours and power are similar to joyous bonfires in a festive evening (736)].3 Still, because of his inner fragmentation, Father Defraja recognizes that Il suo amore di Dio, la gioia di ricongiungersi presto a Lui, erano davanti alle altre passioni come la stella fissa davanti a quei fuochi rapidi e vani. Eppure egli continuava a pensare a Jorgj, alla lettera [che Jorgj aveva ricevuto da Mariana] che era come un piccolo brano di mari lontani, dei lontani orizzonti del mondo, e come la stella sopra la torre della chiesa anche il suo amore di Dio impallidiva davanti all’amore per le cose del mondo ... (736–7) [His love of God, the joy to reunite with him soon, were, before the other passions, like a fixed star before these rapid and vain fires. Nevertheless he continued to think of Jorgj, of the letter that Jorgj had received from Mariana. The letter was like a small piece of faraway oceans, of the faraway horizons of the world, and, like the star over the church tower, Father Defraja’s love of God faded in front of his love for the things of the world ...]

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Another visitor and intellectual partner for Jorgj is the doctor, a spokesman of Nietzschean philosophy, who quotes Goethe’s Faust, refer to Cervantes’s Don Quixote, and alludes with sharp sarcasm to positivist anthropologist Cesare Lombroso (see 1.1.b, p. 30). The doctor’s character echoes Nietzsche’s critique of Positivism and advocates a return to nature in order to overcome the physical and psychological illness of the modern subject: ‘[T]u dici una sacrosanta verità, Jorgeddu! Spesso la filosofia anche la più rudimentale dà la mano alla scienza. Che cosa è, in fondo, la nostra malinconia, la nostra incessante inquietudine? Noi tendiamo a ritornare alla terra donde siamo venuti. Recenti esperimenti dimostrano che l’uomo è, sulla terra, uno spostato: le sue malattie, la sua morte precoce, la sua incontentabilità provengono dal suo organismo imperfetto, o meglio da certi organi che egli ha ereditato dai suoi padri animali, indispensabili a loro, nocivi all’uomo. La nostra esistenza è intossicata da questi organi ... Noi tendiamo verso quello che una volta era il nostro stato naturale, la vita in mezzo alla natura, i contatti istintivi coi nostri simili, l’appagamento completo dei nostri sensi. Tutto ciò che si oppone alla vita animale, che è la nostra vera vita, è fonte della nostra infelicità ...’ (507–8) [‘You are telling a sacrosanct truth, my little Jorgj! Even the most rudimentary philosophy often offers some support to science. In fact, what is our melancholy, our unceasing anxiety? We tend to return to the earth from which we came. Recent experiments demonstrate that man is, on earth, a misfit: his illnesses, his premature death, and his dissatisfaction derive from his imperfect organism, or rather from certain organs that he has inherited from his animal ancestors. These organs were indispensable for them, but harmful to him. These organs intoxicate our existence ... We tend to what was once our state of nature, life within nature, instinctive contacts with our fellow beings, the complete satiation of our senses. Everything that opposes animal life, which is our true life, is the source of our unhappiness ...’]

The fourth and most relevant character who breaches Jorgj’s solitude is Mariana, who is visiting with her brother, the ‘commissario regio’ [royal commissioner (484)] sent by the government in Rome to the Sardinian village. Mariana, a self-confident, cultivated city girl, often resides in the capital, has travelled extensively, is well read, and represents for Jorgj ‘la civiltà lontana, la giustizia, la pietà, tutte le cose più grandi della vita’ [the distant civilization, justice, pity, all the greatest things of life (654)].

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This ‘superdonna’ [superwoman (Bregoli-Russo 1985: 11)] establishes a relationship with the paralysed student based upon their common cultural background. In their conversations the two share their knowledge and enthusiam for Pascoli and D’Annunzio: ‘“Le piace Pascoli?” / ”Lo so quasi tutto a memoria.” / “E D’Annunzio?” / Allora fu uno sgranare di versi, un lieve discutere, un ripetere, “oh, anche a me piace!,” “no, era migliore prima,’ “oh, è sempre giovane,” “io dimentico i titoli,” “oh, ricorda quei versi”’ [‘Do you like Pascoli?’ / ‘I know him almost by heart.’ / ‘And D’Annunzio?’ / Then they recited a sequel of verses, had a light discussion and repeated: ‘Oh, I like him too!,’ ‘No, before he was better,’ ‘Oh, he is always young,’ ‘I forget the titles,’ ‘Oh, do you remember those verses’ (666)] Thus, culture becomes the vehicle of love, understanding, and trust between the outgoing Mariana and the ‘sepolto vivo’ [the one who is buried alive (662)], whose name she Italianizes from Jorgj to Giorgio: ‘fra lui e la sua amica s’era squarciato il velo dell’ignoto: Mariana era penetrata nel mondo di lui e poteva ormai muoversi, guardare, frugare e disporre tutto come sul tavolino: ella non portava che ordine e gaiezza’ [the veil of the unknown had ripped between him and his friend: Mariana had penetrated his world and now she could move and look around, search and arrange everything as she did on the night table: she could not bring but order and cheerfulness (667)]. This comment, uttered by the implied narrator from Jorgj’s point of view, provides the reader with a key to understanding the heavy intertextuality of this novel, which encompasses direct references to Tarchetti, Pascoli, D’Annunzio, Goethe, Cervantes, Tolstoy, Lombroso, and Schopenhauer. Culture, in its literary and philosophical expressions, represents the first step to comprehending the essence of reality behind the veil of appearances, as the narrating voice underlines. In other words, the previously quoted comment articulates the typically Schopenhauerian image of the veil, to point out the importance of literary and philosophical contemplation at the beginning of the difficult process of liberation from the needs and desires that the blind Will imposes on the individual subjects through its objectifications. This liberating process culminates in the recognition of a profound unity among human beings derived from their common suffering. This novel awareness nurtures not an egoistic but a compassionate love, which is the foundation of justice and goodness in this world. The recognition of the illusory content of life’s passions and material goods, which Father Defraja expressed in his philosophical reflections, reaches its highest point with asceticism, which is precisely Jorgj’s existential choice.

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Far from being a case of ‘troppe e troppo esibite risorse letterarie’ [too many and too overtly exhibited literary resources (Spinazzola 1981c: 475)], or ‘una patina esterna, una sovrastruttura, elementi non assolutamente funzionali nel plot del romanzo’ [an external coating, a superstructure, elements not absolutely functional to the plot of the novel (Bregoli-Russo 1985: 11)], the intertextuality of Colombi e sparvieri invites us to read between lines, to tear ‘il velo dell’ ignoto’ as Jorgj and Mariana did, and chart the philosophical voices of modernity, particularly Schopenhauer’s, which weave together the narrative fabric of this novel. Hence, it comes as no surpise that Schopenhauer is explicitly mentioned in a conversation between Mariana and the doctor. During a visit to their common friend, the doctor jokingly makes a good-natured allusion to Mariana’s small size, to which she replies as follows: ‘Schopenhauer ...’ ‘Mi lasci in pace col suo Schopenhauer!’ ‘Ma io volevo dire che sbaglia quando afferma che le donne alte piacciono agli uomini di bassa statura mentre le donne piccole ...’ ‘Piacciono agli uomini alti e anche a quelli di bassa statura! Purché siano belle come lei!’ (674) [‘Schopenhauer ...’ ‘Well, let me alone with your Schopenhauer!’ ‘But I just wanted to say that he is wrong when he states that tall women attract short men, while short women ...’ ‘Attract short and tall men! Provided they are as pretty as you are!’]

Mariana’s mention of the philosopher of pessimism through the reference to this secondary remark about the laws of sexual attraction performs a threefold function. First, it subtly hints at Schopenhauer’s misogyny, which Francesco De Sanctis had harshly criticized (see 4.5, pp. 214, 217, 269n15); secondly, it mocks the fashionable cultural trends of the time,4 to which belonged Schopenhauer’s divulgative aphorisms as well; and, last but not least, it acts as a decoy by suggesting the philosophical context of the novel. Interestingly, the source of this reference is not one of Schopenhauer’s aphorisms ‘On Love, Women, and Marriage.’ First translated into Italian in 1881, Schopenhauer’s reflections on the alleged inborn inferiority of women were included in the 1909 Bocca edition of the

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Aforismi sulla saggezza per la vita [Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life], which had been published several times before 1949 (see 4.5, p. 217). Yet, the omniscient narrator most likely alludes to Schopenhauer’s aphorisms, a fashionable work at the time of Colombi e sparvieri’s genesis, when the narrator describes the cultural congeniality that nurtures the love relationship of Mariana and Jorgj: ‘E ricominciarono le piccole confidenze, lo scambio dei pensieri, le citazioni in versi: era come un gioco dolce e puerile, un andare e venire di frasi innocenti, di aforismi, di innocui paradossi, di complimenti’ [And they began again to exchange little secrets, thoughts, and poetic quotations: it was like a sweet and childish game, a back and forth of innocent sentences, aphorisms, harmless paradoxes, and compliments (669)]. Despite the affinity in tone and content with the philosopher’s thoughts on women, and despite the hints at Schopenhauer’s aphorisms in the narrative, the source of Mariana’s explicit reference to Schopenhauer is located in Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, and precisely in the forty-fourth chapter of the supplements to the four original books, which the author added in the second edition of 1844. In the chapter on ‘The Metaphysics of Sexual Love,’ Schopenhauer devotes his attention to the reasons for the central role that sexual love plays in the literature of all times. In poetry as in life, he argues, ‘all amorousness is rooted in the sexual impulse alone’ (1958: 2: 533). Sexual impulse is the fundamental force of life because it decides ‘the composition of the next generation’ (1958: 2: 534; emphasis in the text). The individual lovers do not realize that ‘what here guides man is really an instinct directed to what is best for the species, whereas man himself imagines he is seeking merely a heightening of his own pleasure’ (1958: 2: 539). According to this instinct to maintain the species at its best, which as sexual impulse corresponds to the Will-to-Live in itself, lovers seek and only apparently choose each other. Without knowing it, they incarnate ‘the metaphysical desire of the will-in-itself ... [t]o objectify itself in a quite particular individual that can be produced only by this father together with this mother’ (1958: 2: 550). This higher end of sexual love reaches beyond the physical determination into the metaphysical principle of the Will-to Live. For this reason, Shopenhauer argues that In the first place, everyone will decidedly prefer and ardently desire the most beautiful individuals; in other words, those in whom the character of the species is most purely and strongly marked. But in the second place he will specially desire in the other individual those perfections that he himself

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lacks; in fact, he will even find beautiful those imperfections that are opposite to his own. Hence, for example, short men look for tall women, persons with fair hair like those with dark, and so on (1958: 2: 547)

The consideration about the role of physical size in sexual attraction, which Schopenhauer reiterates later in the chapter, acts in Colombi e sparvieri as an intertextual device that aims at evoking the cultural context of the novel through irony and critical distance. Mariana’s philosophical reference underlines that Deledda had read not only Schopenhauer’s fashionable aphorisms but also his philosophical masterpiece. As we shall see later in this chapter, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung finally enjoyed an editorial breakthrough with the 1914 translation by Paolo Savy-Lopez for the prestigious Laterza publishing house (see 4.5, p. 217). The fact that Colombi e sparvieri appeared in 1912 suggests that Deledda had already known Schopenhauer’s chief work in its first Italian translation by Oscar Chilesotti, published by Dumolard of Milan in 1888.5 Unfortunately, the remainders of the Deledda family’s library, which I examined in the private archives of Deledda’s heirs, do not include any copies of Schopenhauer’s works, in contrast to Nietzsche’s Così parlò Zarathustra (see 3.5, p. 187).6 However, at least two volumes of the collection clearly indicate Deledda’s interest in oriental philosophies, which constituted a profound source of meditation for Schopenhauer throughout his work.7 The first retrieved publication is the Italian version of the Bhagavadgita, the Sanskrit word for ‘The Song of the Lord.’ A pivotal part of the Mahabharata, the religious epic of ancient India and the culmination of Hindu (Vedic) philosophy, the Bhagavadgita is considered the sparkling gem of India’s spiritual wisdom. Through the story of Arjuna, the great warrior, who has to cope with the deepest inner conflict on the battlefield, the Bhagavadgita proposes a philosophy of disinterested action or ‘karmayoga.’ ‘Action without motivation, desire, need or expectation, without fear of failure or hope of success (i.e. disinterested [asakta] action) is absolutely neutral and indifferent and therefore exempt from nature and its laws, as well as from the laws, rules and conventions of society’ (Piatigorsky 1987: 12). This profound liberation is the result of a learning process that triggers spiritual growth beyond identification with the ego, the little self, toward a reunion with the immortal Self, the soul or Atman, the ultimate divine consciousness. The quest for serenity of mind through its liberation from desire, which is the primary source of suffering and discord in the phenomenal

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world, is also one of the driving forces in the work of Schopenhauer, who ‘[t]o this day ... remains the only great Western philosopher to have been genuinely well versed in Eastern thought and to have related it to his own work’ (Magee 1997: 15). Repeatedly, Schopenhauer refers in Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung to the Upanishads and the Bhagavadgita (1958: 1: 284, 388; 2: 326, 473), and in general to Hindu poetic and religious works as most profound meditations on love as self-denial and liberation from worldly illusions. These themes, at the centre of Schopenhauer’s masterpiece and in frequent relation to Eastern wisdom, must have deeply attracted Deledda while she was reading Schopenhauer’s writing in the more mature phase of her existential and artistic journey. The text of La Bhagavad Gita o Poema Divino (1922) that I located in Deledda’s family archive exhibits the following dedication handwritten by Luigi Moni and dated ‘Roma 25/8/1924’: ‘Possa la lettura del presente volumetto aiutarla a trovare la vera luce’ [May the reading of this little volume help you find the true light]. As its title suggests, another volume that I discovered on the shelves of Deledda’s family archive introduces her to the ‘true light’ of liberatory revelation and inner wisdom: La luce sul sentiero. Trattato ad uso di coloro che ignorano la sapienza orientale e desiderano riceverne l’influenza [The Light on the Path: A Treatise Written for the Personal Use by those who are Ignorant of Eastern Wisdom and who Desire to Enter into its Influence]. The Light on the Path to illumination, attributed to Indian monk Atisha (982–1054), is a brief poem that expresses in condensed form the fundamental Buddhist teachings on how to awaken human inner potential in order to achieve lasting happiness and liberation from phenomenal illusions. These themes of ancient Hindu and Buddhist philosophies, mediated through Schopenhauer’s pessimism in Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, emerge as essential aspects of Deledda’s mature narrative, for example in Colombi e sparvieri and, as we shall see, more strikingly in La danza della collana. Hence, as we had previously noticed in the case of Deledda’s precocious and independent reading of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, the ironic reference to Schopenhauer’s main work reveals on the one hand Deledda’s alertness to the philosophical debate of her time and her critical reading of easily misunderstood philosophical theories. On the other hand, and more importantly for us, the apparently superficial allusion to the philosopher of pessimism indicates once again Deledda’s peculiar technique of using intertextuality to construct the literary self of a European intellectual of modernity through the interweaving of philosophical themes in the texture of her narrative.

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For example, the chapter of Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung on ‘The Metaphysics of Sexual Love,’ to which Deledda alludes in Colombi e sparvieri, is deeply related to Schopenhauer’s pessimism, and culminates in the recognition of the unavoidable, painful dissatisfaction that derives from the fulfilment of sexual desire and maintenance of the species: ... [B]ecause the passion rested on a delusion that presented as valuable for the individual what is of value only for the species, the deception is bound to vanish after the end of the species has been attained. Forsaken by this spirit, the individual falls back into his original narrowness and neediness, and sees with surprise that, after so high, heroic, and infinite an effort, nothing has resulted for his pleasure but what is afforded by any sexual satisfaction. Contrary to expectation, he finds himself no happier than before; he notices that he has been the dupe of the will of the species. (1958: 2: 557)

This pessimistic view of life as a vain quest for happiness, which can be attained only momentarily if human beings do not recognize the Will at the source of their life, surfaces already in the first of the three parts of Colombi e sparvieri, in the course of Jorgj’s autobiographical flashback. While observing the police officer searching his home in hopes of retrieving the stolen money, Jorgj comments: ‘la figura del brigadiere ancora curvo a frugare entro la cassa mi parve grottesca e compassionevole. Egli cercava una cosa che non c’era, ch’egli sapeva che non c’era. Così noi tutti nella vita ci affanniamo a cercare qualcosa che siamo già rassegnati a non trovare‘ [the image of the sergeant still bent over the chest while rummaging through it seemed grotesque and pitiful to me. He was looking for something that was not there, something that he knew was not there. In the same way we all race breathlessly through life in search of something that we are already resigned not to find (577)]. The only possibility of escaping the painful chain of desire/boredom/ new desire resides in the ability to tear the Mayan veil of illusions. For this reason, the metaphor of the veil appears again in Jorgj’s reflections on the different versions of the truth that his fellow villagers have about the identity of the thief: ‘La verità! Io sono malato perché la verità è scomparsa dalla mia vita; ma la certezza di ritrovarla mi sorregge ancora. Talvolta, nei giorni invernali, quando la nebbia ci avvolge come un velo funebre, abbiamo l’impressione che tutto sia finito ... Ma ad un tratto il sole squarcia le nuvole, le cose tornano

La danza della collana 207 a sorridere e noi risorgiamo come Lazzaro dal sepolcro. Per un attimo o per anni o per secoli così la verità può venire offuscata dal velo della menzogna; ma all’improvviso ritorna a risplendere, luminosa ed eterna, e basta un suo raggio per dissipare le tenebre e dar vita ai morti.’ (579) [‘The truth! I am sick because the truth has disappeared from my life; but the certainty of finding it again still sustains me. Sometimes, during the winter days, when fog wraps us up like a funeral veil, we are under the impression that all is gone ... Yet, suddenly the sun tears through the clouds, things begin to smile once more, and we rise again like Lazarus from his tomb. In the same way, the veil of falsehood can overshadow the truth for a moment or years or centuries; but all of a sudden the truth regains its splendour, once again becomes luminous and eternal, and one of its rays is enough to dissolve darkness and infuse life to the dead.’]

In the above passage, which reflects ‘la ieraticità biblica’ [the biblical, hieratical halo (Spinazzola 1981c: 474)] surrounding the novel, and revisits the Schopenhauerian topos of the ripped veil of appearance, Deledda demonstrates once again her ability to ‘metabolize’ extremely different cultural experiences, from the Christian tradition to the disquieting voices of modernity (see 3.4, p. 182). For instance, Mariana, ‘la straniera’ [the stranger (682)] from Columba’s point of view, airs Schopenhauer’s voice of modernity when she teaches Jorgj/Giorgio about the inconsistency of human passions, such as his love for Columba, which is at the origin of his neurologic paralysis: ‘“Lei, signor Giorgio, è qui, vinto dalla sua passione per quella donna; e adesso ... adesso ... dice che non gliene importa più nulla! Perché? Perché le nostre passioni cadono come vapori? E il peggio è che rinascono sempre, appunto come i vapori nell’aria! E così, lei mi dimenticherà, signor Giorgio!” ‘ [‘Mr Giorgio, you are now here because your passion for that woman defeated you; and now ... now ... you say that you no longer care! Why? Why do our passions fall down like mist in the air? And the worst is that they always regenerate, precisely like mist in the air! Thus, Mr Giorgio, you will forget me!’ (703)]. Yet, despite Mariana’s fears, Jorgj has absorbed in depth her Schopenhauerian teachings and replies: ‘Io non guarirò ... lo sento; ma non importa ... Non mi dispero; e sa perché? Perché sono quasi felice di viver così, immobile, già sepolto per poter pensare a lei, sempre a lei ... Io stavo male, prima che venisse lei, perché non amavo, non sentivo pietà di nessuno, neppure di me stesso. Era

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questa la vera paralisi che mi angosciava. L’orgoglio solo mi sosteneva ...’ (704) [‘I will not heal ... I feel it; but it does not matter ... I do not despair; and do you know why? Because I am almost happy to live in this way, motionless, already buried, in order to be able to think of you, always of you ... I was suffering before you came, because I did not love or pity anybody, not even myself. This was the real paralysis that caused me anguish. Only pride sustained me ...’]

In Jorgj’s life, Mariana functions as the catalyst that enables him to overcome his pride and egoism and implement eventually in his own life the Schopenhauerian ethics of sympathy, which he had initially expressed to the doctor with these words: ‘“... l’amore esiste ... Sì, sì, esiste! Gli diamo diversi nomi: dovere, pietà, affetto, compassione, anche abitudine. In fondo è tutto amore ... Esiste! Esiste!”’ [‘... love exists ... Yes, yes, it does exist! We call it different things: duty, pity, affection, compassion, and also habit. In the end, everything is love ... It does exist! It does!’ (630)]. Mariana has understood that Jorgj’s disability and weakness belong to the phenomenal realm of appearance, as she tells Father Defraja: ‘Tutte le nostre battaglie sono come quelle dei giganti negli affreschi di cui parlavo: possono durare secoli e non finiscono se non quando il tempo le cancella. Meglio non far nulla; meglio restare immobili come il nostro Jorgj Nieddu: egli solo è il forte: noi andiamo, andiamo, giriamo come farfalline intorno al lume, cadiamo con le ali bruciate ...’ (702) [‘All of our battles look like those of the giants in the frescos I was talking about: they can last for centuries and do not cease until time erases them. It is better not to do anything; it is better to remain motionless like our Jorgj Nieddu: he is the only strong one: we go, go, and fly all over the place like little butterflies around the source of light, and then we fall down with burned wings ...’]

Mariana’s mind, nurtured by the culture of modernity, has grasped that Jorgj’s weakness is in actuality strength, which eventually empowers him to heal from the pain of egoistic impulses and overcome the instinct of revenge against those who had suspected him of the theft and hurt him deeply. Jorgj forgives Columba, her grandfather, and the actual thief, the old village beggar. He renounces Columba, who continues to love him,

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and Mariana, who continues to write him affectionate letters from Rome. Jorgj’s final healing, suspended between the literal, physiological overcoming of his immobility, and the metaphorical, psychological prevailing over worldly illusions, is far from being a naïve ‘conclusione a lieto fine nel quale il fondamentale pessimismo della Deledda sembra essere contraddetto per puro proposito’ [happy ending, in which Deledda seems to deliberately contradict her fundamental pessimism (Miccinesi 1975: 59)]. The only specific sign of Jorgj’s healing consists in his regained ability to sit up in bed while he is writing to Mariana, ‘la sua amica’ [his friend (756)], with whom he shares a love that is deeper than sentimental and egoistic love. As Mariana declared in her last letter, ‘Anch’io l’amo, come lei, Giorgio, mi ama; e il nostro amore non può venir distrutto né dal tempo né dalla lontananza: sorgente inesausta che alimenta la nostra vita, esso è lo stesso amore dell’amore’ [I love you too, Giorgio, as you love me; and neither time nor distance can destroy our love: the unexhausted source that nourishes our life, our love is the same as the love of love (756)]. Jorgj welcomes his final, metaphorical healing from the pain of phenomenal illusions with a disconcerting laugh, which reminds us closely of Zarathustra’s laugh: A poco a poco la sua risata, dapprima lieve, si fece alta, nervosa, insistente. Egli la sentiva risonare nel buio, e gli pareva la risata di un altro, di un uomo felice che si moveva, si disponeva ad uscire e ad andarsene per il mondo pieno di gioia. E pur abbandonandosi alla sua gaiezza puerile se ne domandava sorpreso il perché. Perché? perché? (756) [Gradually his laugh, first low and soft, became high, nervous, persistent. He heard its resonance in the dark, and it seemed to him like someone else’s laugh, the laugh of a happy man who could move around, and was poised to go out in the world full of joy. And even if he gave himself up to his childish cheerfulness, he wondered about the reason for it. Why? Why?]

The answer to Jorgj’s question to himself lies in the open-ended conclusion of the novel, which projects the attainment of asceticism as emancipation from painful passions once the veil of appearance has been torn apart: Allora fu certo d’esser guarito. Piano piano si tirò su, respinse il cuscino sulla testiera del letto e vi appoggiò la schiena; mosse la testa, si guardò

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attorno. E le cose rimanevano ferme, e tutto gli sembrava bello, luminoso ... [T]utte, tutte le cose erano belle come gli oggetti e le tende della casa di un re: il velo scintillante che le copriva era fatto di lagrime che si tramutavano in perle. Le ore passarono, il lume si spense; ma egli rimase seduto, immobile, al buio, aspettando l’alba. (757) [Then he was sure to be cured. He sat up very slowly, moved his pillow away against the bed headboard and leaned his back against it; he moved his head and looked around. And the objects remained still, and everything appeared beautiful and luminous to him ... All, all things were beautiful like the objects and drapes of a king’s home: the sparkling veil that covered them was made of tears that transformed into pearls. The hours went by, the light went out; but he remained seated, motionless, in the darkness, awaiting dawn.]

The metaphorical veil drops while morphing into pearls. These luminous pearls announce the light of dawn, which the narrative and the wait disclose. As we shall see, the pearls of a new life, liberated from egoism and suffering, shed the light of artistic contemplation on the moral quest of La danza della collana’s protagonists. Schopenhauer, who was explicitly and implicitly present in the narrative of Colombi e sparvieri, becomes the philosophical kernel of La danza della collana, which could be reinterpreted as the ‘dance of the necklace’ between referent and metaphor, phenomenon and noumenon, and representation and Will. At this point, a brief digression on Schopenhauer’s reception in Italy around the turn of the century will highlight once again how Deledda was able to disentangle herself from the leading contemporary interpretations of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, as she did for Nietzsche’s philosophy of the Uebermensch (see 3.1, pp. 157–65). 4.5. Schopenhauer Reception in Italy during the Early 1900s Inextricably interwoven with Nietzsche’s ultimate pessimism, Schopenhauer’s philosophy found in Nietzsche its most sympathetic and eventually critical interpreter. I believe that Grazia Deledda’s early and independent reading of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, beyond contemporary misunderstandings and manipulations of the Uebermensch, was complemented by her reflections on Schopenhauer’s ethics and aesthetics, which permeate La danza della collana.

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Nietzsche’s fundamental question about the significance of human existence articulated the most tragic aspects of Schopenhauer’s pessimism. Nietzsche’s active nihilism arose from his reflection on Schopenhauer’s negative concept of the blind Will and overcame the simplifying approach that in the second half of the nineteenth century bestowed upon Schopenhauer the fame that he had not enjoyed during his lifetime. To understand the nature of Schopenhauer’s fame and his significance for the culture of modernity, as Angelo Pasquinelli convincingly argues in ‘La fortuna di Schopenhauer,’ we ought to follow the unfolding of his reception. Pasquinelli’s analysis reveals that Schopenhauer’s popularity at the turn of the century was based upon ‘una accettazione più o meno superficiale degli aspetti più facili e dei motivi più orecchiabili della filosofia schopenhaueriana’ [a more or less superficial recognition of the easiest aspects and the most captivating themes of his philosophy (1951: 262)]. The most disquieting and, for this reason, fruitful aspects of Schopenhauer’s philosophy were perceived only sporadically. Two rare expressions of philosophical thought that elaborated in depth upon Schopenhauer’s theories were Nietzsche’s pessimism and Jakob Burckhardt’s vision of history. Nietzsche conceived Die Geburt der Tragödie vom Geist der Musik [The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music (1872)] while teaching at the University of Basel, where he was in close contact with Burckhardt and Wagner, at that time under the deep impression of Schopenhauer’s works. In his groundbreaking study of ancient Greece, Nietzsche interpreted classical harmony as a unilateral – and, for this reason, decadent – expression of Western civilization. In opposition to Socratic rationalism, Nietzsche highlighted the coexistence of the Dionysian impulse that had brought to light the fundamental chaos and sorrow of existence through music, and the Apollonian principle that, as a reaction, had imposed the order of light and form over the disorder of darkness and becoming through sculpture. Originally, Nietzsche envisioned the epitome of Schopenhauer’s aesthetics in Wagner’s music, which heralded a potential rebirth of tragic culture. Despite his deep admiration for Schopenhauer’s cultural legacy of critical thinking in the third of his Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen [Thoughts out of Season (1874)] on Schopenhauer als Erzieher [Schopenhauer as Educator], Nietzsche gradually distanced himself from the ascetic quietism of Schopenhauer’s pessimism. Still, his picture of the ‘Schopenhauerian man [who] voluntarily takes upon himself the suffering of telling the truth’ (1909b: 142) is certainly at the root of Zarathustra’s

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active nihilism, and a crucial element of Burckhardt’s historiography as well.8 However, Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of suffering also constituted the main reason for his work’s limited resonance among his contemporaries in Germany and the rest of Europe. Schopenhauer’s philosophical pessimism was utterly untimely in the optimistic and rationalistic climate of Hegelianism and rising national states. This dissociation from the spirit of the time explains the scarce attention that Schopenhauer’s first works, including his masterpiece, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (1818, 1844), drew in the course of his lifetime. The pessimistic, irrationalistic, and atheistic traits of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, in addition to personal tensions with Hegel and his followers, determined Schopenhauer’s isolation from academic culture, as would be also the case during the first decades of Nietzsche’s reception (see 3.1, p. 158). Julius Frauenstädt was the only philosopher to become genuinely interested in Schopenhauer’s thought around 1840, while ‘the loner of Frankfurt’ attracted an extremely diverse and non-academic group of artists, journalists, and lawyers (Pasquinelli 1951: 265). It was Frauenstädt who introduced Schopenhauer to a large audience. Frauenstädt assisted him with the publication and enthusiastic review of his Parerga und Paralipomena [Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)], and his explanatory presentation of Schopenhauer’s philosophy in the Briefe über Schopenhauers Philosophie [Letters on Schopenhauer’s Philosophy (1854)]. Parerga und Paralipomena marked a turning point in Schopenhauer’s reception. The elegantly written essays of the Parerga commanded the wide attention of a bourgeois audience that had suffered deep disillusionment after the failed revolutions of 1848–9 (Pasquinelli 1951: 270–1; Sorg 1975: 14–15). In 1854 Schopenhauer was invited to Zürich, where he met among other political refugees Richard Wagner. Shortly thereafter, the ‘Meister,’ who had engaged in the 1849 Dresdner Revolution and had just completed his Ring der Niebelungen, sent Schopenhauer the libretto with his dedication. This event marked the inception of a controversial intellectual relationship between the philosopher and the composer, who would reach his creative height in the musical expression of the blind Will through Tristan und Isolde (1857). Immediately after Schopenhauer’s death in 1860, his disciples, and in particular Gwinner and Frauenstädt, published several biographical works that contributed to a superficial and apologetic portrait of Schopenhauer’s personality and thought.9 Schopenhauer’s aphorisms about women and marriage and his pessimistic motifs became fashionable readings in middle-class circles, and feuilleton novels expanded on

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Schopenhauer’s pessimism.10 In the same years and prior to the translation of Schopenhauer’s works, the first articles and books on his philosophy appeared outside of Germany, particularly in France.11 However, the first French translation of a complete work by Schopenhauer, not a partial rendition in a journal, would appear only in 1877 with the Essai sur le libre arbitre, followed by Le fondament de la morale (Paris, 1879), Aphorismes sur la sagesse dans la vie (Paris, 1888), Pensées, maximes, fragments, (Paris, 1880), De la quadruplice racine du principe de raison suffisante (Paris, 1882), and last but not least Le monde comme volonté et comme représentation (Paris-Bucharest, 1886). A superficial and apologetic representation of Schopenhauer’s philosophy mediated his belated appearance in academic circles, which focused on the significance of pessimism and irrationalism in the context of the historical post-revolutionary disillusionment. A relevant study of pessimism in European culture was Elme Caro’s Le pessimisme au XIX siècle. Leopardi, Schopenhauer, Hartmann (Paris: 1878), first published in four parts for the Revue des Deux Mondes between 1877 and 1878. Hence, it is not surprising that the theme of pessimism, and in particular its expressions through Schopenhauer and Leopardi, constituted the theoretical core of Francesco De Sanctis’s dialogical essay on ‘Schopenhauer e Leopardi,’ which introduced Schopenhauer to an Italian audience in 1858.12 A political refugee in Zürich, De Sanctis wrote his dialogue reminiscent of Leopardi’s philosophical prose and pessimistic Weltanschauung in the Operette morali [Moral Essays (1835)]. Surrounded by Schopenhauer’s followers in political exile as well, such as poet Georg Herwegh, physiologist Jakob Moleschott, philosophy scholar and literary critic Paul A. Challemel-Lacour, and composer Richard Wagner, De Sanctis devotes the main part of his essay to Schopenhauer’s philosophy, which he traces with noticeable irony and intellectual bravery. In the fictional dialogue, character ‘D’ – apparently an autobiographical rendition of the author – engages in a philosophical discussion with character ‘A’ – one of his former students and an opponent of Hegel’s Idealism. ‘D’ and ‘A’ ’s conversation unfolds during a train ride that will take them from Naples, under the Bourbon’s repression after the 1848 democratic revolution, to Zürich, at that time the Swiss shelter for political refugees from all over Europe. ‘D’ initially declares himself a staunch supporter of Schopenhauer, ‘il filosofo dell’avvenire’ [the philosopher of the future (1969: 417)] misunderstood by his contemporaries. In the course of the conversation, though, ‘D’ infuses his presentation of Schopenhauer’s philosophy with a corrosive irony, which

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reverses his judgment.13 While explaining Schopenhauer’s widespread success after the publication of Parerga und Paralipomena – which De Sanctis, fluent in German, was able to read in the original14 – the selfascribed Schopenhauerian professor of the dialogue includes in the supporters of the pessimistic philosopher ‘tutti gli uomini dell’avvenire, i malcontenti, gl’incompresi, gl’insoddisfatti’ [all men of the future, the unhappy, the misunderstood, the dissatisfied (1969: 430)]. ‘D’ intensifies his sarcasm by underscoring how even the offensive remarks about women could be easily absorbed through Schopenhauer’s conversational style and superficial erudition that please ‘i dilettanti e le dilettanti di filosofia’ [the male and female philosophical amateurs (1969: 431)].15 It is important to remember that Francesco De Sanctis had been at the forefront of the 1848 democratic revolution in Naples, endured the hardship of political imprisonment and exile, contributed as a senator and a minister to the newly born Italian nation, and, most importantly for Italian cultural history, forged Italian civil consciousness through his Storia della letteratura italiana [History of Italian Literature (1870–1)]. For this reason, De Sanctis’s irony reaches its sharpest tones when ‘D’ discusses the political consequences of Schopenhauer’s pessimism. The ‘Will’ is ‘uno stimolo cieco, inconscio che sforza a operare’ [a blind, unconscious stimulus that forces us to act (1969: 437)], which erases the individual free will and the notion of moral duty itself. Therefore, ‘D’ continues, it nullifies any undertaking in the name of moral and social ideals: ‘Il “Wille” esiste solo negli individui; patria, popolo, umanità, nazionalità sono astrazioni, concetti vuoti ... Il molteplice è apparenza, i popoli e la loro vita sono astrazioni ... La storia dunque non è scienza, ma un accozzamento di fatti arbitrari ... il progresso morale è un sogno’ [The ‘Will’ exists only in individuals; fatherland, people, mankind, nationality are abstractions ... Multiplicity is appearance, the peoples and their lives are abstractions ... History then is not a science, but a jumble of random events ... moral progress is a dream (1969: 456–7; emphasis in the text)]. Eventually, Schopenhauer’s pessimism and contemplative individualism translate into political acquiescence, which favours monarchy over democracy (1969: 454–5). The ironic strategy that structures the dialogue between ‘D’ and ‘A’ aims at drawing a comparison between Schopenhauer and Leopardi. I have pointed out elsewhere the affinities between Schopenhauerian and Leopardian pessimism (1991a: 198–204), which some followers of Schopenhauer, gathered in Zürich at the end of 1850s, noticed for the first time.16 Schopenhauer himself confirmed these analogies in the cor-

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respondence and even expressed his admiration for Leopardi in a passage added to chapter 46 of book IV of Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung.17 In De Sanctis’s dialogue, the consequence of the comparison between Schopenhauer and Leopardi is the reversal of ‘D’ ’s Schopenhauerian stance in favour of the active and politically progressive pessimism of Leopardi: D. Perché Leopardi produce l’effetto contrario a quello che si propone. Non crede al progresso, e te lo fa desiderare: non crede alla libertà, e te la fa amare. Chiama illusioni l’amore, la gloria, la virtù e te ne accende in petto un desiderio inesausto ... Pessimista ed anticosmico, come Schopenhauer, non predica l’assurda negazione del ‘Wille,’ l’innaturale astensione e mortificazione del cenobita; filosofia dell’ozio che avrebbe ridotta l’Europa all’evirata immobilità orientale, se la libertà e l’attività del pensiero non avesse vinto la ferocia domenicana e la scaltrezza gesuitica. Ben contrasta Leopardi alle passioni, ma solo alle cattive; e mentre chiama larva ed errore tutta la vita, non sai come, ti senti stringere più saldamente a tutto ciò che nella vita è nobile e grande ... (De Sanctis 1969: 465–6) [D. Because Leopardi causes the effect opposite to what he envisioned. He does not believe in progress, and he makes you long for it; he does not believe in freedom, and he makes you love it. He calls love, glory, and virtue ‘illusions,’ and he arouses in you an inexhaustible desire for them ... A pessimist and anti-cosmic, like Schopenhauer, he does not preach the absurd negation of the Will, the unnatural abstention and mortification of the cenobite; a philosophy of idleness, which would have reduced Europe to the castrated immobility of the Orient, if the liberty and activity of thought had not defeated the Dominican ferocity and Jesuitic astuteness. Leopardi does oppose passions, but only evil ones; and while he calls life as a whole ‘ghost’ and ‘error,’ you don’t know how, you feel yourself clasping more tightly every aspect of life that is noble and great ...]

It is interesting to note that Schopenhauer appeared to be unaware of the sarcastic criticism that De Sanctis’s essay exudes. In his correspondence, he praised De Sanctis, ‘che dà un’esatta disposizione della mia dottrina, che quest’italiano conosce a fondo, ha assimilato in succum et sanguinem e ne riconosce con entusiasmo la verità’ [who gives an exact rendition of my theories, which this Italian knows in detail, has assimilated in depth, and recognizes its truth with enthusiasm (Schopenhauer, Briefe, 1893, as quoted in De Lorenzo 1923: 42].

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Benedetto Croce suggested that Schopenhauer, who knew Italy and the Italian language well, pretended to find an enthusiastic reception of his thought in De Sanctis’s essay with the intention of deceiving his disciples (1927: 362). In his appreciative analysis of ‘Schopenhauer e Leopardi,’ Croce traces the cultural context in which De Sanctis wrote his essay and examines at length Schopenhauer’s epistolary reactions. As opposed to Schopenhauer’s downplaying strategy toward De Sanctis’s critical attitude and ironic approach, Croce argues that ‘l’invettiva contro le idée politiche dello Schopenhauer non è alcunché d’incidentale e di trascurabile, ma si connette a tutta la critica negativa che il De Sanctis fa della metafisica di lui; e il tono sarcastico non è già un espediente giornalistico, ma l’espressione schietta di quella stessa critica’ [The invective against Schopenhauer’s political ideas is not accidental or negligible, but is linked with De Sanctis’s overall negative critique of Schopenhauer’s metaphysics. The sarcastic tone is not merely a journalistic expedient, but rather the genuine expression of that critique (1927: 362)]. I have underlined in a previous article the repercussions that De Sanctis’s dialogical essay had on the progressive interpretation of Leopardi’s pessimism in another crucial moment of Italian history, during and after the fascist adventure (1999: 108, 122). For our purpose here it is important to focus rather on the influence that the first Italian interpretation of Schopenhauer’s philosophy had on the Schopenhauer reception in Italy. Italian culture at that time underwent a profound revision owing to the complex aftermath of political unification, rash industrialization, capitalistic explosion, and imperialistic expansion. Italian intellectuals were often torn between anachronistic views of positivistic materialism, religious spiritualism, and infatuation with ‘superhuman’ and totalitarian interpretations of Nietzsche’s philosophy (see 3.1, p. 160). In this context of intellectual uncertainties, De Sanctis’s sharp criticism of the most superficial and easily misunderstood aspects of Schopenhauer’s philosophy as they were presented in the popular Parerga und Paralipomena deeply marked the Schopenhauer reception in Italy. De Sanctis remained throughout his life a highly respected and influential voice of Italian unification and was elected first minister of public education of the Italian Kingdom from 1861 to 1862, then again in 1878, and from 1879 to 1882. It comes as no surprise, then, that Parerga und Paralipomena, which had determined the turning point in Schopenhauer’s reception in Germany and France, was not translated into Italian in its entirety until 1963!18 Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung did not enjoy a better fortune. Even if the forty-fourth chapter of the second book,

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devoted to the ‘Metafisica dell’amore’ [‘Metaphysics of Love’], had already been translated in Italian in 1863, Schopenhauer’s masterpiece was published in a complete version for the first time in 1888, exactly thirty years after De Sanctis’s essay.19 New translations appeared in 1913 and 1914. The 1914 translation, by Paolo Savy-Lopez for the prestigious Laterza series ‘Classici della filosofia moderna a cura di B. Croce e G. Gentile,’ marked a breakthrough in the publication history of this work with several editions to follow until 1930.20 Die Liebe, die Weiber und die Ehe [On Love, Women, and Marriage], containing Schopenhauer’s most derogatory aphorisms about women, which De Sanctis had criticized with sharp irony, appeared in 1881 in an appendix to an obscure publication that presented only a partial selection from the French translation.21 The Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit [Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life] had a better editorial history with a first Italian translation in 1885. Six editions of the same translation followed between 1892 and 1949. It is worth noticing that five of these six editions, the first of which dates from 1909, were published by Bocca, Turin, which introduced Nietzsche’s works to the Italian audience in 1898. According to Arthur Hübscher, a leading scholar of Schopenhauer studies, the Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit and the Parerga from which they are taken do not represent an addition to Schopenhauer’s philosophy, but simply ‘ein Rechenschaftsbericht, eine weise, gelassene und zugleich glänzende Ueberschau über die Erfahrungen eines ganzen Lebens’ [a report, a wise, relaxed, and at the same time brilliant review of the experiences of a whole life (1989: 220)]. The reason for the popularity of the Aphorismen, though, resides in their accessibility: ‘Man kann es lesen und verstehen, ohne die anderen Werke zu kennen’ [We can read and understand this book without knowing the other works (1989: 225)]. If one takes into consideration the familiarity that Deledda had with the Bocca publishing house (see 3.1, pp. 159, 187) and the readability of the Aphorismen, it appears justified to assume that Deledda had absorbed Schopenhauer’s main concepts through the brilliant reflections of the Aphorismen. As Schopenhauer states in his introduction to the Aphorismen, his aim is to trace a ‘eudemonology,’ or an introduction to ‘the art of getting through life as pleasantly as possible’ (1974b: 1: 313). However, as a consequence of his pessimistic view of immanent life as painful objectification of a transcendent Will, this eudemonology ‘is only a euphemism’ and the whole discussion on the ‘wisdom of Life’ ‘rests to a certain extent on a compromise’ (1974b: 1: 313). Schopenhauer’s philosophy achieves the ultimate goal of wisdom and happiness in life as durable liberation

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from sorrow and pain through compassion for all human beings, through chastity and poverty as expressions of ascetism. This theme of renunciation and self-effacement in the quest for happiness that transcends human constraints but does not necessarily identify with religious salvation is, as we shall see, deeply ingrained in the narrative of La danza della collana. The appreciation of Schopenhauer’s spiritualism increasingly marks the discussion of his philosophy in Italy at the end of the nineteenth century and echoes the gradual fading of Positivism. As a consequence, a new consideration of Schopenhauer’s pessimistic philosophy arises. For instance, Giuseppe Melli’s 1905 monograph, La filosofia di Schopenhauer [Schopenhauer’s Philosophy], focuses on Schopenhauer’s double vision of human nature. On the one hand, the human subject is constrained by the limitations of the empirical world through the phenomenal realization of the Will, but on the other hand, it participates in a transcendent world through the spiritual activities of art, morality, and asceticism. The renewed interest in Schopenhauer’s philosophy from a spiritualistic and anti-materialistic point of view, which confirmed the definitive crisis of Positivism in Italian culture at the beginning of the twentieth century, characterizes in particular Aurelio Covotti’s biography La vita e il pensiero di Schopenhauer [Schopenhauer’s Life and Thought (1910)]. Covotti’s volume – ‘die für lange Zeit massgebende italienische Darstellung’ [for a long time the most authoritative portrayal (of Schopenhauer’s life and work) (1981: 156)] according to Hübscher22 – also bears Bocca’s imprint, as was the case of the Aforismi sulla saggezza nella vita in the 1909 edition. Covotti’s study, which Deledda most likely knew because it was published by Bocca and widely distributed, underlines the spiritualistic aspects of Schopenhauer’s philosophy with sympathetic tones, while it relegates the most materialistic elements of it to the realm of simplified determinism. It seems interesting to note that Covotti’s book of spiritualistic tone begins with the presentation of Schopenhauer’s hereditary theory about the male element of the human personality, inherited from the father and identified with the Will, and its female principle, derived from the mother and equivalent to the intellect (1910: 1–2). This opening serves a double function, for it introduces Schopenhauer’s biography, his family and heritage, but also explains from a deterministic point of view Schopenhauer’s negative view of women as necessarily derived from his mother’s alleged misuse of her intellectual abilities through immoral behaviours (1910: 18–19).

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Covotti pursues a chronological examination of Schopenhauer’s works, which emphasizes in particular the identification of the Will with the Will-to-Live for individuals caught in the egoistic manifestations of instinct and desire. For this reason, life is, in its essence, sorrow and suffering, and earthly happiness can be only a temporary liberation from need and pain, which results in a state of boredom followed by new pain. Covotti underlines the spiritualistic relevance of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, which achieves the ultimate goal of liberation through the negation of phenomenal life and its materialistic values. This theme of ascetic renunciation is the narrative thread that interweaves the fabric of La danza della collana, and indicates Deledda’s receptiveness to the philosophical discussion of Schopenhauer’s philosophy in Italian culture at the beginning of the twentieth century. Yet, Deledda’s intellectual independence emerges more forcefully when we observe that Covotti’s influential monograph highlights Schopenhauer’s ethics, but only sporadically sheds some light on his aesthetics. Covotti neglects to discuss the spiritual and liberatory value of the arts, and in particular of music. This aspect, which had most deeply fascinated the young Nietzsche, plays a central role in the narrative structure of La danza. The same lack of attention to Schopenhauer’s aesthetics had characterized Giacomo Barzellotti’s writings on Schopenhauer (1886, 1900). While Barzellotti focuses once again on the stereotypical representation of Schopenhauer as the lonely victim of his ‘eccesso mostruoso d’individualità’ [monstrous and excessive individualism (1886: 400)], he revisits the parallel between Schopenhauer and Leopardi in an original way. Contrary to De Sanctis’s interpretation, which he never quotes, Barzellotti sees a much broader scope in Schopenhauer’s pessimism than in Leopardi’s. The reason for this resides in the consideration that Schopenhauer’s pessimism was inborn, whereas Leopardi’s pessimism derived from the painful experiences of a difficult life.23 Hence, Schopenhauer’s pessimism provided a deeper insight into the crucial problem of ‘da un lato, il bisogno, così naturale all’intelligenza umana, di ravvisare in ogni parte al di fuori di sé l’armonia, la legge, la presenza e l’opera di una ragione ordinatrice, e, dall’altro lato, l’arcano pauroso dell’esistenza del male e della colpa’ [on the one hand, the need, so natural for the human mind, to recognize everywhere outside the harmony, the law, the presence, and the work of an organizing intellect, and, on the other hand, the troubling mystery of the existing evil and guilt (1886: 520)]. Barzellotti concludes his reflections with a forceful remark on the

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profound ‘sgomento’ [dismay (1886: 525)] of the human mind on the edge of this dualism. Schopenhauer’s ability to express his deep sense of apprehension in a powerful way would explain his rising popularity in the epoch of floating values and certainties. The end of the nineteenth century marks the crisis of the modern subject ‘in molti animi, ancora sospesi dolorosamente tra l’antica fede religiosa e filosofica, scalzata in più parti dalla scienza, e la nuova, in cui non riescono a trovar riposo’ [in many souls, still painfully suspended between the old religious and philosophical faith, in many aspects undermined by science, and the new one, in which they cannot rest (1886: 525)]. It is precisely this tension between immanence and transcendence that nurtures the innovative reading of Schopenhauer’s philosophy offered by existentialist thinkers of the mid-twentieth century. According to Gianfranco Morra’s extensive study on ‘Cento anni di studi schopenhaueriani in Italia’ [‘A Hundred Years of Schopenhauer Studies in Italy’ (1964)], a turning point in the understanding of Schopenhauer’s pessimism is represented by Vittorio Mathieu’s article on ‘La dottrina delle idée di Arturo Schopenhauer’ [‘Arthur Schopenhauer’s Doctrine of Ideas’ (1960)]. Mathieu’s analysis of the mediatory role of ideas between noumenon and phenomenon in Schopenhauer’s Weltanschauung concludes that ‘[n]on si può essere pessimisti senza credere in un valore’ [it is not possible to be a pessimist without believing in a value (as quoted in Morra 1964: 285)]. The implication of a double reality, an immanent and a transcendent level of existence, highlights the moral role that Schopenhauer attributes to art as contemplation and liberation from the painful illusions of the phenomenal world. From this point of view, Schopenhauer’s pessimism transforms itself into a problematic optimism, which is open to the intrinsic doubt and desperation of the modern condition. As Eva Amendola-Kuhn, the talented translator of the Parerga into Italian, argued in her article on ‘L’ottimismo di Schopenhauer’ [‘Schopenhauer’s Optimism’ (1907)], Schopenhauer’s pessimism is ‘empirico’ [empirical] and ‘terrestre’ [earthly] and, therefore, ‘può convivere nello stesso cuore con un ottimismo “transcendentale” cioè un ottimismo “eroico” ’ [can coexist in the same heart with a ‘transcendental’ optimism, that is, with a ‘heroic’ optimism (1907: 86)]. In Schopenhauer’s philosophy, the acceptance of suffering as inherent to phenomenal existence is only the first step of a quest for the liberation from sorrow and pain, in which compassion, art, and music in particular play a fundamental role. As we shall see, Deledda perceives precisely the most original and

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problematic aspects of Schopenhauer’s ethics and aesthetics and ingrains them in the narrative of La danza della collana. Deledda’s modernity seizes some aspects of Schopenhauer’s philosophy that its reception in Italy had often neglected, and anticipates existentialist readings of Schopenhauer’s ethics and aesthetics, as our overview has indicated. As the existentialist interpretation of Schopenhauer’s philosophy suggests, Deledda’s La danza della collana charts the aesthetic representation of an ‘empirical’ pessimism that can coexist with a ‘heroic’ optimism. The optimistic aspect of this pessimism is the constant search for liberation from immanence toward transcendence, from pain toward joy. The open-ended quest for liberation from the Will-to-Live toward a different dimension of existence involves compassion, artistic contemplation, and asceticism, which Deledda integrates in the narrative structure of her novel. Far from insisting on the materialistic and politically conservative aspects of Schopenhauer’s pessimism, which the reception of his philosophy privileged at the end of the nineteenth century, Deledda shows a critical alertness that separates her from her contemporaries and once again brings her closer to Italo Svevo, the most representative voice of European modernity in Italian culture of the early twentieth century. As we have noticed in the analysis of Il segreto dell’uomo solitario, Deledda left behind D’Annunzio’s influential vitalistic and decadentistic interpretation of Nietzsche’s Uebermensch. Deledda’s rendition of Zarathustra’s active nihilism through Cristiano’s existential journey indicated the same attention to the destabilizing aspects of Nietzsche’s ethics and aesthetics that characterized Svevo’s reflections on the philosophy of the Uebermensch. In his essay Soggiorno londinese [London Stay (1927)] Svevo mentioned precisely Nietzsche’s impact on Italian literature as a clear example of the ambiguous relationship between philosophy and literature: ‘Il superuomo quando arrivò in Italia non era precisamente quello di Nietzsche. Attuato in Italia in prosa, in poesia ma anche in azione, non so se Nietzsche lo riconoscerebbe per suo e oramai sarebbe tanto peggio per lui se ne rifiutasse la paternità’ [The superman, when it arrived in Italy, was not exactly Nietzsche’s superman. I do not know if Nietzsche would acknowledge it as his own in its realizations in prose, poetry, and also action. Now it would be too late if he refused his paternity (1968a: 686)].24 In this passage Svevo alluded with his usual irony to the vitalistic manipulation and political exploitations of Nietzsche’s Uebermensch inaugurated by D’Annunzio with the consequence-bearing article of 1892, ‘La bestia elettiva’ (see 3.1, p. 159). Yet, the alteration of

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Nietzsche’s Uebermensch through its artistic renditions in Italy represented only a case in point for Svevo’s vision of the interaction between literature/art and philosophy/science: ‘Noi romanzieri usiamo baloccarci con grandi filosofie e non siamo certo atti a chiarirle: le falsifichiamo ma le umanizziamo’ [We novelists are used to toying with grand philosophical theories and we are certainly not apt to clarify them: we falsify them but we humanize them (1968a: 686)]. Svevo’s statement includes all writers who, like himself and Deledda, are attracted by a groundbreaking philosophical or scientific idea, which becomes ‘un fondamento di scetticismo, una parte misteriosa del mondo, senza della quale non si sa più pensare. E’ là, non dimenticata ma velata, e ad ogni istante accarezzata dal pensiero dell’artista’ [a foundation of scepticism, a mysterious part of the world, without which one can no longer think. It is there, not forgotten but veiled, and every moment stroked by the artist’s thought (686)]. As Gennaro Savarese convincingly argues, Svevo’s modernity surfaces already in his first short story ‘L’assassinio di Via Belpoggio’ [‘The Belpoggio-Street Murder’ (1890)]. Written in the years of Una vita [A Life (1892)], ‘L’assassinio di Via Belpoggio’ witnesses Svevo’s in-depth reading of Schopenhauer, whom he explicitely mentions in the Profilo autobiografico [Autobiographical Profile (1927)] for his impact on Una vita.25 Schopenhauer’s philosophy, and in particular his epistemological revolution, turns upside down the seemingly naturalistic structure of the story, which was closely inspired by a news item. Schopenhauer’s idea that knowledge follows will, that one knows only what the universal Will wants for him as its individual and empirical expression, overturns the traditional concept of free will: The maintenance of an empirical freedom of will, a liberum arbitrium indifferentiae, is very closely connected with the assertion that places man’s inner nature in a soul that is originally a knowing, indeed really an abstract thinking entity, and only in consequence thereof a willing entity. Such a view, therefore, regarded the will as of a secondary nature, instead of knowledge, which is really secondary. The will was even regarded as an act of thought, and was identified with the judgement, especially by Descartes and Spinoza. According to this, every man would have become what he is only in consequence of his knowledge. He would come into the world as a moral cipher, would know the things in it, and would then determine to be this or that, to act in this or that way. He could, in consequence of new knowledge, choose a new course of action, and thus become another person. Further, he would

La danza della collana 223 then first know a thing to be good, and in consequence will it, instead of first willing it, and in consequence calling it good. According to the whole of my fundamental view, all this is a reversal of the true relation. The will is first and original; knowledge is merely added to it as an instrument belonging to the phenomenon of the will. Therefore every man is what he is through his will, and his character is original, for willing is the basis of his inner being. Through the knowledge added to it, he gets to know in the course of experience what he is; in other words, he becomes acquainted with his character ... I ... say that he is his own work prior to all knowledge, and knowledge is merely added to illuminate it. Therefore he cannot decide to be this or that; also he cannot become another person, but he is once for all, and subsequently knows what he is. With those other thinkers, he wills what he knows; with me he knows what he wills. (1958: 1: 292–3; emphasis in the text)

This extensive passage explains in Schopenhauerian terms why the difference between personalities is inborn and unchangeable, as Svevo’s characters, from Giorgio of ‘L’assassinio di Via Belpoggio’ to Zeno of La coscienza di Zeno [Zeno’s Confessions (1923)], epitomize. In a late letter to Valerio Jahier, Svevo specified that ‘Schopenhauer ... considerò il contemplatore come un prodotto della natura, finito quanto il lottatore’ [Schopenhauer ... considered the contemplator as a finished product of nature like the fighter (1966: 860)]. The consequence of Schopenhauer’s derivation of human knowledge from the universal Will that determines the individual personality, its needs and desires, is twofold. On the epistemological level, this idea implies ‘l’insufficienza e i limiti di una pretesa conoscibilità del reale fondata sui fatti’ [the insufficiency and limits of an alleged possibility of knowing reality based upon facts (Savarese 1971: 421)]. On the moral level, this means the unveiling of the egoistic reasons for remorse derived from one’s evil actions, as Schopenhauer stated: ‘Pangs of conscience over past deeds are anything but repentance; they are pain at the knowledge of oneself in one own’s nature, in other words, as will’ (1958: 1: 297). Schopenhauer’s psychology identifies selfishness at the very core of the human personality underneath moral masks and claims. Schopenhauer’s controversial epistemological and moral concepts, which Nietzsche radicalized in his active nihilism beyond good and evil, become for Svevo and other voices of modernity a ‘foundation of scepticism’ that, in Svevo’s words, would constantly accompany, nurture, and energize literary and artistic creation. While Svevo refers in his Soggiorno londinese and Profilo autobiografico not only to Schopenhauer, but also to

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Nietzsche, Freud, and Einstein, Thomas Mann underscores in particular the cultural innovation that Schopenhauer’s philosophy represented through the identification of the Will with the subconscious, which paved the way to modern psychology. Despite the crucial role that Schopenhauer’s philosophy plays in Svevo’s narrative and in Deledda’s La danza della collana, we are far from suggesting a deterministic influence of a theory on a literary text. In Deledda’s case, the overview of the main themes that characterized the Schopenhauer reception in Italy at the end of the nineteenth century helps us understand Deledda’s intellectual independence and receptiveness to the ‘ricchezza e fecondità dell’opera di un filosofo il cui pensiero è stato troppe volte impoverito e banalizzato o considerato ormai fuori dall’orizzonte speculativo dell’uomo dei nostri giorni’ [richness and fertility of the work by a philosopher whose thought was impoverished and trivialized or considered off the speculative horizon of the contemporary subject (Riconda 1969: 15)]. In other words, Deledda’s narrative embodiment of Schopenhauerian motifs in La danza della collana indicates her openness to the most destabilizing expressions of philosophical modernity, which, in the case of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, paved the way to epoch-making visions of the world, from Nietzsche’s active nihilism to Freud’s psychology of the subconscious.26 The following analysis of La danza della collana aims at highlighting Deledda’s own artistic way, ‘an emotional way’ perhaps, to deal with Schopenhauer’s philosophy according to Thomas Mann’s words on the open-ended and problematic relationship between philosophy and the arts: ... one can think in the sense of a philosopher without in the last thinking according to his sense ... Here, indeed, one thought who had read Nietzsche as well as Schopenhauer and carried the one experience over into the other, setting up the most extraordinary mixture with them. But my point is the naïve misuse of a philosophy which precisely artists are ‘guilty’ of, and which I had in mind when I said that a philosophy is often influential less through its morality or its theory of knowledge, the intellectual bloom of its vitality, than by this vitality itself, its essential and personal character – more, in short, through its passion than its wisdom ... So artists go about to deal with a philosophy – they’understand’ it in their way, an emotional way: for art needs to come only to emotional, to passionate experiences, not to moral ones, whereto philosophy, as a schoolmistress, felt herself at all times obligated. (1947: 396–7)

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4.6. Schopenhauerian Themes of Modernity and La danza della collana 4.6.a. The Oscillation between Phenomenon and Noumenon As I have previously indicated (see 4.3.a, p. 195), the point of departure of Schopenhauer’s philosophy is the contrast between phenomenon and noumenon. It is not by coincidence that the character of La danza della collana who most often refers to this opposition is Giovanni Delys, who defines himself as the Schopenhauerian contemplator: [L]a mia natura è un po’ quella del contemplatore, ma di una contemplazione, dirò così, esteriore, perché mentre mi piacciono magari fino all’estasi le linee, i colori, le luci, i movimenti e le trasformazioni delle persone e delle cose, il più delle volte rimango, nel contemplarli, ugualmente piegato su me stesso, e solo di rado il paesaggio e l’ambiente della mia anima si fondono col paesaggio e l’ambiente che mi circondano. (1014) [I have somehow the nature of the contemplator, but made of, let’s say, external contemplation. For, while I go into ecstasies over lines, colours, lights, movements, and transformations of people and things, most of the time I remain inwardly bent over myself while contemplating them, and only rarely do the landscape and environment of my soul merge with the landscape and environment that surround me.]

Thanks to his nature of ‘contemplatore’ and ‘sognatore’ [dreamer (1015)], Giovanni Delys comprehends the difference between appearance and reality and, therefore, is able to rouse the young Maria Baldi from her dependence on the symbolic object of the necklace. To young Maria, who told him that she had fantasized all her adolescence about the jealously hidden necklace,27 Giovanni affirms: ‘Lei è ancora la bambina che cerca la collana come il simbolo della vita ... [I]ntanto lei, però, deve davvero liberarsi dai pregiudizi e dalle visioni della razza, e guardare in faccia la vita com’è, e decidere da lei il suo destino’ [You are still the girl who is looking for the necklace as the symbol of life ... Meanwhile, though, you have to free yourself from prejudices and the visions of race, look face to face at life as it is, and decide your own destiny by yourself (1018)]. Interestingly, Giovanni’s words intertwine phenomenal illusions not only with the deceiving ideas derived from the objectification of the Will,

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i.e. ‘pregiudizi,’ but also with the ‘visioni della razza.’ Thus, theories of the supremacy of the race, rooted in Positivism and fashionable at the time of fascist ideology, are compared to illusory concepts. The utterance ‘razza’ appears eight times in this short novel, and inevitably refers the reader to D’Annunzio’s Le vergini delle rocce (1895) and ‘La bestia elettiva’ (1892), the article that triggered the manipulation of the Nietzschean Uebermensch in Italy (see 3.1, p. 159). The myth of the race, which transforms aesthete Claudio Cantelmo, the protagonist of D’Annunzio’s Le vergini delle rocce, into the hero who has the power to create and guide a superior humanity, is reduced to the realm of illusion in Deledda’s novel. On another occasion, for instance, while young Maria complains about ‘il dominio della razza’ [the power of race (1011)] that her aunt exerts over her, Giovanni replies: ‘Nessuno di noi è libero; e schiavi della razza lo siamo un po’ tutti’ [None of us is free; and we are more or less all enslaved by race (1012)]. Race, thus, is presented as one of the many illusions that derive from the objectification of the Will. Giovanni, the ‘contemplator,’ has reached this high level of critical awareness through an arduous healing process that is not yet completed: ‘Io ero malato, prima di conoscerla, e ancora forse lo sono. Malato di cattivi sogni, di ambizioni crudeli, di una concezione quasi bestiale della vita. Volevo conquistarla, questa vita, come una preda, a qualunque costo; ero come un affamato, un dissanguato che ha bisogno di nutrirsi di carne cruda: e non mi accorgevo che il germe vero della vita era moribondo in me.’ (1019) [‘I was sick before I met you, and perhaps I still am. Sick with evil dreams, cruel ambitions, and an almost brutal concept of life. I wanted to conquer this life like a prey, at all costs; I was starving and bleeding and needed to eat raw meat: and I did not notice that the true seed of life was dying in me.’]

Contrary to Claudio Cantelmo of Le vergini delle rocce, to Stelio Effrena of Il fuoco (1900), and to Paolo Tarsis of Forse che sì, forse che no (1910), the ‘libro di vita e di morte’ [book of life and death (Colombi e sparvieri, 700)] that Mariana had donated to Giorgio/Jorgj, Giovanni Delys detaches himself from the Dannunzian myth of the superman. Still, Giovanni’s healing process from superhuman illusions is still under way. This explains why Giovanni, who had defined himself as ‘un sognatore, ma, a suo tempo, anche un uomo d’azione’ [a dreamer, but also, once, a man of action (1015)], sometimes falls back into the illusion

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of the superhuman Will-to-Power and proclaims: ‘E avrò tutto quello che vorrò, perché quello che voglio è semplicemente umano e mi è dovuto ... Voglio dominarla e conquistarla io, questa vita che giudichiamo come una cosa esteriore e che bisogna invece chiudere in noi, farla diventare noi’ [And I will have everything I want because what I want is simply human and is due to me ... I want to rule and conquer myself this life that we deem an external thing, whereas it is necessary to enclose it in ourselves, to transform it in ourselves (1016)]. Thus, Giovanni Delys’s character oscillates between the two opposite attitudes of the Dannunzian superman and the Schopenhauerian contemplator, in other words, between the illusions and the unveiling of them. Yet, it is the latter pole of this alternation that prevails in determining the narrative function and philosophical significance of Giovanni Delys’s character, as the sequence of the letter indicates. 4.6.b. The Letter Episode and the Liberation from Illusions Apparently superfluous in the development of the plot, Giovanni’s letter to the elder Maria occupies the exact centre of the novel. In this short novel, devoid of chapter numeration and division into parts, the only rhythmical partition is determined by blank intervals. The typographical pauses visually separate the sequences that rapidly follow one another, thus contributing to the ‘nudità essenziale’ [essential nudity] of the narrative that Baldini had pointed out in his 1924 article. The central position of the letter divides the novel into two thematic parts; while the first one is devoted to the power of illusions in the existential journey of the protagonists, the second one hinges on the possible liberation from appearances. The letter episode, which articulates the pivotal role of music in the difficult process of liberation, constitutes therefore a sort of mise en abîme, the ‘internal reduplication’ of the philosophical and existential quest of the novel (Baldick 1990: 138). After their wedding, the young Maria Baldi and Giovanni Delys spend their honeymoon travelling until they reach Giovanni’s childhood home on the rocky seashore: ‘Gli sposi viaggiavano: finché un giorno si fermarono nella villa al mare, come se il mare impedisse loro di andare oltre: e di là [Maria senior] ricevette una lettera di lui’ [The newlyweds travelled, until one day they stopped at the villa by the sea, as if the sea prevented them from going on: and from there the elder Maria received a letter from him (1042)]. The stay at his family house and the return to his roots by the sea represent a central stage of Giovanni’s existential

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journey, as the letter, all centred on the Schopenhauerian theme of illusion, underlines. At the beginning of his epistle, Giovanni sets the meditative tone by mentioning ‘la musica del vento che a volte però diventa infernale’ [the music of wind, which sometimes though becomes infernal (1042)] and by depicting the solitary beach animated in the evening by the dance of the ‘farfalle notturne che sono le intrepide ballerine del paese’ [nocturnal butterflies that are the dauntless ballerinas of the village (1043)]. The description of the dance corroborates Gianni Venturi’s reading of the novel as a narrative rendition of the aesthetics of Art Nouveau, which ‘concede alla danza un valore simbolico e programmatico proprio per la sua attinenza e sublimazione del movimento inteso quale specifico della vita’ [grants dance a symbolic and programmatic meaning because of its connection with and sublimation of movement as characteristic of life (Venturi 1990: 81)] in an epoch that worships movement and change.28 The symbolic significance of dance ‘come passaggio, come segno di un destino, che coinvolge tutti, colpevoli e innocenti’ [as passage, as the sign of a destiny that involves everyone, the guilty and the innocent (80)] coincides with the symbolic meaning of the dance of the necklace, which is life itself and the search for meaning and truth behind appearances. In addition, dance as a signifier incarnates the central role of the line in the functional aesthetics of the Liberty movement, which transposes into the décor of everyday objects the symbolistic attention to the line as ‘il punto di trapasso dallo spirito alla materia, il coagulo tra spirito e senso’ [the point of transition from spirit to matter, the coagulum of spirit and sense (Venturi 1990: 79)]. Young bride Maria not only likes to join the ‘farfalle notturne’ in their dance, but also is often portrayed as a Liberty silhouette, which moves through life as a ‘farfalla’ (La danza della collana, 998) dancing between the material and the spiritual: Ella se ne andava col suo passo silenzioso ed agile, sicura sui tacchi altissimi delle scarpette lucide che riflettevano il colore dorato delle calze trasparenti: e pareva fosse la carne dura delle sue gambe sottili a risplendere attraverso quel velo. Il mantello e il vestito corto svolazzavano assieme, lievemente, con un movimento di piacere e di scherzo, felici di andarsene in giro; e tutta l’armoniosa figura di lei, sullo sfondo di quelle grandi strade nuove che non finivano neppure all’orizzonte e parevano fatte per lei, per condurla nel mondo, si muoveva con un passo di danza, sull’arco fra il tacco e le scarpette luminose. (1000)

La danza della collana 229 [She walked with her quiet and agile pace, confident on the very high heels of the tiny polished shoes that reflected the golden colour of her transparent stockings: and it seemed as if the firm flesh of her slender legs shone through that veil. Her cloak and short dress fluttered together, softly, with a movement that expressed pleasure and wit, happy to go around; and her harmonious figure as a whole, against the backdrop of those large new streets that did not even end at the horizon and seemed to be made for her, to lead her into the world, moved with a dance step, on the arch between the heels and the little shiny shoes.]

Already in this early passage of the novel the connection between the symbolic meaning and the representation of the dance according to the aesthetics of Art Nouveau is enriched with the reference to the Schopenhauerian theme of the veil of illusions. In Giovanni’s letter to the elder Maria, the kernel of the novel, the image of the dance articulates exactly this theme and traces a path of liberation from the destiny of suffering that phenomenal illusions generate. Dance transfers the spiritual specificity of music into the realm of the material, thus making music’s invisible power visible. In La danza, and particularly in the letter sequence at its centre, music represents the first stage of the process of liberation from illusions toward a lasting inner peace according to Schopenhauer’s philosophy (see 4.3.b, p. 196). The music of the nocturnal dance on the beach, indeed, goes beyond ‘la musica dell’orchestrina lievemente sborniata’ [the music of the slightly drunk village band (1043)], to introduce ‘la grande musica del mondo lontano portata dalla fantasia come il rumore del mare dalla conchiglia’ [the grand music of the far-off world, brought by imagination as the noise of the ocean is carried by the shell (1043)]. It is this far-reaching music that unveils the unity of human beings in the universal search for happiness beyond the pain of phenomenal illusions. For, in Giovanni’s words, ‘[i]n fondo siamo tutti eguali ... Tutti intenti alle voci e ai richiami di un mondo di gioia e di bellezza che è oltre i confini della terra’ [in fact we are all equal ... All intent on the voices and calls from a world of joy and beauty that is beyond the frontiers of earth (1043)]. It is this music, the source of the most spiritual aesthetic contemplation after Schopenhauer, which accompanies mankind on the journey to liberation. Yet, artistic contemplation provides only a temporary freedom from need and desire. This is what Giovanni implies in his veiled reference to the perilous beginning of Dante’s pilgrimage in the ‘selva oscura’ [dark

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wood, trans. Hollander], which reads: ‘Alcuni, nel desiderio di questo regno [di gioia e bellezza] col quale ancora non esistono vie di comunicazione sicura, si smarriscono come bambini soli in una grande città o, peggio ancora, in un bosco’ [Some of us, in the desire for this reign of joy and beauty, under which ways of safe communication do not yet exist, lose our way like children alone in a big city or, even worse, in a forest (1043)]. The literary topos of the voyage as geographical and moral wandering, which recurs throughout Deledda’s production (see 1.7.a, p. 66, 2.2, p. 99, and 3.2, p. 166), brings to the foreground the tension between the natural and the urban dimensions that had surfaced in Deledda’s comments on La danza in her letter to Marino Moretti. In the first part of the novel, Giovanni’s existential journey from the sea of his childhood to the almost surreal ‘città nuova’ [new city (997)], as he explains to Maria in a flashback, had unfolded by chance, following ‘il caso che in fondo è il filo di questa collana di giorni che è la vita’ [the chance that is essentially the string of this necklace of days that is life (1008)].29 In the second part of the narrative subsequent to the letter, the topos of the voyage emerges in the existential journey of the elder Maria Baldi. The letter determines in the elder Maria ‘un improvviso bisogno di cambiar vita [che] spinse Maria a uscir di casa’ [a sudden urgency to change life that drove her to leave the house (1045)] because it reveals the illusory character of phenomenal life. In her wandering through the city of consumerism and false idols, the abrupt switch from the diegetic past tense to the mimetic present tense, which characterizes with a typically Deleddian move the juxtaposition of the narrating voice and the interior monologue (see 1.4, p. 52), underscores the revealing effect of the letter with ironic and estranging effects: Cammina, cammina, donna, e non ti fermare più neppure davanti a quel firmamento brillante di tutte le costellazioni e di tutti i colori dell’iride che è la vetrina dell’orefice: tu non hai da desiderare niente, lì, perché nessuno di quei gioielli è più bello del tuo. Eppure si fermò, per la rivelazione improvvisa di quello che l’aveva spinta a uscire di casa. Sapeva finalmente dove voleva andare, e poiché era un luogo alquanto distante aspettò il tram e vi salì. (1046) [Walk, walk, woman, and do not stop any more, not even in front of the firmament sparkling with all constellations and all colours of the rainbow that

La danza della collana 231 is the goldsmith’s window. There is nothing for you to desire there, because none of those jewels is more beautiful than yours. Yet, she stopped, because of the abrupt revelation of what had thrust her to go out. She finally knew where she wanted to go, and since it was rather far away, she waited for the streetcar and took it.]

The destination of the elder Maria’s wandering through the deceits of the modern city is the bank in which she has literally buried the precious necklace. In the metaphorical, infernal descent to the underground safe, the elder Maria performs an unsettling religious ritual that is described with symbolistic colours and culminates in the resurrection of the pearl necklace and the life that it represents: ‘E un chiarore d’aurora brillò fra tutto quel bianco sepolcrale: sul raso rosso dell’astuccio spalancato i grani della collana ridevano come denti nella bocca d’un bambino’ [And the brightness of dawn sparkled in all that sepulchral white: on the red satin of the wide-open case the beads of the necklace laughed like teeth in a child’s mouth (1049)]. The theme of the existential voyage and the wanderings connected with the illusions of the world, from which music can provide liberation, is enclosed in the image of the blind female singer, which Giovanni depicts in the second part of his letter. The celestial singing coming from the shore reminds Giovanni and the young Maria of the beautiful aria accompanied by the organ in the church the evening of their first encounter. Yet, while that singing had encouraged their passion, as was the case in Boine’s novel Il peccato [Sin (1914)], the singing of the blind singer induces the lovers to understand the illusory nature of the world’s passions. The blind singer is one of the Dantesque pilgrims lost in the woods: ‘Fra gli altri c’è qui una donna che si aggira continuamente nella spiaggia e nei viali intorno al paese, una ex-cantante che ebbe qualche successo nei teatri di provincia, adesso pazza e nella più completa miseria’ [Among others here is a woman who constantly wanders about the beach and the boulevards of the village, a former singer who was quite successful in provincial theatres, now mad and in extreme misery (1043)]. Giovanni reads the singer’s madness in Schopenhauerian terms as a painful consequence of her inability to tear the veil of illusions and grasp the nothingness of her desire ‘dell’infinito amore, dell’infinita grandezza il cui sogno impossibile l’ha deformata e chiusa in questa sua maschera di follia’ [for infinite love and infinite greatness, the impossible dream of which has deformed and enclosed her in her mask of folly

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(1044)]. The singer’s intellectual blindness, namely her former belief in attaining enduring happiness through love and success, determined the physical blindness of ‘gli occhi azzurri come insanguinati [che] non si chiudono mai, fissi in una vaga lontananza’ [the blue eyes, somehow covered with blood, which never close, staring at a vague remoteness (1044)]. The singer’s eyes stand out in her ‘maschera di follia’ that coincides with her body, which disguises the beauty of her spirit expressed through her singing. As Giovanni points out, ‘[q]uasi tutti noi, del resto, siamo così; il corpo nostro è una veste spesso grottesca che nasconde la bellezza e la giovinezza del nostro spirito: se si vivesse ciechi forse la vita sarebbe migliore; ci si incontrerebbe e ci si conoscerebbe meglio al suono della nostra voce’ [almost all of us are like this; our bodies are often grotesque garments that conceal the beauty and youth of our spirits: if we were blind, perhaps life would be better; we would meet each other and know each other better according to the sound of our voices (1044)]. The dualism of body and spirit is, according to Schopenhauer’s philosophy, one of the infinite expressions of the opposition between phenomenon and noumenon. In the letter episode this dualism is linked by contrast to music and the penetration of errors and illusions that music grants. The ancient mythical motif of clear-sighted blindness experienced a revival during Decadentism, and found compelling expressions in D’Annunzio’s works, for instance with Anna’s blind character in La città morta [The Dead City (1896)] and through the first-person exploration of darkness in the experimental and ‘semifictional prose of remembrance, description, and reflection’ that was Notturno [Nocturne (1921)] (Valesio 1992: xviii).30 In La danza the blindness topos provides insight into the noumenon, usually shadowed by the appearances of the phenomenon, which is prepared by the deep, spiritual contemplation of music. 4.6.c. The Ultimate Liberation through Asceticism The painstaking revelation of the illusory character of human existence, which the elder Maria has experienced through Giovanni’s letter, enables her to acknowledge a universal destiny of suffering that can be overcome through compassionate love of fellow beings and ascetic renunciation of material needs. From this Schopenhauerian point of view, the elder Maria has decided to forgo the illusions of life, such as sentimental love and riches: ‘E non aspettava più nulla, non sperava più

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in nulla; e le pareva che la vita la lasciasse in pace perché lei si contentava di quanto possedeva, del tepore della casa, del buon cibo, del sole sulla terrazza ... [E] furono giorni felici’ [And she did not expect anything more, did not hope for anything, and it seemed to her that life left her in peace because she was content with what she possessed, with the tepidness of the house, the good food, the sun on the terrace ... And these were happy days (1072)]. On the one hand, with regard to sentimental life, the elder Maria rejects the love offered by the doctor, for ‘[A] che giova sognare? Egli è l’uomo, lei la donna, nella loro eterna separazione; e si cercano, e non si trovano, nel deserto chiaro e infinito dell’illusione, e se riescono a incontrarsi si feriscono come nemici’ [What is the use of dreaming? He is the man, she is the woman, in their eternal separation; and they seek each other, and they do not find each other, in the bright and infinite desert of illusion, and if they succeed in finding each other, they hurt each other like enemies (1073)]. On the other hand, with regard to material wealth, the elder Maria gives up the pearl necklace to donate it to the baby girl born to the young Maria and Giovanni. The letter, which functions as the mise en abîme of the philosophical and existential journey articulated throughout the novel, enables the elder Maria Baldi to continue her voyage toward the liberation from illusions. Reluctant at first, she eventually accepts Giovanni’s invitation to meet the newborn. Once she arrives at the villa, the beauty of the seascape that frames the solitary building and the vision of the baby’s laundry hanging to dry in the sun touch the elder Maria. Her reaction, as the implied narrator underscores, indicates that Maria’s asceticism includes relinquishing feelings and material possessions in order to preserve a lasting freedom: ‘Ma si ritorse subito contro il suo turbamento; non voleva commuoversi oltre ... E voleva salvarla, la sua libertà, come la vita stessa, a costo di tutto’ [But she immediately turned against her commotion; she did not want to be moved more in depth ... And she wanted to save her freedom, like life itself, at all costs (1078)]. For the sake of freedom, the liberation from illusion, need, and desire, which she has reached through ascetic practices initiated by the revelation of Giovanni’s letter, the elder Maria intends to bestow the necklace upon the little girl. Before entering the house, Maria takes the necklace out of her purse, and the luminous air infuses the pearls with new light and life: ‘e parve che il sangue della loro vita misteriosa si ridestasse in loro. / Ella aveva portato la collana per donarla alla bambina, come un’offerta alla vita stessa: ma che la lasciassero finalmente in pace, come si lasciano i morti’ [and it looked as if the blood of their mysterious life awoke. / She

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had brought the necklace to give it to the girl, as an offer to life itself: but leave her finally in peace, as they let the dead rest in peace (1079)]. The scene in which the elder Maria presents the newborn with the pearl necklace takes place in the baby’s bedroom immersed in solitude and silence. The omniscient narrator skilfully prepares the reader for the revelation of the mystery surrounding the house, which the elder Maria had already perceived at the threshold. The first encounter between the elderly woman and her newborn niece is introduced by two similes that compare the wailing of the baby to the sound of a violin, because ‘già aveva un suono forte e un tono di lamento e di canto’ [it already had a strong sound and a moaning and singing tone (1082)]. The veiled allusion to music and its pivotal role in the revelation of the illusory character of phenomenal life, thematized in the letter sequence with the character of the blind singer, goes further into the symbolic image of the veil that covers the baby’s cradle. The semantic field of the ‘veil’ dominates with five appearances in the last three pages of the novel, thus creating a parallelism with the semantic field of the ‘illusion’ that prevailed in the sequence of the blind singer (1044). Finally securing the clasp of the necklace around the baby’s neck, Maria first ‘sollevò il velo’ [lifted up the veil (1083)], the green veil that wrapped the cradle in an atmosphere suspended between the vegetable and the marine kingdom, and ‘[p]oi raggiustò il velo e le parve di aver buttato la collana nell’acqua del mare’ [then she rearranged the veil and it seemed to her to throw the necklace in the seawater (1083)]. The pearls, thus, return to the natural dimension from where they came, when they are presented to a new life. This is an act of ascetic renunciation that follows the deep recognition of essence behind appearance, to which musical contemplation has paved the way. As a result of this new consciousness, the elder Maria grasps the fundamental unity of all human beings as determined by the common destiny of sorrow. She perceives that behind the freshly painted housedoor ‘c’era una miseria da aiutare, un dolore che si nascondeva quasi pauroso’ [there was a misery in need of help, a pain that was hiding almost in fear (1079)], and looks at the girl ‘con una specie di cordiale benevolenza’ [with a certain benevolence from the heart (1083)]. Giovanni alludes to this fundamental unity in suffering, from which the Schopenhauerian ethics of sympathy derives, when he enters the room and exhorts the elder Maria to take the baby in her arms: ‘Prendi la bambina: guardala. Tu le hai dato un peso del quale credi di liberarti, ma che ti opprimerà più che mai. Era già unita a te, anche senza questa catena, la

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bambina, come siamo uniti tutti, morti e viventi, nell’errore e nell’espiazione’ [Take the girl: look at her. You gave her a burden, from which you hoped to free yourself, but it will oppress you more than ever. The girl was already united with you, also without this chain, as we all are united, dead and alive, in error and expiation (1084)]. When for the last time Giovanni removes the veil and places the girl in Maria’s arms, the process of unveiling the truth, which he had begun in Maria’s life with his letter, is completed: ‘E con un senso di vertigine ella s’avvide che gli occhi della bambina non si chiudevano, nati morti alla luce vana della terra’ [And in a fit of dizziness she noticed that the girl’s eyes did not close, born dead to the vain light of earth (1085)]. The unsettling closure of the novel with the oxymoronic dyad of the eyes ‘nati morti’ underscores the necessity of tearing the veil of phenomenal illusion in order to reach the Schopenhauerian noluntas, the utmost negation of the voluntas, the Will, through asceticism. For asceticism, the fundamental ‘denial of the Will-to-Live’ (Schopenhauer 1958: 1: 383; emphasis in the text), allows the overcoming of egoism, conflict, and sorrow. 4.6.d. The Liberatory Role of Music in Deledda’s Dance of and with Modernity The negation of the Will-to-Live is also at the core of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde (first performed in 1865 and written between 1857 and 1859), which marks the composer’s conversion to Schopenhauer’s philosophy. Wagner read Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung for the first time in 1854, when he was composing acts 2 and 3 of Die Walküre [The Valkyrie]. Tristan und Isolde was the first completely new work that Wagner conceived in the wake of Schopenhauer’s philosophy. The remarkable impact that Schopenhauer’s pessimistic Weltanschauung and aesthetics had on him can be summarized in Wagner’s own words from a December 1854 letter to Liszt. There, he welcomes the ‘rediscovery’ of Schopenhauer’s philosophy after 1851 despite the Hegelian ‘charlatans’ of his time (see 4.5, p. 212), and then he continues: His chief idea, the final negation of the desire of life, is terribly serious, but it shows the only salvation possible ... If I think of desire, it used to cling to the hope of life, and even now I feel this hurricane within me, I have at least found a quietus which in wakeful nights helps me to sleep. This is genuine, ardent longing for death, for absolute unconsciousness, total non-existence. Freedom from all dreams is our final salvation ... As I have never in life felt the real bliss of love, I must erect a monument to the most beautiful

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of all my dreams, in which, from beginning to end, that love shall be thoroughly satiated. I have in my head Tristan and Isolde, the simplest but most full blooded musical conception. With the black flag that floats at the end of it I shall cover myself to die. (As quoted in Magee 1997: 379)

The satiation with love and the subsequent desire for death correspond roughly to the kernel of Tristan und Isolde. The two lovers become victims of the love potion that their attendant administers them in place of the death potion that they had ordered to escape the unbearable pain of not fulfilling their love in this world. At the end they are overwhelmed to the extreme by the passion that they had hoped to repress. Nevertheless, they realize that a total unity through love is not attainable in the phenomenal world of differentiation, but rather in the noumenal realm of undifferentiated oneness outside space and time. Hence, ‘[e]ach finally embraces death not only as the cessation of an otherwise unfulfillable longing but also as the loss of self-identity in an ultimate merging with the other’ (Magee 1997: 381). With Tristan, ‘the simplest but most full blooded musical conception,’ Wagner sets the premises for the breaking of tonality in the musical language of modernity. In the very first chord he introduces two dissonances, of which only one finds resolution, according to a pattern of ‘discord and reconciliation,’ of dissonance and consonance, which Schopenhauer had described in Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (1958: 2: 455–6). This disconcerting ‘suspension’ finds final and whole resolution only at the end of the musical poem, when Isolde unites with Tristan in death. Wagner’s Tristan is, therefore, ‘a sort of musical equivalent of Schopenhauer’s doctrine that existence is an inherently unsatisfiable web of longings, willings, and strivings from which the only permanent liberation is the cessation of being’ (Magee 1997: 380). Wagner’s rendition of the unsatisfiable tension of the lovers hinges upon the imagery of day and night ‘as key symbols for the phenomenal and the noumenal’ (Magee 1997: 382). Contrary to the Western tradition anchored in the Old Testament, Wagner bestows Schopenhauer’s fundamental distinction between phenomenon and noumenon upon day and night, i.e. light and darkness. Day and light correspond to the phenomenal world of ephemeral appearances and illusions that give rise to the false values that inflict constant pain in their worshipers. Conversely, night and darkness relate to the noumenal world of permanent reality, ‘the only something that timelessly and undifferentiatedly is, the aboriginal spaceless – and therefore

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lightless – oneness of being from which we were expelled at birth and to which we long to return’ (Magee 1997: 382–3). Tristan’s powerful imagery and contrasting chromatism, derived from Schopenhauer’s philosophy, find an equivalent in La danza’s landscape imagery. The sudden, piercing presence of symbolistic seascapes after the surrealistic images of urban landscapes underlines the oxymoronic significance of the conclusive image of he novel, focused on the girl’s open eyes ‘nati morti alla luce vana della terra’ [born dead to the vain light of earth (1085)]. Suffice it to mention here the visual imagery that accompanies the arrival of the elder Maria at the fishermen village near the villa: Le casette, a destra della strada erbosa che fiancheggia il canale del porto, riparate sotto una nuvola verde e scintillante di robinie, gettavano dalle porticine alte le loro scalette di mattoni, invitandola a entrare: e i gatti che vigilavano le soglie la guardavano con la loro placidezza di animali sacri. Dall’altra parte della strada, fra un tronco e l’altro delle grandi robinie nodose, lungo la banchina del canale, pendevano festoni di vecchie reti rossiccie e di reti bionde appena tessute, tutte onduleggianti, coi loro pendagli di sughero, come vesti di donne: e attraverso il loro velo ardeva il croco delle vele ferme, il cui riflesso incendiava e riempiva di serpenti luminosi l’acqua increspata del canale. Una vecchietta mattiniera, seduta sotto una robinia, filava la canapa per le reti, tirando il filo da un fuso più alto di lei; e pareva la parca del luogo, il simbolo di quella vita semplice il cui alito spirava intorno con l’alito della terra e del mare. Altri quadretti animavano lo sfondo azzurro grandioso ... (1076–7) [The little houses, on the right of the grass-grown way along the harbour canal, protected by a green and sparkling cloud of robinias, launched down from the small doors up there their narrow brick stairs, inviting her to enter: and the cats that watched over the thresholds looked at her with the placidity of sacred animals. On the other side of the street, between one and the other knotty stem of the large robinias, along the wharf, festoons of old, reddish nets were hanging along with golden-blond, just woven nets, undulating with their cork pendants like women’s clothes: and through their veil the saffron made of the still sails was glowing and its reflection set the ruffled water of the canal on fire and filled it up with bright snakes. In the early morning, a little, old woman, sitting under the robinia, was spinning the hemp for the fishing net, pulling the thread from a spindle

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that was taller than she; and she looked like the Fate of the place, the symbol of that simple life whose breath blew around with the breath of earth and sea. Other little pictures enlivened the majestic, blue background ...]

As previously mentioned (see 3.2, p. 166), the relationship between Deledda’s work and visual arts has repeatedly attracted critical attention. Yet, La danza witnesses a sort of artistic synergy that goes beyond the ‘narrare visivo’ [visual narration (Di Zenzo 1979)] of the so-called ‘Sardinian’ novels. The interweaving of different art forms in the narrative texture of La danza reminds one rather of Wagner’s projected Gesamtkunstwerk, the ‘global’ work of art that could encompass all artistic expressions in its form, all human experiences and emotions in its subject matter, and therefore all audiences. Wagner’s encounter with Schopenhauer’s aesthetics, though, modified this vision of an equal relationship among different arts toward the supremacy of music according to Schopenhauer’s hierarchy among arts.31 This synergy among different art forms with a predominant role granted to music breathes through the narrative of La danza. Alongside the numerous visual pictures of urban and marine landscapes, musical pictures take shape, and they complement altogether the ‘scarnezza’ and ‘scarnificazione’ of plot and characters that De Michelis and Dolfi noted (see 4.1, pp. 190–1). The implied narrator depicts one of the most expressive musical pictures of the novel: E di là dal silenzio azzurro che allagava la casa si sentiva adesso la voce della città. Ed era come il ronzìo della febbre che dopo il tramonto stordisce l’ammalato: un mormorio di delirio stanco, un roteare incessante, un labirinto senza uscita; e gridi, suoni di campane, fischi di sirene intrecciati in una spira soffocante; e vibrazioni d’incudini disperate, e un rombo, un rombo di fiume umano stretto fra gli argini del cielo e della terra. A poco a poco il rumore prendeva un tono armonioso e solenne. Sembrava un’orchestra fatta di mille strumenti; e suonava la sinfonia del bene e del male, del dolore e della gioia della grande città: e l’accompagnava un coro di pellegrini in viaggio verso il paese dell’eternità. (1026–7) [And beyond the blue silence that flooded the house, one could now hear the voice of the city. And this was like the feverish buzzing that dazes the sick after dusk: a whispering of weary frenzy, an unceasing swinging in a labyrinth without exit; and screams, bell sounds, siren whistles all intertwined in

La danza della collana 239 a suffocating spiral; and vibrations of desperate anvils, and a roar, a roar of a human stream clenched between the narrow banks of sky and earth. Little by little the noise reached a harmonious and solemn tone. It sounded like an orchestra made of thousand instruments; and it was playing the symphony of good and evil, of sorrow and joy in the big city: and was accompanied by a chorus of pilgrims on their journey to the eternal place.]

The ‘sinfonia del bene e del male’ and the ‘coro di pellegrini in viaggio verso il paese dell’eternità’ insert the individual destinies of the novel’s protagonists in a universal context. This holds in particular for Giovanni Delys, whose journey beyond the world of appearances and illusions had begun as contemplation of the essence of his life created by the musical experience in the church: ‘L’uomo chiude gli occhi come vinto dal sonno: or gli pare di esser uscito dalla foresta e di staccarsi dalla terra: e viaggia in mare, come Tristano malato, verso un paese sconosciuto dove la sua vita deve ricominciare e rinnovarsi alle radici’ [The man closes his eyes as if he were conquered by sleep: now it seems to him that he is out of the forest and has detached himself from earth: and he travels on the sea, like sick Tristan, toward an unknown land where his life must begin anew from the roots (1027)]. The reference to Tristan’s journey toward the noumenal world of quintessential reality inextricably links Giovanni, ‘l’uomo,’ and thus all human beings, to their remote belonging to the realm of oneness and indefiniteness. The above passages re-establish the connection with the original unity devoid of painful distinctions, needs, and desires through the contemplative experience of music and enable the reader to see Schopenhauer’s aesthetics of music at work: ‘Music does not express this or that particular and definite pleasure, this or that affliction, pain, sorrow, horror, gaiety, merriment, or peace of mind, but joy, pain, sorrow, horror, gaiety, merriment, peace of mind themselves’ (Schopenhauer 1958: 1: 261). Moreover, the reference to Tristan provides the reader with an interpretive key to the novel that had deeply disoriented even sympathetic critics of Deledda’s modernity such as De Michelis. In La danza, Deledda implements intertextuality as a subtle device to merely allude to the presence of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, and in particular his aesthetics of music and ethics of asceticism, as the threads that weave the fabric of the narrative with the crisis of the modern subject. By renouncing the open and at times too obvious intertextual strategy of Colombi e sparvieri (see 4.4, p. 201), Deledda succeeds with La danza in transposing philosophi-

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cal thoughts of Schopenhauerian descent into narrative structures and forms. Thus, Schopenhauer’s philosophy performs here the central function of ‘un fondamento di scetticismo’ [a foundation of scepticism], which, in Svevo’s words, constantly nurtures artistic reflection and expression (see 4.5, p. 222). Hence, La danza expresses Deledda’s own artistic ‘emotional way’ to handle the philosophical revolution of Schopenhauer’s philosophy that Mann had underscored so forcefully (see 4.5, p. 224). In addition, this late novel bears witness to Deledda’s openness to the most disquieting aspects of modernity and, for this reason, her intellectual independence from the fashionable interpretations of Schopenhauer’s philosophy in her time. As she indicated the same openness and independence in the articulation of Nietzsche’s active nihilism in Il segreto dell’uomo solitario, in La danza Deledda stresses aspects of Schopenhauer’s philosophy that were completely disregarded in its critical reception among Deledda’s contemporaries. Deledda’s receptiveness to the thought of modernity as ‘un fondamento di scetticismo’ explains the revelatory and liberatory role of music and the crucial function of compassion and asceticism in the quest for lasting freedom from illusions and false values that runs throughout La danza. 4.7. An Open-Ended Conclusion In sum, La danza della collana symbolizes not only the dance of the ‘collana di giorni che è la vita’ [the necklace of days that is life (1008)], but also the dance of and with modernity that passes through the most representative expressions of the epochal crisis at the turn of the century, from Schopenhauer to Wagner, from Nietzsche to Pirandello. La danza della collana represents the narrative result of Deledda’s dance of and with modernity, which we have charted in the rich cultural and philosophical texture of La via del male, Cenere, and Il segreto dell’uomo solitario. Deledda’s La danza poignantly embodies the ‘carattere ansiosamente sperimentale’ [anxiously experimental character (De Michelis 1938: 48)] ingrained in her narrative, while interweaving different and complementary artistic dimensions and swarming with flashbacks, interior monologues, and estranging insertions of Pirandellian humour. In the context of modernity, the journey of ‘Tristano malato’ is also the open-ended journey of the self-taught, marginalized Sardinian writer, from La via del male to La danza della collana and beyond, toward the European culture of the modern crisis in the attempt to reach the essence behind appearances. This is the unended quest that Deledda

La danza della collana 241

identifies with artistic expression, as a note inspired once again by music suggests: Domenica avremo la Nona sinfonia all’Augusteo: io l’aspetto con più desiderio degli altri anni. Solo accostandoci con religione ai capolavori possiamo tentare di migliorarci un poco, o almeno di elevarci e di respirare come dalle cime dalle quali poi, purtroppo, bisogna ridiscendere: basta respirare un poco, un attimo, vedere, per un attimo, l’infinito, intorno a noi. La vita sta tutta in questi attimi: il resto non conta nulla, è caos, onda che va e viene. (Lettere a Marino Moretti, 1959: 25) [On Sunday we will have Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the Augusteo Theatre: I am awaiting it with deeper desire than in other years. Only by approaching masterpieces with a religious attitude can we try to better ourselves a little, or at least to rise and breathe as if we were on a mountain top from which, unfortunately, we have to descend: it is enough to breathe a little, for a moment, to see, for a moment, the infinite, around us. Life is all contained in these moments: the rest does not count for anything, it is chaos, a wave that comes and goes.]

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Notes

Introduction 1 All English translations and emphases are mine if not indicated otherwise. 2 Deledda participated in Angelo De Gubernatis’s ethnological research for his journal, Rivista delle tradizioni popolari italiane, between 1894 and 1895. Her contributions on her native region’s traditions appeared in book form with the title Tradizioni popolari di Nuoro in Sardegna (1894). On Deledda’s ethnological research, see 1.1.a, p. 25. 3 Martha King’s volume is the second Deledda biography in English after Carolyn Balducci’s A Self-Made Woman: Biography of Nobel-Prize-Winner Grazia Deledda (1975). 4 In his detailed Bibliografia deleddiana (1938: 9–10) Branca specifies that Deledda wrote thirty-five novels including Stella d’Oriente [Star of the Orient], published under the pseudonym of Ilia di Saint Ismail, and Memorie di Fernanda [Fernanda’s Memoirs], which appeared only in L’Ultima Moda (1888– 9) and never had a volume edition. For a specific and detailed bibliography of Deledda’s short stories, I refer to Mura 2002 and 2003–4. 5 Deledda is never mentioned in Ceserani’s contribution to the rich volume edited by Luca Somigli and Mario Moroni, Italian Modernism: Italian Culture between Decadentism and Avant-Garde, nor is she ever cited in the entire 459page volume. Deledda’s name appears only once in a secondary reference in Debenedetti’s 757-page study on Il romanzo del Novecento (1971: 131), as an example of a non-‘frammentista’ [fragmentary, anti-naturalistic] author included in the poetry anthology Poeti d’oggi (1900–20), edited by Papini and Panzini. Debenedetti refers laterally to Deledda only once also in the 1724page volume containing all his essays and other writings, as an expression of the same mythopoetic force of Sardinia that also inspired her fellow Sardinian writer Giuseppe Dessì (Saggi 1999: 1198).

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6 Deledda could well be part of the epoch-making study of Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, No Man’s Land: The Place of the Woman Writer in the Twentieth Century, as an example of ‘the construction of a literary history that denies the reality of women writers’ particularly in the period of modernity, which saw not only an increasingly successful struggle for women’s emancipation, but also an incrasingly successful literary production by women and, therefore, ‘the rise of the female imagination was a central problem for the twentiethcentury male imagination’ (1988: 153, 156). 7 Posthumously edited and published in 1937 by Antonio Baldini with the arbitrary title Cosima, quasi Grazia, Deledda’s autobiographical novel has received the most critical attention. Amid several interesting critical analyses of Cosima, I would like to mention here only Daniela Cavallero’s (1993), Giovanna Cerina’s (1992b), Giuliana Sanguinetti Katz’s (1994b), and Patrizia Zambon’s (1989) contributions. 8 For an intriguing analysis of this theme see Guiso 2005: 117–36. 9 For the problematic situation of Sardinia after the Italian unification I refer to the rich volume of the Einaudi series, edited by Luigi Berlinguer and Antonello Mattone, Storia d’Italia. Le regioni dall’Unità ad oggi. La Sardegna (1998), and to Luciano Marrocu’s essay (1992). 10 It suffices to mention the episode of the field trip to the wild Gennargentu mountains. The primitive dwelling excavated in the granite rocks reconnects Cosima with the mythical ‘nonnina’ [little grandmother], so closely reminiscent of the ‘janas,’ the little fairies of the rock houses of Sardinian legends, and a constant epitome in Cosima’s dreams and memories of Jungian archetypes. This natural environment provides Cosima with a mythical-religious frame for her first writing endeavours (Cosima 1971: 759–61). 11 A significant presence of these traditions is the legend of the mouflon, recounted by an old servant, which fascinates Cosima, for ‘il mistero della favola, quel silenzio finale, grave di cose davvero grandiose e terribili, il mito di una giustizia sovrannaturale, l’eterna storia dell’errore, del castigo, del dolore umano’ [the mystery of the tale awoke in her a profound, almost physical impression – that final silence, heavy with truly magnificent and terrible things, the myth of supernatural justice, the eternal story of horror, punishment, human sorrow (Cosima 1971: 717; trans. King, 27)]. 1. ‘On the Way’ to Modernity: La via del male 1 The definition of La via del male as ‘una sorta di laboratorio’ comes from Cerina 2000: 16, who also refers to the short story with a documentary feel

Notes to pages 22–31

2 3

4

5

6 7

8

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‘Gonare,’ published in five instalments in Vita Sarda from October to December 1892, as an antecedent of a central chapter of the novel. Throughout this chapter we will refer to the three volume editions of La via del male as A (1896), B (1906), and C (1916). Provaglio was crucial in introducing the young Sardinian author into the Rome publishing world. He was the chief editor and director of several popular journals published by Perino of Rome, such as Il Paradiso dei Bambini, L’Ultima Moda, and L’Illustrazione per tutti, which featured Deledda’s early short fiction. As a sign of gratitude and friendship, Deledda dedicated her novel Fior di Sardegna [Sardinian Flower (1891)] to Epaminonda Provaglio under the pseudonym of Contessa Elda di Montedoro, which he often used to sign his articles for a female audience. See Deledda’s letter of 1890 to Maggiorino Ferraris, in which she seeks his support for the publication of the novel in preparation for the Rome-based publisher Perino (Versi e prose giovanili, 237). Interesting comments about other possible titles such as Pietro Benu and Genti ignote [Unknown Folks] emerge in another letter to E. Provaglio of 2 February 1894, Opere scelte, 1: 1060–1, thus confirming Deledda’s early awareness of marketing strategies (Sanguinetti Katz 1996: 30). On Deledda’s ethnological research, see Turchi 2004 and Alziator 1972: vii–xx. On the ‘scientific’ analysis of Sardinian banditry as coexisting with a romanticized view of the bandit as romantic hero (which Sardinian writer Enrico Costa nurtured in his 1885 biography of legendary bandit Giovanni Tolu) and for a pragmatic interpretation of banditry as expression of social protest, see Floris 1999: 551–6 and Mario Da Passano’s extensive chapter on ‘La criminalità e il banditismo dal Settecento alla prima Guerra mondiale’ (1998: 423–97, and in particular 484–93). ‘E’ la scuola del delitto tutto quel paese che circonda Nuoro. Il governo volge il capo ... Il nuorese deve essere intimorito. E’ così che si fa con i selvaggi; bisogna far sentire il peso della forza, per Dio! ... La delinquenza del nuorese non era che un germe. Quel germe bisognava stirparlo e bruciarlo; ... Adesso è una vegetazione immensa, espansa, come una selva del Messico o dell’Australia dagli alberi colossali contro i quali si spezzano le ascie più affilate e potenti’ [The school of murder defines the whole region around Nuoro. The government turns its head ... It is necessary to intimidate the Nuorese. This is the treatment that the savages need; they have to feel the burden of power, my God! ... Delinquency in the Nuoro region was merely a seed. That seed should have been eradicated and burned out ... Now it is an immense vegeta-

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9 10

11

12

Notes to pages 31–4

tion, expanded like a forest in Mexico or Australia with gigantic trees, against which the sharpest and most powerful hatchets break (Orano 1896: 14–15)]. On this aspect of the Sardinian economic crisis in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, see Floris 1999: 544, and Di Felice 1998: 310–18. Three years later, Deledda reacted very differently to the news that D’Annunzio, who did not have any connection with Sardinia, unlike the Sardinia-born Orano would, should visit the island in the letter of 27 September 1893 to De Gubernatis: ‘Quando si sparse la voce che D’Annunzio tornava qui, mandato dal Ministero, per studiarci e poi scrivere un libro su noi, io ne restai proprio costernata, ed umiliata. Che bisogno abbiamo noi di D’Annunzio? Eppoi, egli non potrà mai conoscerci bene, specialmente restandoci poco, e falserà ogni nostra notizia’ [When rumours spread that D’Annunzio would come back here, sent by the Ministry [of the Interior] to study us and then write a book on us, I was really dismayed, and humiliated. What do we need D’Annunzio for? And then he will never be able to get to know us well, in particular because he’ll stay here for a short time, and he will present false information about us (Di Pilla 1966: 447; emphasis in the text)]. Referring to his travel experience in Sardinia, Niceforo writes: ‘Noi vedemmo in quella Zona delinquente un immenso e profondo arresto del senso morale; in grazia alla eredità dei fenomeni e dei sentimenti morali anche i figli saranno nella medesima condizione di inferiorità morale. Essi cresceranno con le medesime idée primitive sul bene e sul male che i genitori posseggono e, come da bimbi, videro con piacere il padre staccare la infallibile doppietta dalla parete domestica e correre all’omicidio, così, fatti grandi, con piacere ripeteranno l’atto paterno. Nelle loro cellule nervose c’è qualche cosa d’organizzato che li spinge fatalmente al sangue, e questo qualche cosa è l’eredità morale’ [We saw in that Delinquent Zone an immense and profound arrest of moral sense; thanks to the inheritance of moral phenomena and sentiments the children will be in the same situation of moral inferiority as their parents. They will grow up with the same primitive ideas about good and evil that their parents have and, as they saw, as children, their father gladly take the unfailing gun off the domestic wall and resort quickly to homicide, in the same way, as adults, they will be glad to repeat their father’s act. In their nerve cells there is already an organized element that fatally drives them to blood, and this element is moral inheritance (1897: 70–1; emphasis in the text)]. For the numerous newspapers and journals founded after Italian unification with this purpose, from Farfalla (1876–7), Gioventù sarda (1876–7), La stella di Sardegna (1875–86), La meteora (1878–9), Vita di pensiero (1878–9), to Vita Sarda, Sardegna letteraria, La donna sarda, L’avvenire di Sardinia, Bollettino bi-

Notes to pages 36–9

13

14

15

16

17

18

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bliografico sardo, L’Unione Sarda and La Nuova Sardegna, see Fois 1994: 174–80. For Deledda’s collaborations with various journals, see Cerina 1992a. De Michelis points out the relevance of this revision, since La via del male was ‘l’unico romanzo ch’ella [Deledda] rifece completamente da capo’ [the only novel that Deledda completely rewrote’ (1938: 113)]. ‘Ha tentato di metter fuori delle creature vive, e c’è riuscita ... Non si è smarrita dietro un lavoro di analisi psicologica, artificiale; ma ha fatto sentire, pensare, agire, tutte quelle creature nel loro ambiente, proprio come fa la natura con le sue. Sotto quelle carni, sotto quei nervi ci sono anime che amano, soffrono, errano, scontano le loro colpe, fin le loro debolezze; c’è l’umanità non astratta, ma reale, sostanziale; e dove c’è l’umanità c’è il pensiero, c’è il concetto: spetta al lettore cavarlo fuori’ [She has tried to bring out living creatures, and she has succeeded ... She did not get lost in an artificial work of psychological analysis; on the contrary, she made her creatures feel, think and act in their own environment, precisely as nature does with hers. Underneath that flesh and nerves there are souls, which love, suffer, err, expiate their faults, even their weaknesses; there is not abstract, but real and substantial humanity; and where there is humanity there is a thought and a concept. It is the reader’s task to extract it (Capuana 1973 [1898]: 101)]. To my knowledge, a comprehensive and detailed examination of textual variations from A to B and C was never published. For linguistic aspects, I treasure Mortara Garavelli’s illuminating analysis of general features of Deledda’s revisions of some novels, among others La via del male (1991). Mortara Garavelli’s study has inspired Maxia’s contribution (1999), which sketches the main traits of the author’s corrections while taking into account not only the three volume editions but also the 1906 publication in instalments under the title Il servo for La Gazzetta del Popolo. In addition, I will profit from Herczeg’s examination of specific features of Deledda’s language (1973). For thematic elements, I am indebted to De Michelis 1938, Dolfi 1984, and Di Pilla 1982, who has analysed in depth the assumed changes from the never-found manuscript of L’Indomabile (1892–3) to La via del male A and B in the context of Deledda’s interaction with and elaboration of Naturalism and Positivism. It is not possible to translate literally Capuana’s neologism of ‘il press’a poco,’ which he uses in the passage quoted below to express very effectively a certain ‘approximate’ feature of Deledda’s early style. ‘Zio’ and ‘Zia’ – corresponding to ‘Uncle’ and ‘Aunt’ – are used in Deledda’s texts and in several regional Italian variations of Southern Italy as terms of respect for the elderly, as is the case here. On the kitchen as one of the most internal and, therefore, symbolically charged ‘microluoghi ambientali’ [environmental microplaces] of the

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20

21

22

Notes to pages 40–6

‘macroluogo formale’ [formal macroplace]– the novel itself – in Deledda’s narrative, see Ramat 1978: 72–8. I choose to maintain the Italian noun and adjective ‘aulicismo’ and ‘aulico,’ which do not simply mean ‘a courtly expression’ or ‘of or pertaining to a court; courtly,’ the corresponding English terms (Merriam-Webster. New International Dictionary of the English Language. Springfield, MA: Merriam, 1952). According to Devoto-Oli’s Dizionario della Lingua Italiana (Florence: Le Monnier, 2001), the adjective ‘aulico,’ derived from Greek ‘aule’ for ‘court,’ means: ’1. Di linguaggio e di stile, nobile, collegato a grandi occasioni e personaggi sommi per virtù, doti intellettuali e autorità ... ; estens.: elevato, solenne. 2. Di corte’ [1. Of language and style, noble, referring to important occasions and personalities renowned for their virtue, intellectual talent, and authority ... ; by extension: lofty, solemn]. This lofty and contrived style characterized mediocre manifestations of Italian late Romanticism and Decadentism. Mortara Garavelli stresses the fact that Deledda partakes in the typical condition of bilingualism – oral dialect and written, later acquired Italian competence – that for centuries characterized the linguistic identity of non-Tuscan writers in Italy (1991: 161). Pittau has correctly specified that Deledda’s ‘bilingualism’ is, literally, between two ‘languages,’ the Italian language and the Sardinian language, of which Deledda’s Nuorese dialect is one among others (1972: 158–9). The most authoritative supporter of the ‘lingua sarda’ had been German glottologist Max Leopold Wagner, who in 1904 started a series of research trips and publications culminating in La lingua sarda. Storia, spirito e forma (1951). On Wagner, who was also in contact with Deledda, see Paulis (1998: 1201–21). On the presence of Sardinian expressions in Deledda’s writings, marked usually through italics in the text and glosses in parenthesis or footnotes with the Italian translation, as a ‘plurilinguismo epidermico’ [superficial plurilingualism], see Mortara Garavelli 1991: 155, and Secci 1966–7: 125. Lavinio, though, has convincingly argued that a diachronic analysis of the presence of Sardinian expressions on the lexical and syntactic levels indicates in Deledda a conscious literary and stylistic choice. Interestingly, Sardinian expressions disappear in late works from La madre on (1920), in which, according to Lavinio, the narrative interest of the author shifts from ‘un tono che almeno esteriormente, è consono o vicino al verismo e al regionalismo a uno più decisamente “psicologico” ... e “simbolico” ’ [a tone that, at least outwardly, is sympathetic or close to regionalistic verism to one more decidedly ‘psychological’ ... and ‘symbolic’ ... (1992: 73)]. Lavinio 1992: 69–70 provides a thought-provoking overview of the topoi of

Notes to pages 48–60

23 24 25 26 27

28

29

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Deledda’s linguistic and stylistic criticism, from Massa 1909 to Dessì 1938, Dessì-Tanda 1965, Cecchi 1969, Bàrberi Squarotti 1972. On the literary topos of locus amoenus in the biblical context, with which Deledda was very familiar, see Maxia 1999: 107. This nickname is a clear reference to the evil Innominato’s servant in Manzoni’s Promessi sposi. Each square bracket introduces a subordinate sentence. The usual Italian tense sequence would require the past conditional here: ‘che avrebbe dormito’ [that he would have slept]. The theme of ennui was already present in Deledda’s earlier novel Fior di Sardegna (1891) to characterize the existential malaise of female protagonist Maura/Lara. For the presence of Bourget’s psychological novels and his analysis of ‘esprit de décadence’ in Deledda’s early works, see Di Pilla 1982: 117– 21. Pietro Benu’s first act of religious devotion in the novel is when he prays to God in the isolation of the cornfields to help him forget Maria. The authorial comment about his superficial faith reads: ‘Credeva in Dio e nei Santi, ma la sua fede era tiepida e superficiale’ [He believed in God and the Saints, but his faith was lukewarm and superficial (A, 40)]. This critical comment is confirmed by Pietro’s reaction when he realizes that his prayer has not been heard: ‘e la sua fede si raffreddò del tutto pensando che Dio non poteva esistere poiché non aveva ascoltato la sua sincera e fortissima preghiera’ [and his faith died down completely when he thought that God could not exist because he had not listened to his sincere and very strong prayer (A, 41)]. Interestingly, this kind of authorial criticism disappears in B, 61/C, 244. There, the desperation of Pietro’s prayer is rather at the centre of the authorial comments, which even equate his anguished fear of sin to Kierkegaard’s ‘Angst’ or The Sickness unto Death (1849) that paralyses the subject of existential choices: ‘Pietro s’inginocchiò per terra, si fece il segno della croce e pregò ... Pietro aveva paura come fosse per morire: una malattia mortale s’era sviluppata in lui, ed egli ne sentiva tutto il pericolo’ [Pietro kneeled down to earth, crossed himself, and prayed ... Pietro was frightened as if he were about to die: a sickness unto death had developed in him, and he felt deeply the danger of it (B, 61/C, 245)]. See other authorial remarks on Pietro’s religious superficiality in A, 240. Chiaroscuro (1912) is also the title of an intriguing short-story collection by Grazia Deledda, which includes twenty-two texts. Seventeen of them appeared between 1909 and 1912 in the Corriere della Sera and marked the beginning of Deledda’s fruitful collaboration with Italy’s major newspaper. See Cerina on the significance of this collection for the evolution toward an

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31

32

33

Notes to pages 62–71

open narrative structure and a balanced ‘miscela’ [mixture] of literary and regional components aimed at a national middle-class audience (1996b: 9– 15). On the destinations of Italian migrants, see Gabaccia 2000: 4, and Mangione and Morreale 1992: 67–125 in particular about the major migratory wave to North America between 1876 and 1924. Suffice it to mention other interesting examples of linguistic/cultural references that could cause some (stereotyped) uneasiness in the average Italian reader, as in the case of the English ‘jockeys’ (A, 109) for ‘fantini’ (B, 141/C, 295) and the Latin ‘mastrucatus latrones di Cicerone’ (A, 100) for ‘i mastruccati ladroni di Cicerone’ [Cicero’s thieves wearing a sheepskin vest (B, 133/C, 289)] in the central scene of the procession to Monte Gonare. See letters to E. Provaglio of 11 November 1893, and 26 April 1894, quoted here in 1.1, pp. 22–3, and the following letter to S. Manca of 11 November 1893: ‘Vi scrivo da donna che ha consacrato la sua vita ad uno scopo che può essere un’utopia, ma che resta sempre uno scopo nobilissimo: il bene del suo paese ... La vera Sardegna è nel popolo, è nei poveri, che non sanno neppure la nostra esistenza, che soffrono e non invidiano, che muoiono di miseria, ma non hanno nessun livore, nessun odio. Noi dobbiamo farci conoscere ad essi, aiutandoli senza far chiasso, senza badare alla nostra personalità, senza por mente all’invidia ed alla vigliaccheria di coloro che non hanno bisogno, patriotti da posa, col viso dipinto, prodi soltanto nelle mense imbandite a quelli che il governo si degna mandarci per comparse e per ironia’ [I am writing you as a woman who has devoted her life to a purpose that may be a utopia, but still remains a very noble purpose: the good of her country ... The true Sardinia lies in the people, in the poor, who do not even know that we exist, who suffer and do not envy, who die of their misery but do not feel any spite or hatred. We have to make ourselves known to them by helping them without noise, without paying attention to our personality, without thinking about the envy of those who are not in need, who pose as patriots, with made-up faces, brave only at the table of those that the government ironically condescends to send us as superiors (Di Pilla 1966: 291; emphasis in the text).] More complex than Deledda’s contemporary critics depicted it (see Stanis Manca’s and Luigi Pompeiano’s reviews quoted in Turchi 2004: xi–xii), Fior di Sardegna presents a female protagonist Maura/Lara who embodies the schizophrenic laceration of personality through the exchange of name/identity with her older cousin, Lara, who passed away prematurely because of a consuming passion. Despite the fact that ‘la pazzia rumoreggiava nel cervello della povera Lara’ [madness rumbled in the brain of poor Lara (222)], Lara succeeds eventually in overthrowing the deterministic laws of heredity – ‘su

Notes to pages 71–81

34

35 36

37

38

39 40

41

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Lara e Massimo gravava un odio di sangue’ [on Lara and Massimo a hatred determined by blood lay heavy (150)] – and social hierarchies – ‘la miserabile barriera delle false leggi sociali’ [the miserable barrier of false social laws (87)] – and fulfils her sentimental dreams. At that early stage of her career, Deledda’s artistic skills were not up to the task of freeing the more modern elements of the narrative from the heavy burden of feuilleton atmosphere and late Romanticism. The young writer, though, was deeply aware of her shortcomings, and repeatedly invoked Hugo’s mastery: ‘Oh, la penna, la penna di Victor Hugo per un’ora sola, per descrivere queste lotte interne, queste tempeste in un cranio! Senza di essa chi mai potrà descriverle? Non la mia povera penna di certo’ [Oh, the pen, Victor Hugo’s pen for one hour only, to describe these interior battles, these storms in a skull! Without it, who will ever be able to describe them? (210; see also 89 and 135)]. On Fior di Sardegna as narrative ‘nodo di una prima maturazione’ [knot of a first maturation] see Di Pilla 1982: 90–1. This is the second and last occurrence of the exact syntagm of the title. While the first one belongs to Pietro’s thoughts (B, 176/C, 316), the second one belongs to Maria’s reported reflections. Once again we are confronted with the internal balance of the novel as a ‘macro-luogo formale’ [formal macroplace (Ramat 1978: 72)]. On Niceforo’s, Orano’s, and Lombroso’s writings on Zola, see Di Pilla 1982: 108–9, n. 139. The original passage in A sounded much less dramatic and sociologically explicit: ‘– Scherzi, Pietro? ... Senti, – diss’ella alla fine – tutto questo è una pazzia ... Ma che impazziva quello sciocco?’ [– Are you joking, Pietro? ... Listen, – she said at the end – this is madness ... Was that fool becoming insane? (A, 75–6)]. On Deledda’s interaction with Hérelle, who tried in his translation to render overall less emphatic the linguistic tone of La via del male, see the materials in Albriet’s 1985–6 dissertation (as quoted in Lavinio 1992: 81, n. 21). A further example of Capuana’s ‘approximation’ (see 1.2.a, pp. 37–8) is the detail that the writer of the letter is not the peasant girl Sabina herself – she is presumably illiterate – but her husband Giuseppe Pera, whom she had married to compensate for her disappointment in Pietro Benu (A, 258–59). The ‘carabinieri’ belong to a special police force with military and civil duties, which include paratroop units and mounted divisions. See, for instance, Elias Portolu (1903) and the less known but very explicit early short story ‘Il piccolo uomo’ [The Little Man] included in Le tentazioni [The Temptations (1899)]. On the reasons for Sardinian migratory movements, see Brigaglia 1998: 542– 8 and Floris 1999: 545–7.

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42 The second revised edition of the novel appeared in instalments in the newspaper La gazzetta del popolo (13 February – 6 June 1906) in the same year of its volume publication for the ‘Biblioteca romantica della Nuova Antologia’ (Rome, 1906). Interestingly, the author chose a more populistic and sociologically oriented title for the newspaper edition: Il servo [The servant]. This detail demonstrates again Deledda’s attention to marketing and audience issues. On this aspect of Deledda’s professional profile, see Cerina 1996b: 9–10. 43 On authorial metalinguistic comments in La via del male, in particular for the ridiculous effect of characters speaking ‘high-Italian’ as in the case of Francesco Rosana (A, 162; see B, 212/C, 338), see Lavinio 1992: 72. 44 This metanarrative awareness was already present in Fior di Sardegna, 138. 45 Interestingly, the same adjective is used in the Italian translation of Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra in the central chapter of the third part, devoted to Zarathustra ‘Der Genesende’ (translated in Italian Il convalescente). 46 The emphasis appears even more rhetorical when one considers that in Italian the explicit use of the personal pronoun is not a grammatical rule as in English. 47 Suffice it to refer to Verga’s short story entitled ‘La roba, ‘ included in the volume Novelle rusticane (1883), which entails the narrative core of Mastro Don Gesualdo (1889). 48 Di Pilla (1982: 92–3) refers to Crime and Punishment (Delitto e castigo, in the Italian translation), which Deledda read in 1899, as a clear presence in the revised conclusion, in particular for the image of the sentence to hard labour. In Raskolnikov’s words, if the criminal has a conscience, ‘he will suffer for his mistake. That will be his punishment – as well as the prison’ (Dostoyevsky 1978: 239). 49 The conclusion of Il servo in La Gazzetta del Popolo of 6 June 1906 reads: ‘Ella ricordava appunto di aver veduto una volta una fila di condannati diretti ad una colonia penale. Procedevano a due a due, incatenati assieme. Ella e Pietro erano simili a quei disgraziati; legati da una stessa catena, diretti allo stesso luogo di castigo’ [She precisely remembered once having seen a line of convicts heading for a penal colony. They proceeded in pairs, chained up together. She and Pietro resembled those wretched people: tied up to the same chain, headed for the same place of punishment (as quoted in Maxia 1999: 97)]. 50 De Michelis 1938: 113–16, Dolfi 1984: 12–13, and Maxia 1999: 100–11 discuss some of the major thematic, structural, and stylistic changes, but do not mention this one. 51 Maxia dwells upon the revision of the beginning to point out the prevailing

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interest for the characters’ point of view over the omniscient narrator’s perspective (1999: 100–2). 52 A revealing example of the shift from chronological to cyclical time is the beginning of the tenth chapter of part 2 in A, corresponding to the beginning of the twenty-first chapter in B and C. ‘Ai primi del 1892, sette anni cioè dopo l’entrata di Pietro al servizio dei Noina, morirono a pochi giorni di distanza l’una dall’altra le due vecchie zie presso cui egli viveva’ (A, 237) > ‘Passarono cinque anni. / Ai primi del 1902, morirono, l’una dopo l’altra, le due zie decrepite di Pietro Benu’ (B, 275) > ‘Passarono cinque anni. Una dopo l’altra erano morte le due zie decrepite di Pietro’ (C, 376) [In early 1892, that is seven years after Pietro began to work for the Noinas, both decrepit aunts with whom he lived passed away one after the other (A, 237) > Five years went by. / In early 1892, one after the other, Pietro’s two decrepit aunts died (B, 275) > Five years went by. One after the other Pietro’s two decrepit aunts died (C, 376)]. The first revision not only moves forward the ‘Erzählte Zeit’ [narrated time], i.e. the chronological time of the narrative, to align it with the ‘Erzählzeit’ [time of narration], i.e. the time of the actual rewriting, but also frees the plot from the constrictive seven-year temporal frame. The second revision goes even further by simply mentioning in C the passing of five years, which is even more vague chronological information if we think that the indication of the year was missing in the beginning of the novel. What defines the temporal dimension in B/C is the cyclical rhythm of the seasons, from fall to spring throughout the years, rather than the exact chronological time. 53 ‘Bruxelles, 10 ottobre 1900./ Eg.a Signora Deledda,/ lessi il suo romanzo La via del male e ne portai ottima impressione, ma per me non lo trovai adatto per musicare. Voglia scusarmi e gradire gli ossequi più distinti dal suo devotissimo Giacomo Puccini’ [Bruxelles, 10 October 1900./ Dear Mrs Deledda,/ I read your novel La via del male and I was very favourably impressed, but I did not find it suitable to be set to music. Please excuse me and receive my respects. Sincerely yours, Giacomo Puccini (letter from Puccini to Deledda, as quoted in Ciusa 1997: 211)]. 2. The Transgressive Rewriting of the Novel of Formation: Cenere 1 I agree with Merry, who sees in Cenere the crystallization of a Deleddian canon: ‘The extremes of suffering undergone by a social inferior, buffeted by male abuse and her son’s vanity, are fixed in the Deleddian canon by Cenere’ (1990: 32). 2 Appearing in English translation as The Woman and the Priest (1922), La madre

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was reprinted in 1926 with a foreword by Lawrence, which certainly boosted Deledda’s popularity in the English-reading world, because of the negative publicity surrounding the author of The Rainbow (1915) and Women in Love (1920). Several characters of Deledda’s mature writings, such as La madre, Il segreto dell’uomo solitario, and La danza della collana, are torn between fundamental philosophical positions that associate them with the tormented protagonists of Lawrence’s works, particularly Women in Love. However, an inherent contradiction marks Lawrence’s appreciation of Deledda’s La madre. In his introduction, Lawrence does not praise Deledda’s modernity, but rather her alleged ability ‘to create the passionate complex of a primitive populace’ (1987: 2), namely the Sardinian. Far from perceiving in La madre the elements of modernity that its characters – the priest irresistibly attracted by the unifying power of eros, the woman poised to reject societal conventions, and the mother intellectually and emotionally paralysed by these conventions – share with those of Women in Love, Lawrence reads Deledda’s novel as a pre-modern, forceful expression of an archaic world. Fascinated with Sardinian natural and cultural landscapes since his trip of 1921, in Sea and Sardinia (1921) he constructed a mythical image of the island as the opposite of the ‘civilized’ and disintegrating world of modernity. Accordingly, Lawrence does not react to La madre’s elements of modernity in the tragic split between ‘blood-consciousness’ and ‘mind-consciousness’ – to use Lawrence’s terminology in ‘Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter’ – or in the narrative structure, fragmented by flashbacks and interior monologues. On the contrary, he declares that ‘the interest of the book [La madre] lies not in plot or characterization, but in the presentation of sheer instinctive life’ (Introduction 1987: 5). For the multilayered, symbolic relationship between Lawrence and Sardinia, I refer to Luciano Marrocu’s introduction to Mare e Sardegna (2000: 7–27). 3 ‘Cadeva la notte di San Giovanni. Olì uscì dalla cantoniera biancheggiante sull’orlo dello stradale che da Nuoro conduce a Mamojada, e s’avviò pei campi. Era una ragazza quindicenne, alta e bella, con due grandi occhi felini, glauchi e un po’obliqui, e la bocca voluttuosa il cui labbro inferiore, spaccato nel mezzo, pareva composto da due ciliegie. Dalla cuffietta rossa, legata sotto il mento sporgente, uscivano due bende di lucidi capelli neri attortigliati attorno alle orecchie: questa acconciatura ed il costume pittoresco, dalla sottana rossa e il corsettino di broccato che sosteneva il seno con due punte ricurve, davano alla fanciulla una grazia orientale. Fra le dita cerchiate di anellini di metallo, Olì recava striscie di scarlatto e nastri coi quali voleva segnare i fiori di San Giovanni, cioè i cespugli di verbasco, di timo e d’asfodelo da cogliere l’indomani all’alba per farne medicinali ed amuleti’ (I, 11) [It

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was nightfall on the feast of St. John. Olì stepped out of the white, railroad signalman’s house on the edge of the main road which leads from Nuoro to the town of Mamojada, and she headed toward the fields. She was fifteen, tall and pretty, with two big, blue-green, catlike eyes that were a bit slanted, and with a sensual mouth whose naturally divided lower lip resembled two cherries. Two bands of black hair, coiled behind her ears, peeked out from the red kerchief she had tied beneath her strong chin. This hairdo and her traditional costume, with its red skirt and brocade bodice that supported a curvaceous bust, gave an oriental grace to the young girl. In her ringed fingers Olì held red fabric streamers and ribbons with which she intended to stake her claim on her ‘St. John’s flowers,’ the verbascum, thyme and asphodel branches to be picked at dawn the next day so she could make herbal medicines and amulets (I, 23)]. All quotations in Italian are taken from the Italian edition of Cenere in Romanzi sardi (1981) and are followed by Roman and Arabic numerals, indicating the part and the page of the book. As is customary, the Mondadori edition refers to the recentior, i.e. the last edition during the author’s life. When comparing the three different editions of the novel, I will specifically refer to A (1903), B (1904), or C (1910). If not otherwise noted, all quotations in English are taken from Jan Kozma’s 2004 translation, Ashes, and are followed by Roman and Arabic numerals, indicating the part and the page of the book. Bàrberi Squarotti has convincingly analysed how landscape descriptions and characters’ dialogues in Deledda’s novels move away from realism. By means of rhetorical figures of repetition, the author detaches landscape representations and dialogues from their seemingly naturalistic context and evokes a ritual, mythic dimension, which, according to Bàrberi Squarotti, is confirmed by the fairy-tale structure of Deledda’s novels. As in Cenere, the narrative unfolds from infraction to atonement through a voyage of the protagonist’s moral consciousness (1972: 142, 152). The ‘nuraghe,’ a symbol of Sardinia, is a truncated conic tower, perhaps once castle or fort, built by the Nuragh peoples who came to the fore in 1500–800 BC. There are still over seven thousand of these archaeological towers scattered all over the island, but their origin and purpose remain unclear. For an insightful interpretation of the diabolical element and its symbolism in the novel, see Migiel 1985: 64–8. For the Deleddian syncretism of pagan rituals and Christian traditions, see also McDonald Carolan 1999: 103, and Sanguinetti Katz 1994a: 214. ‘L’arrivo rombante del diretto diede al giovane provinciale sardo un senso di terrore, la prima impressione vertiginosa d’una civiltà quasi violenta e distruggitrice. Gli parve che il mostro dagli occhi rossi lo portasse via, come il

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vento porta la foglia, lanciandolo nel turbine della vita!’ (II, 143) [The thundering arrival of the train gave the young Sardinian provincial a feeling of terror, his first dizzying impression of an almost violent and destructive civilization. It seemed as though the red-eyed monster were spiriting him away as the wind blows a leaf, tossing it into the vortex of life (II, 130)]. On the symbolic role of the train in twentieth-century literature, see Remo Ceserani, Treni di carta. L’immaginario in ferrovia, l’irruzione del treno nella letteratura moderna (1993). Hugo is a constant presence already in Deledda’s early narrative, in particular in Fior di Sardegna (1893). After several direct quotations (89, 135), the implied narrator comments on her inability to describe the moral conflict of Marco, one of the male characters: ‘Oh, la penna, la penna di Victor Hugo per un’ora sola, per descrivere queste lotte interne, queste tempeste in un cranio! Senza di essa chi mai potrà descriverle? Non la mia povera penna di certo’ [Ah, if I only had Victor Hugo’s pen, his pen for one hour to describe these internal battles, these turmoils in a skull! Without that pen, who would be ever able to describe them? Certainly not my pen’ (210)] See letter to A. De Gubernatis of 13 July 1893 in Di Pilla 1966: 423–4, and letter to A. Scano of 10 October 1892, as quoted in 1.2.b, p. 41. For an extensive discussion of this theme, see Fuller 2000: 58–66. ‘Ella seguì la sua fatale via. Mi disse – e piangeva, poveretta, piangeva da commuovere le pietre – che cercò sempre del lavoro, ma che non potè trovarne mai. E il destino, te lo dissi! Il destino che priva del lavoro certi esseri disgraziati, come ne priva altri della ragione, della salute, della bontà. L’uomo e la donna inutilmente si ribellano. No, avanti, morite, crepate, ma seguite il filo che vi tira!’ (II, 209) [She followed her fatal path. She cried, the poor thing, she cried enough emotionally to move a rock; she told me that she always looked for work but that she could never find a job. It’s destiny, I tell you! It’s destiny that denies work to certain miserable people, just as it denies others intelligence, health, and goodwill. It’s useless for men and women to rebel. No, continue on your path, die in misery, but follow the cord that’s pulling you (II, 180)]. This Weltanschauung presented through the point of view of the same character had also opened up the novel and even offered a sociological explanation of Sardinian banditry: ‘E’ il destino che vuole così. Ora ti racconterò perché mio marito si fece bandito’ (I, 22; emphasis in the text) [Destiny wants it to be like this. Now I’ll tell you why my husband chose to be a bandit (I, 31)]. On the social relevance of Sardinian banditry, see Floris 1999: 551–6, and in particular 551 on the ‘bardana’ or the group robbery that Zia Grathia describes here in romantic tones. Briziarelli argues that in Deledda’s work gender discourse is framed in ‘a vision of society constructed

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along a class and power axis’ (1995: 27). For this reason, the recurrent theme of banditry in her work should be interpreted not as another aspect of her regional Verismo, but rather as ‘a metaphor for society’s outcasts’ (27). The bandit characters share with Deledda’s female protagonists the same yearning for freedom and, as a consequence, the same inclination toward transgression. On the medical problems of Sardinia at the turn of the century, see Kozma 2002: 19–21, and 2004, ‘Translator’s Introduction’ on p. 15 and the bibliographic references on p. 218, notes 6, 7, and 8. Gianni Olla analyses in depth the differences between the two versions of Cenere (2000: 156–62). It might be interesting to know that both versions, though, had been re-edited after the national release, and are, therefore, slightly different from the lost original. The version at the National Museum of Cinema, Turin – available through Mondadori Video – is eight minutes shorter than the one recently rescued at the George Eastman Institute, New York, now at the Sardinian Film Archive, Nuoro. Olla defines the shorter version as ‘una sorta di bignami che tenti di far caprire al pubblico l’essenza della vicenda con l’aiuto di nuove didascalie riassuntive, le quali colmano anche i numerosi vuoti narrativi’ [a sort of bignami [a series of handbooks that offer summaries of world history, literatures, etc. named after the author/editor E. Bignami, 1903–58, and widely used by Italian graduating high-school seniors in order to prepare for final exams], which tries to convey the essence of the story through the addition of several summarizing intertitles that fill the narrative gaps’ (158)]. Once more the authorial voice is mediated through Zia Grathia’s point of view: ‘Zia Grathia lo guardava atterrita, domandandosi se Olì non avesse ragione a temerlo ... Ah, era indiavolato quel bel ragazzo ben vestito: era più terrribile d’un pastore orgolese con la mastrucca, più terribile dei banditi ch’ella aveva conosciuti sulla montagna’ (II, 222–3) [Zia Grathia looked at him terrified, wondering if Olì wasn’t right to be afraid of him ... Ah, that handsome, well-dressed boy was really angry: he was worse than a shepherd from Orgosolo wearing a goatskin jacket. He was more terrifying than the bandits whom she had met in the mountains. She had imagined a very different scene from this one! (II, 189–90)]. D’Annunzio titled his ode for Nietzsche’s death (25 August 1900) ‘Per la morte di un distruttore’ [For the Death of a Destroyer]. His homage to Nietzsche is included in Elettra (1904); see 3.1, pp. 159–61. Carlo Ferrucci detects in Deledda’s autobiographic novel Cosima the same invitation for the reader ‘to decipher a more secret interior journey’ (1977: 307).

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17 Zia Grathia remarks: ‘C’è bisogno di urlare così? ... Fuori, se sentono, crederanno che c’è un toro selvatico, chiuso qui dentro. Son queste le cose che ti hanno insegnato a scuola?’ (II, 230) [Do you really have to scream like that? ... If they hear us outside, they’ll think there’s a wild bull locked up in here. Are these the things that they taught you in school? (II, 195)]. 18 I preferred to provide my translation for specific passages, when Kozma’s translation, which refers to the 1910 edition of Cenere (C), does not closely suggest the variation from A and B. All translations from editions A and B are mine. 19 Interestingly, Vittorio Bersezio, a popular playwright of Piedmontese vernacular theatre and author of the extremely successful Le miserie ‘d Monsú Travet [The Misery of Mr. Travet (1863; Italian translation 1876)], laments ‘quell’inerzia che è uno dei maggiori mali che affliggono la gioventù italiana’ in his preface to the Italian translation [the inactivity that is one of the major evils to affect the Italian youth (241)]. It is worth noticing that one of Deledda’s first short stories, ‘Sulle montagne sarde’ [On the Sardinian Mountains], appeared first as an appendix to Vittorio Bersezio’s Potessi farlo rivivere! [Could I Only Bring Him Back to Life! (Rome: Perino, 1892)]. Deledda very likely knew Le miserie ‘d Monsú Travet, which was performed everywhere in Italy, and then translated into German and performed in Berlin, Vienna, and Munich. The piece focused on the financial hardship of the lower Turin middle class after Italian unification, when Turin was about to lose its status and wealth as capital city (Florence became the second capital of the Italian nation in 1864). A possible reference to Bersezio’s play is the Piedmontese vernacular expression ‘Mossiú Giuanne’ [Signor Giovanni – Mr. John] in La via del male. In all three editions Deledda translates it as ‘fame’ [hunger] in a footnote (A, 253/ B, 289/C, 385), which refers to the misery of Sabina. The name of the protagonist in the original play was Astolfo Travet and he is always named in the text only with his last name, but the famous Piedmontese actor who used to perform it was Giovanni Toselli. 20 See for instance the elimination of lengthy references to aunt Varvara’s typical expressions of Sardinian ‘wild primitivism’ in the letter that Anania writes to Margherita from Rome (A, II, 609/B, II, 217 > C, II, 161), or the disappearance of the digression on the negative features of the social ambitions of the ‘Sardinian youth’ (A, II, 626/B, II, 254 > C, II, 155). 21 A long nail of the little finger was a traditional sign of aristocratic nobility, which did not need to perform manual work and, therefore, could afford to let fingernails grow. 22 See again Anania’s threat to strangle his mother when she dares argue with him: ‘“La strangolo! La strangolo!”’ [‘I will strangle her! I will strangle her!’] and the bold statement ‘“Sono io Dio”’ [‘I am God’ (both in A, II, 63)],

Notes to pages 121–8

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which disappear in B, II, 321–2/C, II, 228–9, as is the case with Anania’s suggestion that his mother hang herself if she really wants to free him from her burden in A, II, 65, which disappears in B, II, 322/C, II, 229. The theme of sociological barriers will be a thread throughout Deledda’s work. Arguably its most desperate expression comes up in L’incendio nell’uliveto [The Fire in the Olive Grove (1917)] in a free indirect discourse of servant Mikedda: ‘i padroni coi padroni, i servi coi servi’ [masters with masters, and servants with servants (200: 47)]. ‘A sinistra, sull’indicibile sfondo di Via Quattro Fontane, il cielo ardeva d’un fosco chiarore violetto; a destra la luna piena grande e gialla sorgeva dal profilo nero di Santa Maria Maggiore, che pareva disegnato su una lastra d’argento./ – Andiamo al Colosseo, – propose Anania’ [On the left, against the inexpressible backdrop of Quattro Fontane Street, the sky was burning with a gloomy violet halo. On the right, a large yellow moon was rising from the dark profile of the Santa Maria Maggiore church, which seemed outlined on a silver plate. – Let’s go to the Colosseum, – Anania suggested. (A, II, 435/ B, II, 187)] > ‘Sono più che mai romantico stasera. Andiamo al Colosseo!‘ (C, II, 146) [Tonight I’m more of a romantic than ever. Let’s go to the Colosseum! (II, 132)]. Niceforo dedicated La delinquenza in Sardegna to Ferri with these words: ‘Al maestro affettuoso/ enrico ferri/questo povero fiore/ che ho staccato dal forte e virente arbusto/ della sociologia criminale’ [To the affectionate teacher/ enrico ferri/this humble flower/ that I picked from the strong and verdant shrub/ of criminal sociology]. It might be interesting to know that Ferri, a leftist activist and director of the socialist periodical L’Avanti! from 1901 to 1905, joined the fascist party in 1924. His disciples followed his political development. According with the spirit of this textual addition, the first chapter of the second part ends in C with an added passage in which Anania and Daga, on their nocturnal walk, are addressed in Sardinian by a prostitute who has noticed that they are chatting in Sardinian. Of course Anania’s reaction is to think that she is his vanished mother (C, II, 146; II, 132). Another example with regard to Anania occurs at the end, when he discovers his mother’s corpse. While A simply states that ‘egli non potè piangere di rimorso e d’angoscia’ [he couldn’t cry from regret or from anguish (A, 79)], B and C add: ‘egli non potè piangere di rimorso e d’angoscia: solo qualche singhiozzo convulso gli stringeva ogni tanto la gola’ (C, II, 257) [he couldn’t cry from regret or from anguish: only a few convulsive sobs gripped his throat every now and then (II, 216)]. With regard to Margherita, her peremptory statement about her negative feelings toward Anania’s mother changes from ‘Io ho odiato e

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disprezzato sempre quella disgraziata; ora ne sento pietà, ma non posso amarla’ [I have always hated and despised that miserable wretch; now I pity her, but I can’t love her (A, II, 71)] to ‘Io non ho mai amato quella disgraziata; ora ne sento pietà, ma non posso amarla’ (B, 341/C, 241) [I’ve never loved that miserable wretch; I pity her, but I can’t love her (II, 204)]. Kozma’s translation, which uses the reflexive pronoun ‘himself’ in place of the direct pronoun ‘him’ corresponding to the Italian original ‘lo’ in ‘liberarlo,’ does not render the dreadful sense of split personality that the text emphasizes: ‘he could never liberate himself from his folly’ (II, 146). On the sociological implications for the character and the author of this open, suspended ending of the novel of formation of a Sardinian student, see Marrocu 1992: 52–3. In Cosima, Deledda insists on the ‘affiorare e subito di nuovo sommergersi di vita anteriore rimasta o rinata nel suo subcosciente’ (1971: 701; see also 810) [a surfacing and sudden resubmersion of her earlier life that remained or was reborn in her subconscious (trans. King 10, see also 129)]. About the connection between myth, archetype, and time in Deledda’s narrative, see Ramat 1978: 129–31 in particular, and Magistro 1988: 210–13. First published in L’Italia futurista, 11 September 1916, this futurist manifesto is now included in F.T. Marinetti, Teoria e invenzione futurista (1968), and Per conoscere Marinetti e il Futurismo, edited by Luciano de Maria (1981). See B.C.V., ‘L’avvenire del cinematografo,’ Rivista Fono-Cinematografica 2–4 (20–1 January 1909) in Micciché 1972: 25. For the first group, the most impressive example is, according to Brunetta, Inferno (1911) by Francesco Bertolini, Giuseppe De Liguoro, and Adolfo Padovan (1988: 156–9), while for the second group the first reference is Cabiria (1914) by Giovanni Pastrone, with an original script by D’Annunzio and music by Ildebrando Pizzetti (173–7). On this ambiguous relationship between literary authors and cinema, see Brunetta’s chapter in his Storia del cinema italiano on ‘Il ruolo dei letterati e dei modelli letterari nell’industria cinematografica’ (1988: 92–230), and in particular the documentation of this problematic relationship with statements of several authors, from Gozzano to D’Annunzio (93–103). ‘I. La cinematografia è soltanto una lucrosa industria per gli sfaccendati e gli analfabeti (ragazzi e sordi compresi) oppure un degnissimo corollario all’arte scenica, e una manifestazione di arte rappresentativa a sua volta? II. La concorrenza che il botteghino del cinematografo fa alla cassetta del teatro di prosa, è ragione sufficiente dietro la quale possono mettersi a riparo i diritti sacri dell’arte? III. L’opera di un autore drammatico, di un romanziere, di un novellista, riprodotta in cinematografia, ferme restando le esi-

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genze dello scrittore, perde del suo valore intrinseco letterario, considerato che il cinematografo non fa della letteratura pur potendo fare opera di poesia, di insegnamento e di diletto? IV. E l’autore che ne permette la riproduzione, menoma per questo la sua dignità di uomo di lettere? V. Quale indirizzo e quale campo di sfruttamento dovrebbe stabilirsi il cinematografo?’ [I. Is cinematography only a lucrative industry for idlers and illiterates (young and deaf people included) or a very worthy corollary of scenic arts, and another manifestation of representative art? II. Is the competition between the movie theatre box office and the playhouse sufficient reason behind which the sacred rights of art can hide? III. Does the adapted work of a playwriter, a novelist, or a storyteller lose some of its intrinsically literary value, when we consider that cinema does not create literature although it can be poetic, educational, and entertaining? IV. Does the author that allows the filmic adaptation of his work diminish for this reason his dignity as a literary scholar? V. In which direction should cinematography go and expand its collaboration with other arts? (Micciché 1972: 191–2)]. Deledda herself adapted L’edera (1912) for the theatre and wrote Odio vince (1912) and A sinistra (1924), two short theatrical pieces, which were successfully performed (Olla 2000: 41). In 1921 she collaborated with Claudio Guastalla and Vincenzo Michetti for the libretto of the lyric opera La Grazia inspired by her short story Di notte (1894). For an interesting analysis of the homonymous silent movie made by Aldo Debenedetti in 1929, see Olla 2000: 163–70 and the excellent publication La Grazia ritrovata. Dal muto al sonoro (2005). For an in-depth analysis of Deledda’s relationship with the theatre, see Heyer-Caput 2006. Deledda collaborated with the prestigious Milan newspaper Il Corriere della Sera from 1909 to 1936. Luigi Antonelli (1882–1942), journalist and playwright, authored, among others, L’uomo che incontrò se stesso (1918), which is one of the earliest examples of grotesque theatre. By rejecting the conventions of bourgeois theatre, which Pirandello destroys in the next decade, Antonelli inserts in his best pieces the themes of absurdist literature, irrationalism, and psychoanalysis. For more information on this intriguing woman intellectual at the turn of the century, see Ferdinando Cordova’s essay ‘Grazia Deledda e Febea. Cronistoria di un soggetto cinematografico,’ included in Olla 2000: 105–21. In her letter to Deledda of May 1908, Duse wrote: ‘Non è possible che in questo momento della mia vita d’Arte io entri in una forma di Teatro qual è la sua Edera. Questa è la sola, vera ragione che mi impedisce di rappresentare un Lavoro che ho accolto con la più intensa simpatia e che in molti punti ha suscitato la mia sincera ammirazione’ [It is not possible that in this time of my

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artistic life I enter a theatrical form like your Ivy. This is the only true reason that prevents me from staging a Work that I welcomed and deeply liked, and in many respects sincerely admired (Ciusa Romagna 1957: 912; emphasis in the text)]. For the location shots of the film, in Tuscany and in Piedmont, see Duse’s correspondence in Cara 1988: 17–18. A partial translation of this letter is provided in Weaver 1984: 308. The romanticized image of the brave and faithful bandit reminds us closely of legendary Simone Sole in Marianna Sirca, which Deledda had just published in 1915. See Cara 1988: 7–8. Cara’s exhaustive study on Duse’s Cenere also includes the complete script on pp. 23–7 and 149–63. Whereas Cara and Weaver refer only to Cines as the Roman producing firm that made the offer to Duse, Olla refers to Tiber. At the end of the First World War, Rome acquired increasing predominance in the movie industry and eventually replaced Turin, where photographer Arturo Ambrosio had founded ‘Ambrosio Film’ in 1904. The Ambrosio production studio became one of the leading film companies of the silent era, which introduced the film noir as a genre of realistic derivation (Briganti in Sardegna [Brigands in Sardinia, 1905], Camorra napoletana [Neapolitan Camorra, 1906]), historical ‘colossals’ (Galileo Galilei, 1909, Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei [The Last Days of Pompeii, 1908/13], and Nerone [Nero, 1909]). Ambrosio attracted to the art of motion pictures famous writers like Gabriele D’Annunzio and moulded renowned directors like Febo Mari and Giovanni Pastrone (see Olla 2000: 95). Cara refers in particular to the architectural representations in Rinuncia agli averi [The Renunciation of Wealth], Prova del fuoco [The Proof of the Fire], and Annuncio a Sant’Anna [The Announcement to St Anne], and in general to the scenes in the Cappella Peruzzi in Florence’s Santa Croce (1988: 50, n. 77). In her 1987 contribution, Maria Elvira Ciusa explores in particular the intermediary role that Grazia and Nicolina Deledda played in establishing contacts between such Tuscan artists as Plinio Nomellini, Arturo Dazzi, and Lorenzo Viani, and such Sardinian artists as Antonio Ballero, Giuseppe Biasi, and Francesco Ciusa (163). The Deledda sisters became intimate friends with Nomellini, and later with his fellow artists, since their first summer vacation in Viareggio, Tuscany, in 1910. Nomellini’s famous portrait of Grazia Deledda was on display at the 1913 Biennale Exhibit in Venice. Giovanna Cerina expands on the visuality of Deledda’s narrative, and especially on her landscape depictions, which become ‘una misura compositiva del romanzo’ [a compositive measure of the novel (2000: 23)]. Deledda’s keen interest in the artistic expressions of her time clearly emerges from her article on the 1901

Notes to pages 146–57

49

50

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Biennale Exhibit, ‘I pittori stranieri all’esposizione di Venezia’ [Foreign Painters at the Venice Exhibit (L’Unione Sarda, 14 October 1901)]. Cara points out that Febo Mari had already acted in four films before Cenere (1988: 12). In particular, he had very successfully starred in Il fuoco [The Flame (1915)], directed by Giovanni Pastrone and based upon Gabriele D’Annunzio’s homonymous novel (1900). Interestingly, D’Annunzio himself was deeply inspired by Duse in constructing the character of the actress Foscarina as the quintessential expression of decadent aesthetics (Re 2002: 117–18). See Brunetta 1988: 87 on the artistic and narrative significance of the contrast between light and darkness in Duse’s script for her unrealized film, Angela da Foligno. Duse’s original film scripts are preserved in the archives of the Fondazione Cini, Venice. In particular, Cara refers to Giotto’s Incontro degli sposi alla Porta Aurea [The Meeting of the Newlyweds at the Golden Gate], Visitazione [The Visitation] (both in the Cappella degli Scrovegni, Padua), and Annunciazione a Zaccaria [Annunciation to Zacharias] (in the Cappella Peruzzi, Santa Croce, Florence) for the iconographic imprint of Rosalia’s character in the film. Cara refers for the last two sequences in particular to the position of the praying figures in Il miracolo delle verghe [The Miracle of the Rods] (in the Cappella degli Scrovegni, Padua) and the friar kissing St Francis’s hand in Le esequie di San Francesco (The Funeral of St Francis] (in the Cappella Bardi, Santa Croce, Florence). For specific parallels between Duse’s sequences and Giotto’s frescos, see Cara 1988: 50, 79, 88, 90, 91, 95, 98, 100–2, 108. On the necessity of a philologically sound restoration of the picture, see Mirella Schino, ‘Nota su Cenere: una linea continua di spezzettature,’ Annali di Teatro e Storia, 1994, as quoted in Olla 2000: 159.

3. Active Nihilism and Nietzsche’s Uebermensch: Il segreto dell’uomo solitario 1 I refer in particular to La danza della collana (1924) and several short stories that are included in Il flauto nel bosco [The Flute in the Woods (1923)], such as ‘Poveri’ and ‘Brindisi’ [‘Poor People’ and ‘Toast’]. On the iconographic evolution of Deledda’s narrative, see Cerina 1996c: 14, and Ciusa 1992. 2 All quotations in Italian are taken from the Italian edition of Il segreto dell’uomo solitario in Romanzi sardi (1981), and all English translations from Deledda’s novel are mine. 3 On the ontological relevance of madness for Juanniccu’s character in this novel, see Ciusa 2003: xi. 4 For the image of Sardinia as ‘luogo dello spirito’ [place of the spirit] or ‘una appartata zona della coscienza, dove rimanevano tracce di ciò che la civiltà

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occidentale era stata ai primordi’ [a secluded region of the consciousness, where traces remained of what Western civilization had been in its beginnings], as D.H. Lawrence depicted it in Sea and Sardinia (1921), see the intriguing analysis of Luciano Marrocu 1992: 54, and 2000: 7–27 (see also my endnote 2 of chapter 2, pp. 253–4). The apologia of Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche as ‘la sorella pia’ [the pious sister], ‘la luminosa figura di sorella che irradia di illimitata devozione e di soave pietà l’esistenza dell’infelice pensatore’ [the luminous image of the sister, which illuminates with unlimited devotion and gentle pity the existence of the unhappy thinker] was commonplace in Germany and in Italy as well, as underscored in the anonymous article ‘Federico Nietzsche a Torino’ in Nuova Antologia 173.690 (1900): 313–16. The second edition, which began in 1905 and ended in 1926, counted twenty volumes. On the influence of Ecce homo on the autobiographical writing in Italy during the first decades of the nineteenth century, see Ramat 1978: 226–64. On the French translations of Nietzsche’s works and their presence in Italian intellectual elites, see Michelini 1978: 21–2. Nietzsche’s predilection for Turin as a metropolis ‘beyond good and evil’ (trans. Middleton 291), not at all modern but profoundly aristocratic, recurs in several letters from that period, in particular of 10 April 1888, and 14 April 1888. In his ‘L’avvento del superuomo’ (1909), Borgese underlined the falsification of Nietzsche’s Zarathustrian Uebermensch implemented in D’Annunzio’s novels for personal interests (Stefani 1975: 59). For a thought-provoking analysis of D’Annunzio’s mediation of Nietzsche, see Schnapp 1988, who also provides an English translation of D’Annunzio’s article ‘The Beast Who Wills.’ On the evolution of D’Annunzio’s ‘Superuomo’ in relationship to Nietzsche’s Uebermensch, see Michelini’s chapter on ‘Nietzsche filtrato attraverso il superuomo dannunziano’ (1978: 91–136). On this polarization of Italian culture, see Michelini’s chapter ‘Nietzsche e la cultura italiana alla fine dell’ ’800’ (1978: 71–88). For the Italian cultural context at that time, see Bobbio 1969 and Garin 1955. I refer in particular to Zoccoli’s articles, ‘Federico Nietzsche,’ La vita internazionale 14 (1899): 40–4, and ‘Zarathustra,’ Il Marzocco, 30 April 1899. Vattimo underlines that this topic was the starting point of the debate on Nietzsche in Germany as well, to such an extreme that physician J. Möbius, in his Nietzsche (Leipzig, 1902), detected signs of mental illness in all of Nietzsche’s published works. ‘This hampered philosophical discussion of Nietzsche’s work until at least the First World War, because the suspicion that his brain may have been affected by syphilis even before 1870 constituted a decisive objection to his entire thought’ (Vattimo 2002: 168–9).

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15 Author of Der Einzige und sein Eigentum [The Ego and His Own, 1845], Stirner rejects the humanistic and immanent values heralded by the Hegelian left of Feuerbach, Bauer, Marx, and Engels. Authentic freedom has its only beginning and end in the individual ego, and humanity and socialism represent mere alternatives to religious ideals, which alienate the individual. Freedom, therefore, coincides with the right of the ego to own itself by imposing its will in a nihilistic expansion. 16 On Svevo’s consciousness about Nietzsche’s manipulation in Italy at the time, see Heyer-Caput 1991b: 44–63. See in particular Italo Svevo, Soggiorno londinese [London Stay (1968a: 686)]. 17 Printed by Cogliati, Milano, which would publish Deledda’s early novel Anime oneste in 1896 and the short-story collection Le tentazioni [Temptations] in 1899, the Rivista per le Signorine anticipated the first chapters of Anime oneste [Honest Souls] (1, 15 October and 1 November 1894) and the short story ‘I Marvu’ [The Marvus] (15 May, 1 June 1895), later included in Le tentazioni, in addition to Deledda’s prose poems ‘I crepuscoli’ [Twilights] (1 December 1894) and such articles as ‘Socialismo azzurro’ [Blue Socialism] (15 August 1895). On the cultural significance of ‘A la sera’ [To the Evening], Deledda’s translation of a poem by French symbolist author Camille Mauclair, which also appeared in Rivista per le Signorine (3 March 1895), see De Michelis 1964: 13. 18 In his Nuovi Principi [New Principles (1925)], Orestano defined his ‘superrealismo,’ a sort of moral relativism of a positivistic brand, as the only truly Italian philosophy that could offer theoretical support to the moral rebirth operated through fascism. On Orestano, see Michelini 1978: 185–94 and Stefani 1975: 192–4. 19 Nuova Antologia 172.687 (1900): 385–410; 172.688 (1900): 591–615; 173.689 (1900): 15–40; 173.690 (1900): 243–60; 173.691(1900): 390–409. Among other contributions in the Nuova Antologia, E.A. Butti’s article, ‘Le idée sull’arte di Federico Nietzsche,’ insisting on Nietzsche’s predilection for art and Nietzsche’s own artistic sophistication, diminishes the significance of his philosophy, which allegedly ‘appare come larvata, come mascherata sotto la magnificenza estranea e bizzarra della sua parola’ [appears somehow veiled, somehow masked under the alienated and odd magnificence of his word (1900: 226)]. Meanwhile Teresita Friedman Coduri’s article, ‘Le poesie di Federico Nietzsche,’ dwells not on Nietzsche as ‘un artista della parola’ [an artist of the word] but as ‘un signore di essa’ [a master of it (1900: 503)]. Nietzsche’s tragic ability to inextricably interweave art and life results in his radical solitude, of which madness becomes the most extreme expression. 20 The same implicit reference to D’Annunzio as ‘artefice di grido’ [fashionable

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25 26

27

Notes to pages 164–76

artificer] and manipulator of Nietzsche’s thought surfaces also in Butti’s article (1900: 219–20). Freud’s Unbehagen in der Kultur [Civilization and Its Discontents] appeared in 1929. The chapter’s beginning is characterized by a phonetic alternation of voiced and voiceless ‘s’ with the predominance of the latter, which is confirmed by the voiceless ‘s’ in the names of the protagonists and in the title: ‘L’uomo che abitava la casetta solitaria laggiù fra la spiaggia e la brughiera, di ritorno dal suo solito viaggio al paese dove ogni tanto si provvedeva delle cose più necessarie alla vita, svoltando dalla strada provinciale al sentiero che conduce verso il mare, vide due uomini che misuravano coi loro passi un terreno attiguo al suo giardino (951) [The man inhabited the solitary little house down there, between the beach and the moor. Coming back from his usual trip to the village, where from time to time he acquired the things most necessary to life, turning from the country road into the path that leads to the sea, he saw two men who were measuring with their steps a lot adjacent to his garden.] It is worth noticing that in ‘Why I am so clever’ of Ecce homo Nietzsche forcefully stresses the role of nutrition in the unfolding of critical thinking, for ‘all prejudices take their origin in the intestines’ (1911: 32). Another echo of this Zarathustrian message resounds in La madre (1920): ‘Dio ci ha messo al mondo per godere; ci fa soffrire per castigarci di non aver saputo godere, questo sì idiota d’una donna. Dio ha creato il mondo con tutte le sue bellezze e poi lo ha regalato all’uomo perché se lo godesse: peggio per chi non lo capisce’ (1971: 409) [God sent us into the world to enjoy it. He sends suffering to punish us for not having understood how to enjoy, and that is the truth, you fool of a woman! God created the world with all its beauty and gave it to man for his pleasure. So much the worse for him if he does not understand! (1987: 51–2)]. On this complex aspect of Nietzsche’s ‘Philosophy of the Morning,’ see Vattimo 2002: 116–47. On the first analysis of the mask theme in Nietzsche’s works, see E. Bertram, Nietzsche. Versuch einer Mythologie (Berlin, 1918) as discussed in Vattimo 1974: 9–10. As Nietzsche explains in his Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen [Thoughts out of Season] ‘Keiner wagt mehr seine Person daran, sondern maskiert sich als gebildeter Mann, als Gelehrter, als Dichter, als Politiker. Greift man solche Masken an, weil man glaubt, sei es ihnen Ernst, und nicht bloss ein Possenspiel zu thun, – da sie allesammt den Ernst affichieren – so hat man plötzlich nur Lumpen and bunte Flicken in den Händen ... Während noch nie so

Notes to pages 179–91

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volltönend von der “freien Persönlichkeit” geredet worden ist, sieht man nicht einmal Persönlichkeiten, geschweige denn freie, sondern lauter ängstlich verhüllte Universal-Menschen’ (1972: 276–7) [Looking further, we see how the banishment of instinct by history has turned men to shades and abstractions: no one ventures to show a personality, but masks himself as a man of culture, a savant, poet, or politician. If one takes hold of these masks, believing he has to do with a serious thing and not a mere puppet-show – for they all have an appearance of seriousness – he will find nothing but rags and coloured streamers in his hands ... While there has never been such a fullthroated chatter about ‘free personality,’ personalities can be seen no more (to say nothing of free ones); but merely men in uniform, with their coats anxiously pulled over their ears (1909b: 40–1)]. For the interpretive tension between the ‘noontide thought’ and the ‘philosophy of the morning’ in Nietzsche’s work, see Vattimo 2002: 96–101 and the critical references on pp. 187–9. On this, see E. Abegg, ‘Nietzsche’s Zarathustra und der Prophet des alten Irans’ (Zürich 1945), as quoted in Vattimo 2002: 244. See Vattimo 2002: 250–2 for a bibliography on ‘Nietzsche and Christianity.’ Kelly Oliver and Marilyn Pearsall have asked the pivotal questions with regard to Nietzsche and feminism: ‘In general, feminists take two approaches to the question of Nietzsche and woman. First, many debates have focused on how to interpret Nietzsche’s remarks about women and femininity. Are all of Nietzsche’s comments about women to be read literally, or is he being ironic, perhaps even parodying and challenging derogatory stereotypes about women? Second, is his philosophy useful to feminist theory? Can we separate his philosophy from his seemingly derogatory remarks about women? Can feminists use his criticisms of truth, objectivity, reason, and the autonomous subject, to challenge the exclusion of women from the history of philosophy? What can feminists gain from reading Nietzsche?’ (1998: 2).

4. Passive Nihilism and Schopenhauer’s Contemplator: La danza della collana 1 Esse and operari are two key concepts of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, for the former represents the realm of necessity and the latter the realm of freedom. This vision of active human life as determined by the necessary and universal principle that Schopenhauer calls ‘Will’ reverses the traditional Christian idea of moral freedom based upon an individual decision, as we will discuss in the course of this chapter. 2 All quotations in Italian are taken from the Italian edition of La danza della

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Notes to pages 199–212

collana in Romanzi e novelle, vol. 2 (1945), and all English translations from Deledda’s novel are mine. All quotations in Italian are taken from the Italian edition of Colombi e sparvieri in Romanzi sardi (1981), and all English translations from Deledda’s novel are mine. This is confirmed through the ironic attitude of the implied narrator toward Mariana’s fashionable choices, from clothing to vacationing and literature on pp. 696–7. It is important to underscore here that the 1888 edition also contained the addition to the fourth book on ‘The Metaphysics of Love,’ as Hübscher specifically states in his Schopenhauer-Bibliographie (1981: 68). As Dr Claudia Morelli Cedrone, Deledda’s grand-niece, and her mother, Mrs Lucia Fontana Morelli, explained during the interview that they generously granted me in December 2003, the books of the Deledda family’s library probably went in large part to Nuoro’s penitentiary of ‘Badu e Carros’ when Deledda’s family home was sold to Elias Sanna in 1914. On the reasons for the decision to hastily sell the family properties at the onset of the First World War, see King 2005: 144–5. On the complex relationship between Eastern and Western philosophies of antiquity in Schopenhauer’s work, see Giuseppe Riconda’s Schopenhauer interprete dell’Occidente (1969). Swiss historian and Renaissance scholar Jacob Burckhardt had been Nietzsche’s revered friend and mentor in Basel. Burckhardt’s recognition of ‘the inescapable subjectivity of viewpoint’ (Nichols 1964: 53), his revisitation of the classical Greek theory of historical cycles, and his ‘scepticism of teleological developments in history’ (71) constituted the sheer negation of the idealistic and positivistic theory of historical evolution as linear progress. Burckhardt’s opposition to Hegel’s rational optimism, which saw history as the irreversible march of the World Spirit, was profoundly inspired by Schopenhauer’s pessimism and his emphasis on the cognitive role of artistic contemplation. Instead of considering the present to be the peak of the progressive movement of civilization, which would justify the tragedies of history in the spirit of dialectic optimism, Burckhardt pleads for a critical pessimism that ought to be detached from personal predilections and societal beliefs. According to Burckhardt, historiography should originate from a disinterested and contemplative stance that goes deeper than phenomenal knowledge and closely resembles the artistic contemplation of Schopenhauer’s aesthetics. In his Weltgeschichtliche Betrachtungen [Force and Freedom: Reflections on History (1905)], Burckhardt writes: ‘While, as men of a definite epoch, we

Notes to pages 212–14

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must inevitably pay our passive tribute to historical life, we must at the same time approach it in a spirit of contemplation’ (1964: 85). Burckhardt’s Weltgeschichtliche Betrachtungen was published posthumously and contains materials from the lectures that Burckhardt delivered at the University of Basel over the winter of 1870–1, when Nietzsche audited some of his classes (Vattimo 2002: 206, and Nichols 1964: 22). Wilhelm Gwinner, Arthur Schopenhauer aus persönlichen Umgängen dargestellt (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1862) [A Portrait of Arthur Schopenhauer through Personal Acquaintances]; Arthur Schopenhauer. Von ihm. Ueber ihn. Ein Wort der Vertheidigung [Arthur Schopenhauer. From and About Him. A Word in His Defense] by Ernst Otto Lindner, and Memorabilien, Briefe und Nachlassstücke [Memorabilia, Letters, and Posthumous Works] by Julius Frauenstädt (Berlin: A.W. Hayn, 1863). Die Himmelstürmer, an anonymous novel of 1851; Alfred Meissner, Sansara (1872); Ernst Otto Lindner, Sturm und Compass (1856). For instance, the monographs on Hegel et Schopenhauer by Foucher de Carreil and La philosophie de Schopenhauer by Th. Ribot were published in Paris in 1862 and 1864, when the Revue des Deux Mondes, the Journal des Débats, the Revue Française, and the Revue Bleue had already released several articles on Schopenhauer. De Sanctis’s essay appeared first in the Rivista contemporanea 15.6 (1858): 369– 408, and was later included in his Saggi critici (Naples: Morano, 1866), 246–99. For the role of irony in the dialogical structure of De Sanctis’s essay, I refer to Heyer-Caput 1999. During his two-year imprisonment at Castel dell’Ovo (Naples) for his participation in the 1848 democratic revolution, De Sanctis acquired a deep knowledge of German, which allowed him to read Hegel’s Logik [Logic] and translate into Italian Karl Rosenkranz’s Handbuch der Poesie [Handbook of Poetry (1832–3)]. De Sanctis alludes here to Schopenhauer’s misogynistic attitude throughout his works and in particular in the aphorisms ‘On Women’ included in Parerga and Paralipomena. To summarize Schopenhauer’s misogyny, suffice it to quote aphorism 369: ‘Only the male intellect, clouded by the sexual impulse, could call the undersized, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped, and short-legged sex the fair sex; The female sex could be more aptly called the unaesthetic. They really and truly have no bent and receptivity either for music, poetry, or the plastic arts; but when they affect and profess to like such things, it is mere aping for the sake of their keen desire to please’ (1974a: 2: 619; emphasis in the text). Interestingly, Italo Svevo also mentions the interaction between Schopen-

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23

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Notes to pages 215–21

hauer’s and Leopardi’s pessimism as an example of the relationship between philosophy and literature in his 1927 essay Soggiorno londinese (1968a: 687) (see 4.5, p. 221). According to Croce (1927: 359), the passage was first included in the third edition of Schopenhauer’s main work (Berlin: Griesbach 1859. 1: 692–3). It appears in the posthumous edition of his complete works edited by Frauenstädt in 1873–4 (2: 675) and reads in Payne’s English version: ‘But no one has treated this subject [of the nullity and suffering of life] so thoroughly and exhaustively as Leopardi in our own day. He is entirely imbued and penetrated with it; everywhere his theme is the mockery and wretchedness of this existence. He presents it in every page of his works, yet in such a multiplicity of forms and applications, with such a wealth of imagery, that he never wearies us, but, on the contrary, has a diverting and stimulating effect’ (1958: 2: 588). Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga e Paralipomena, trans. E. Amendola Kühn, G. Colli, and M. Montinari (Torino: Boringhieri, 1963). Morra also insists on the repercussions of De Sanctis’s essay on the Italian reception of Schopenhauer (1964: 51–2). Il mondo come volontà e rappresentazione, trans. O. Chilesotti (Milan: Dumolard, 1888). For all details about Schopenhauer’s bibliography in Italy, see Hübscher 1981: 68–74. Arthur Schopenhauer, ‘L’amore, le donne ed il matrimonio,’ B. Galletti di S. Cataldo, Note di critica odierna (Palermo: Virzé, 1881). Interestingly, the first Schopenhauer biography in Italian was the translation of Helen Zimmern’s Arthur Schopenhauer, His Life and His Philosophy (London: Longmans, 1876). The same aspect of Schopenhauer’s radical pessimism, not determined by biographical conditions, is underlined in Hans Zint’s review entitled ‘Schopenhauer im Lichte der Katholischen Philosophie Italiens’ [‘Schopenhauer in the Light of Italian Catholic Philosophy’ (1934: 226)]. Interestingly, the author concludes by acknowledging that the first religious interpretations of Schopenhauer’s philosophy do not take into account Schopenhauer’s atheism but, on the other hand, let an essential element of his philosophy emerge, namely ‘das Ziel, die Menschen von den optimistischen weltlichen Illusionen zu befreien und sie dem Ewigen zuzuwenden’ [the aim to free human beings from optimistic, worldly illusions and to turn them toward the eternal (1934: 228)]. For Svevo’s reception of Nietzsche’s philosophy, I refer to Heyer-Caput 1991b: 44–63.

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25 ‘Una vita è certamente influenzato dai veristi francesi ... Però il suo autore preferito divenne presto lo Schopenhauer, e forse fu al grande filosofo che si deve il [sic!] pseudonimo di Italo Svevo che per la prima volta apparve sulla copertina di Una vita. Alfonso, il protagonista del romanzo, doveva essere proprio la personificazione dell’affermazione schopenhaueriana della vita tanto vicina alla sua negazione’ [A Life is certainly influenced by French veristic writers ... Yet, Schopenhauer soon became his [Svevo’s] favorite author, and probably due to this great philosopher Italo Svevo’s pseudonym appeared for the first time on the book cover of A Life. Alfonso, the protagonist of the novel, should have been precisely the personification of Schopenhauer’s affirmation of life, so close to its negation (Svevo 1968b: 800–1)]. 26 For a brief but effective overview of Schopenhauer’s impact on modern thought, see Riconda 1969: 14–15, and see Magee 1997: 403–14 for ‘Schopenhauer’s Influence on Creative Writers.’ 27 La mia adolescenza è stata tutto un sogno di questa collana: non la richiedevo mai, ma ci pensavo sempre e di notte la sognavo [My whole adolescence was the uninterrupted dream of this necklace: I never requested it, but I was always thinking of it and dreaming of it at night (1017)]. 28 For a bibliography on the cultural relevance of Art Nouveau, I refer to Venturi’s essay, footnotes 7 and 11, p. 79. 29 The ‘villa al mare’ of his childhood had already emerged from Giovanni’s memories when he listened to the music of the organ in the church where he had followed the young Maria after their first conversation. In Giovanni’s interior monologue, the music reveals to him the essence of those childhood images: ‘[E] il mare canta con quella voce d’organo ... [T]utto gli appare sulla stessa linea, ma sotto una luce diversa, mai veduta’ [And the sea sings with the voice of the organ ... Everything appears to him on the same line, but under a different light, never seen (1003)] 30 On the mythical resonance of Anna’s blindness, see Valesio 1992: 52–3. 31 Nietzsche realized the impact of Schopenhauer’s vision of music on Wagner already in his 1887 Genealogy of Morals (quoted in Magee 1997: 373).

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Bibliography

WORKS BY GRAZIA DELEDDA

Novels Memorie di Fernanda [Fernanda’s Memoirs (1888–9)]. L’Ultima moda 3 (97–136). Stella d’Oriente [Star of the Orient (1891)]. Cagliari: Avvenire di Sardegna. Fior di Sardegna [Sardinian Flower (1891)]. Rome: Perino. Anime oneste [Honest Souls (1895)]. Milan: Cogliati. La via del male [The Path of Evil (1896)]. Turin: Speirani. Il tesoro [The Treasure (1897)]. Turin: Speirani. La giustizia [Justice (1899)]. Turin: Speirani. Il vecchio della montagna [The Old Man of the Mountain (1900)]. Turin: Roux e Viarengo. Dopo il divorzio [After the Divorce (1902)]. Turin: Roux e Viarengo. Elias Portolu [1903]. Turin: Roux e Viarengo. Cenere [Ashes (1904)]. Rome: Ripamonti e Colombo. Nostalgie [Nostalgic Feelings (1905)]. Rome: Ripamonti. L’ombra del passato [The Shadow of the Past (1907)]. Nuova Antologia 841–6. La via del male [The Path of Evil (1906)]. Rome: Biblioteca Romantica della Nuova Antologia. L’edera [Ivy (1906)]. Rome: Colombo. Cenere [Ashes (1910)]. Milan: Treves. Il nostro padrone [Our Master (1910)]. Milan: Treves. Sino al confine [To the Limits (1910)]. Milan: Treves. Nel deserto [In the Desert (1911)]. Milan: Treves. Colombi e sparvieri [Doves and Sparrow Hawks (1912)]. Milan: Treves. Canne al vento [Reeds in the Wind (1913)]. Milan: Treves.

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Index

active nihilism 177–8; Eternal Recurrence of the Same (Nietzsche) 180; in Il segreto 177–80, 240; of Nietzsche 154–5, 163, 175, 211; and suffering 163 adaptation: as authorial device 41–2 Aforismi sulla saggezza per la vita [Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life] (Schopenhauer) 203, 217, 218 After the Divorce. See Dopo il divorzio [After the Divorce] Aleramo, Sibilla 111 Algeria: seasonal labourers to 81 alienation: and fragmentation 174 Also sprach Zarathustra [Thus Spoke Zarathustra] (Nietzsche). See Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Also sprach Zarathustra) (Nietzsche) Ambrosio, Arturo 142–3, 146; Cenere as a financial disaster for 151; imposer of budget cuts on Cenere 149–50 Ambrosio Film, Turin 137 Amendola-Kuhn, Eva 220 Amphitryon (Plautus) 193 Anime oneste [Honest Souls] 36 Annalena Bilsini 154

Antichrist, The (Nietzsche) 159 anti-Christianity: Nietzsche and 161 Antonelli, Luigi 123, 136, 141 Aphorismes sur la sagesse dans la vie (Schopenhauer) 213 Apollonian principle 211; of classical order and form 170 appearance: and reality 194, 225 approximation: Capuana’s criticism of 112–13; linguistic changes against 37–40 Ardigò, Roberto 160 Argentina: landscapes of 62 Ariosto, Ludovico 71 Arte muta, L’ 151 Art Nouveau: aesthetics of 228–9 asceticism: attainment of 207; contemplation and music 196–7; denial of the body through 170; ‘denial of the Will-to-Live’ (Schopenhauer) 235; emancipation from painful passions 209; existential choice of Jorgj 201; Schopenhauer and 197–8; liberation through 232– 5 ascetic renunciation theme: in La danza 219

292

Index

Ashes. See Cenere [Ashes] ashes: remainders of death and signs of life 152; symbolic of death and life 134, 150 ‘assassinio di Via Belpoggio, L’’ [‘The Belpoggio-Street Murder’] (Svevo) 222–3 Aste, Mario 5 Atisha (Indian monk) 205 Atman (the soul) 204 ‘At noontide’ (Nietzsche) 179 audience: of Deledda 58 ‘aulicismo’ 40–2, 248n19 Avesta 182 Baldini, Antonio 227; critique of La danza 189 Balzac, Honoré de 100, 105 banditry: in the Barbagia region 80; in the Nuoro region 31; as social plague in Sardinia 60–1 Barbagia: banditry in 80; conflict between Nuoro and Cagliari 117– 18; criminal pathology of 125; delinquency rate in 31; sacredmythic dimension of in Cenere 98–9; violence of 33 Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio 5, 99 Barzellotti, Giacomo 164; on Schopenhauer and Leopardi 219–20 Basel 159, 211 Bassani, Giorgio: Il giardino dei FinziContini 48 Baudelaire, Charles 14, 55 Beethoven, Ludwig van: Ninth Symphony 241 Bellorini, Egidio: Sardinian traditional songs 13 Bergson, Henri: voices of modern crisis 198

Bernhardt, Sarah 147 Bersezio, Vittorio 258n19 Bertini, Francesca 146, 148 Bessi, Pirro 92, 94 ‘bestia elettiva, La’ [‘The Beast Who Wills’] (D’Annunzio) 159, 221–2, 226 Beyond Good and Evil (Nietzsche) 158, 159, 162 Bhagavad Gita o Poema Divino, La: from Deledda’s family archive 205 Bhagavadgita ‘The Song of the Lord’ 204–5 Bible: in Deledda’s corpus 34 biblical culture 94 Biblioteca Nazionale di Roma 16 ‘Biblioteca romantica della Nuova Antologia’ series 112, 159 Bildungsroman: of Anania 100; Cenere [Ashes] as female 109–12; Cenere [Ashes] as male 98–101; Cenere [Ashes] rewriting of 10; European tradition of 101 Biotte, Ignazio 198 Birth of Tragedy, The (Nietzsche) 159 Bisi-Albini, Sofia 162 blind singer: intellectual blindness of 232 Bocca Brothers publishers of Turin 187, 217, 218 Boccaccio, Giovanni 104; Decameron 48 Boccioni, Umberto 191 body: Nietzsche’s emphasis on 169– 70 Boine, Giovanni 231 Borelli, Lyda 148 bourgeoisie: disputable operations promoting Pietro and Antine to the 80–1

Index Bourget, Paul 13, 55, 156 Bracco, Roberto 135 Branca, Remo 243n4 Bregoli-Russo, Mauda 109, 202 Briefe über Schopenhauers Philosophie [Letters on Schopenhauer’s Philosophy] (Frauenstädt) 212 Briziarelli, Susan 61 Brunetta, Gian Piero 148 Buddhism 205 Bullough, Enrichetta 142 Burckhardt, Jacob 211, 268–9n8 Cagliari: conflict between Nuoro and 117; journey theme 99, 112; topography of in revision 124 Canne al vento [Reeds in the Wind] 67 Cantelmo, Claudio 160 capitalism 79–80 Cappella Peruzzi in Santa Croce 144 Capuana, Luigi 43–5, 105, 135; criticism of 37–40; critique of La via del male 36–41, 74–7, 92–3; guidelines 39–41; linguistic and cultural stonature 61; use of ‘come’ 84, 113; on weaknesses of the plot of La via del male 74–5 Cara, Antonio 144 Caro, Elme 213 coscienza di Zeno, La [Zeno’s Confessions] (Svevo) 223 Case of Wagner, The (Nietzsche) 159 Catholicism: and Italian Modernism 7–8; and La via del male [The Path of Evil] 44; notion of salvation through expiation of sins 106 Cecchi, Emilio 5 Cenere [Ashes] 5, 6, 24; amended conclusion 129–30; Anania’s cultural

293

journey 113; and the autobiographical I 111; centrality of the mother character in 128–31; changes in second edition (1903>1906) 38; compassion of Anania 126, 127–8; complexity of the human psyche in 121; concluding paragraphs in the three editions 132–3; crisis of Sardinian identity in 156–7; as a female Bildungsroman 109–12; and film history 145; as a hidden female Bildungsroman 112; interior life of Anania 134; intertextual dialogue with Nietzsche’s philosophy in 11; intertextual texture of 95; irony of female liberation in a patriarchal society 110; journey from his mother to his mother in 101, 111–12; on La via dedications to Niceforo and Orano 125; liberation and death 110; as a male Bildungsroman 98–101; ménage à trois proposal in 106; and modernity’s thematic threads 156; moral behaviours 77, 109; mother as narrative force in 105; multifaceted significance of 145; narrative texture of modernity 148; Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra in 157; Nietzsche’s philosophy in 10, 11, 15, 95, 109; in Nuova Antologia (Rome) 159; Oedipal desire of Anania 98–9, 101, 102–4; patriarchal violence against the mother in 106; plot of 96–7; protagonist in 101; publication history of 98; revisions and development of Anania’s character 127; revisions and rewriting of the Bildungsroman 112–35; revisions from A to B 120–1; as rewriting of the

294

Index

Bildungsroman 10; role of the mother in 97–8, 101, 102–5, 109–12; and Scenario sardo per il cinema 136– 7; story of Olì Derios in 98–9; structural division throughout all three editions 131; symbolism of 110; textual variations of the conclusion in the three editions 131; theme of madness 130; variations from A to B and from B to C 112–13; ‘veil’ image in 130; voyage motif in 99–100 Cenere [Ashes] (Eleonora Duse’s film) 10, 95–6, 136; cinematic art 136; climax of the film 149; critical response to 150–1; as a financial disaster 151; mother as female protagonist in 141; and the resymbolization of the female Bildungsroman 141– 52; script of 138; study of art history 141, 143; title cards 149 ‘Cento anni di studi schopenhaueriani in Italia’ [‘A Hundred Years of Schopenhauer Studies in Italy’] (Morra) 220 centrifugal force 17–18 centripetal force 18 Cerina, Giovanna 166, 182, 244–5n2, 249–50n29, 252n42 Cervantes, Miguel de 200, 201 Cervia: as inspiration for scenery of Il segreto 166 Ceserani, Remo 8, 256n7 Challemel-Lacour, Paul A. 213 ‘Chemistry of Ideas and Sensations, The’ (Nietzsche) 108 Chiaroscuro 144 chiesa della solitudine, La (The Church of Solitude) 5, 61; secret in 155 Chilesotti, Oscar: Italian translator of

Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung 204 Christianity: and archaic Sardinian rituals 44 Christian traditions: and pagan rituals 99 chromatic adjectives: use of 144–5 Church of Solitude, The. See chiesa della solitudine, La (The Church of Solitude) Church of St Francis in Assisi 144 cinema: as art of modernity 98; Cenere 135–41; survey of writers about 135–6 ‘cinematografia futurista, La’ [‘Futurist Cinematography’] 135 Cines (Roman producer and film studio) 150 Cippico, Antonio 158 città morta, La [The Dead City] (D’Annunzio) 232 Ciusa, Maria Elvira 93, 144 Colombi e sparvieri [Doves and Sparrow Hawks] 157; dysfunctional condition of the Sardinian intellectual 198–200; Eastern thought and 205; final healing of Jorgj 209; intertextuality of 109, 201–2, 204, 205–6, 239; Jorgj’s flashback 206; male protagonist 169; metaphor of the veil 206–7; and modernity’s thematic threads 156; open ending of 207, 209; role of physical size in sexual attraction 204; Schopenhauer in 11, 155, 198, 210 ‘come’ [like], use of 84, 113 Concept of Dread (Kierkegaard) 84 concetto dell’angoscia, Il (Kierkegaard) 84 Conrad, Joseph 193

Index consciousness, and body 170 Constance School, reception theory 63 contemplator, Schopenhauerian 227 Corradini, Enrico 164 Corriere della domenica, publisher of Niceforo’s and Orano’s Sardinian correspondences 32 Corsi, Mario 159 Cosima 61, 194; as autobiographical novel 13–14, 17 Cosima, quasi Grazia: posthumous autobiography 111 Così parlò Zarathustra (Nietzsche) 187 Costanzi Theatre 93 Covotti, Aurelio 218; on Schopenhauer’s works 219 crime: in the Barbagia 33; economic factor in 33 crisi della morale, La (Morselli) 161 Cristiano: search for the meaning of life 176–7; vision of life of 177 Critica, La (journal) 164 criticism: Deleddian 4–6, 16–17 Critique of Pure Reason (Kant) 195 Croce, Benedetto 159, 164; analysis of De Sanctis’s essay on ‘Schopenhauer and Leopardi’ 216 Cubeddu, Luca 101 culture: European 9; experiences of 207; social, financial, and political power of 81; of modernity of Mariana 208; relationship with power 78–82; Sardinian 61; Sardinian and national relationship 34–5; as social weapon 80 Curi, Fausto 9 dance: the material and the spiritual

295

228–9; of the necklace 228; symbolic significance of 228 Dance of the Necklace, The. See danza della collana, La [The Dance of the Necklace] Dannunzian literary mediations 161 D’Annunzio, Gabriele 4, 12, 13, 40, 105, 112, 135, 201, 226; and Colombi e sparvieri 201; end of relationship with Duse 141; myth of clearsighted blindness in works of 232; Nietzsche as ‘the great destroyer’ 109, 257n15; Nietzsche’s Il caso Wagner 160; Nietzsche’s philosophy 159–60, 164; Nietzsche’s Uebermensch 221–2; style of 43, 113 Dante Alighieri 12, 101, 103, 104; blind singer as pilgrim 231–2; pilgrimage 229–30 danza della collana, La [The Dance of the Necklace] 6, 15, 24–5, 107–8, 131, 154; blindness topos in 232; dance of and with modernity 240; Deledda’s own artistic ‘emotional way’ to handle philosophy 240; Eastern thought and 205; experimental character of 189; intertextuality in 239–40; journey theme in 70, 188; and liberation from illusions 227–32, 240; modernity of 11, 188–9; musical pictures in 238–9; narrative of 191–2; Nietzsche and 109; Schopenhauer’s ethics and aesthetics in 210–24; Schopenhauer’s motifs in 224; theme of the double 193–5; Tristan’s landscape imagery in 237; voices of modernity in 13 Darwin, Charles: Will to Life 163

296

Index

Debenedetti, Giacomo 8 Decadentism 13, 19, 105, 232 Decadentismo 6; and Verismo 4–6 Decameron (Boccaccio) 48 De Chirico, Giorgio 191 ‘Definitional Excursions’ (Stanford Friedman) 6 De Giovanni, Neria: Deledda’s ethnicity and archetypes of Sardinian culture 5, 35, 111 De Gubernatis, Angelo: letter to (18 September 1893) 57; letter to (22 June 1893) 12; letter to (27 July 1893) 25–6; letter to (4 September 1893) 89; research of Sardinian traditions 28–30 DeKoven, Marianne 6–7 De la quadruplice racine du principe de raison suffisante (Schopenhauer) 213 Deledda, Grazia: on Capuana’s critique 75–6; childhood and youth of 12–13; contribution of to the survey of writers on cinema 135–6; fatalism of suffering of 105; intellectual independence of 219; interests 204; letter to Pirro Bessi (1907) 19–20; letter to consul of France in Trieste (1905) 186; Nobel Prize 1926 4, 188; posthumous autobiography 111; Sardinia in her writings 105; Sardinian folk cultures 25; selfawareness of 186–7; self-criticism 23; spirit of observation of 36; Uebermensch ingrained in narratives of 161–2; voices of modern crisis 198 Deledda, Nicolina 144 Deledda family: library of 187, 204 Deleuze, Gilles 11

delinquenza in Sardegna, La (Ferri’s preface) 125 delinquenza in Sardegna. Note di sociologia criminale, La [Delinquency in Sardinia: Notes on Criminal Sociology] (Niceforo) 30, 32 De Man, Paul 8 De Michelis, Eurialo 5, 189, 238; on Deledda’s modernity 239 De modernistarum doctrinis (encyclical of Pius X) 7 De Sanctis, Francesco 202; essay on ‘Schopenhauer e Leopardi’ 213, 215–17; fictional dialogue on Schopenhauer and Leopardi 214– 15; minister of public education of the Italian Kingdom 216 determinism: overcoming of 156; view of criminal sociology 126 Di Chamery, Umbertina 24 ‘Dichtung’ (Nietzsche): subversively Christian stance of 184 didactic functionalism: of the revision of La via del male 58–61 Die Geburt der Tragödie vom Geist der Musik [The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music] (Nietzsche) 108 Die Genealogie der Moral [On the Genealogy of Morals] (Nietzsche) 108 Die Liebe, die Weiber und die Ehe [On Love, Women, and Marriage] (Schopenhauer) 217 Di Giacomo, Salvatore 135 Di là dal mare: Viaggio attraverso la Sardegna [Beyond the Sea: A Voyage through Sardinia] (Niceforo and Orano) 32 Dio dei viventi, Il [The God of the Living] 46, 157 Diogenes Laertius 182

Index Dionisotti, Carlo 12 Dionysian principle 211; of liberated chaos 170 Di Pilla, Francesco 71; on Deledda’s early works 27; on Il segreto dell’uomo solitario 156, 198 direct discourse: to convey knowledge about Nuoro customs 52; Maria’s thoughts about Pietro and Francesco 64–6; of second edition of La via del male 50 diversity: label of madness 15 Divina Commedia (Dante) 103 Dolfi, Anna 5, 37, 176, 191, 238; on La via del male 27; narrative of La danza 192–3 Don Quixote (Cervantes) 200 Dopo il divorzio [After the Divorce] 24, 113 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor 57, 105, 155, 193 ‘dottrina delle idée di Arturo Schopenhauer, La’ [‘Arthur Schopenhauer’s Doctrine of Ideas’] (Mathieu) 220 Double, The (Dostoyevsky) 193 double reality 220 Doves and Sparrow Hawks. See Colombi e sparvieri [Doves and Sparrow Hawks] dream: modern themes 70; and reality 178 Dresdner Revolution 1849 212 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Stevenson) 193 dualism: of body and spirit 232; between good and evil 182–3; in letter episode 232; between phenomenon and noumenon 195–6 Dumolard publisher of Milan 204 Duse, Eleonora: acting style 147–8;

297

artistic approach to cinema 143; on cinema acting 148–9; end of relationship with D’Annunzio 141; and film of Cenere 10, 95–6, 98; and imbalance with Mari’s acting style 149; letter to (25 November 1916) 95–6; letter to Giovanni Papini 146; letter to (May 1916) 137–8; need to work during war years 142; production of Cenere (film) 106; and relationship with Deledda 136–9, 141; ‘ricetta’ scene 144; Sardinian sources 138; significance of Cenere [Ashes] in context of modernity 141 Ecce homo (Nietzsche) 158–9, 182–3 Eden Hotel, Rome: meetings between Duse and Deledda at 138 edera, L’ [Ivy] 67, 138 e-ducation: etymology of 18 Effrena, Stelio 160 Einstein, Albert 224 Elias Portolu: published in Nuova Antologia (Rome) 163 Elias Portolu (1900>1903) 24, 67, 113, 157; changes in second edition 38 elimination: as authorial device 41–2 Enrichetta (daughter of Duse): Duse’s letters to 142, 143, 146, 151 Ernst Schmeitzner publisher: Nietzsche’s letter to 184 eros: and agape 171; effect of on Maria and Pietro 83; and logos 166; and thanatos 35; as vital force 171 esse (being and essence) 188 Essai sur le libre arbitre (Schopenhauer) 213 Eternal Recurrence of the Same (Nietzsche) 173–4, 175, 178; negative of 179

298

Index

ethics: of asceticism 239; of compassion and asceticism 197–8; and epistemology 84–5, 88; of female protagonist in La via del male 88; goodness 197–8; of justice 197–8; of Nietzsche 163; of sympathy 234 ethnological research: with De Gubernatis 66; in La via del male 36, 44 ethnology: treatment of through narrative 59 European culture: at turn of century 9, 11 European modernity 15–16, 18; and Sardinia 12 evangelical socialism 79–80 existential condition: isolation of 121–2 existentialism: of Schopenhauer 221; theme of the voyage 231 exoticism: in La via del male 60, 62 expressionism: among linguistic changes targeted 40 fanciullo nascosto, Il [The Hidden Child] 46 fascino della terra, Il 136, 141 fascism 164, 226; Orestano as philosopher of 163 Faust (Goethe) 200 ‘f.c.’: review of Cenere (film) in L’Unione Sarda by 150–1 Febea. See Ossani Lodi, Olga (pen name: Febea) Federico Nietzsche: La filosofia religiosa – la morale – l’estetica (Zoccoli) 162 female characters: point of view of and open endings 82–90; strength of the author’s modernity 83 female protagonist: in Cenere 10; cen-

trality of 112; and itinerary of Anania’s novel of formation in Cenere 111–12; modern perspective on ethics and epistemology 88; unmasking of lies in Il segreto 168 female protagonists. See also women feminist movement 137 Ferri, Enrico 124–5; positivism and criminal psychology 30 preface to La delinquenza in Sardegna 125 filmic interpretation: of Cenere [Ashes] (Duse 1916) 95–6, 106 film industry: writers cooperation with 135 ‘filosofia di Federigo Guglielmo Nietzsche, La’ (Barzellotti) 164 filosofia di Schopenhauer, La [Schopenhauer’s Philosophy] (Melli) 218 Fior di Sardegna [Sardinian Flower] 36; theme of madness 71–2 First World War 142 Fish, Stanley 63 Flaubert, Gustave 100 Fogazzaro, Antonio 105 Foligno, Angela da 151 folk cultures: social and literary mission 25–30 Fonni: journey theme 99, 112 formalism: of Shklovsky 194 Forse che sì, forse che no [Perchance Yes and Perchance No] (D’Annunzio) 160, 226 Förster-Nietzsche, Elisabeth 158 ‘fortuna di Schopenhauer, La’ (Pasquinelli) 211 fragmentation: and destruction 178 France: naturalist authors in 26; Schopenhauer’s works published in 213

Index Fratelli Bocca publishing 158, 159, 162 Frattini, Alberto 144 Frauenstädt, Julius 212 free indirect discourse: in Il segreto 169; interior monologue in 57, 65– 6; social power of culture 81–2; use of in La via del male (second edition) 53–5 free indirect style: and interior monologue 68–9 French Naturalism 13 Freud, Sigmund 128, 164, 198; Svevo reference to 224 Fuller, Peter J. 34–5 fu Mattia Pascal, Il [The Late Mattia Pascal] (Pirandello) 123, 193 fuoco, Il [The Flame] (D’Annunzio) 160 Futurism 135; on Cenere 146–7 Gadamer, Hans-Georg 185 Garavelli, Mortara 66, 131, 134–5; on Deledda’s changes in language 38 Garibaldi, Giuseppe: Italian unification and 117 Gazzetta del Popolo, La (Rome) 24–5, 89 Genealogy of Morals, The (Nietzsche) 76 Genio e follia [Genius and Madness] (Lombroso) 30 Genoa 159 Gentile, Giovanni 163 George Eastman Institute of New York 106 Geburt der Tragödie vom Geist der Musik [The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music] (Nietzsche) 211 Germany: reception of Nietzsche’s work 158

299

Gesamtkunstwerk (Wagner) 238 Giacobbe Harder, Maria 117 Giacosa, Giuseppe 112 Giani, Renato 158 giardino dei Finzi-Contini, Il [The Garden of the Finzi-Continis] (Bassani) 48 Gide, André 158 Giornale d’Italia (Rome) 60 Giotto 143, 144; as central to Cenere 144, 151 ‘Gipi’ (pen name): film reviewer in Messaggero, Il (Roman newspaper) 150–1 ‘God is dead’: see Zarathustra (Nietzsche) ‘God of the Living’ 171 Goethe, Johann von 101, 200, 201 Grazia, La 136 Grazia Deledda: A Legendary Life (King) 5 Grazia Deledda e il Decadentismo (De Michelis) 189 Grazia Deledda: Ethnic Novelist (Aste) 5 Grazia Deledda’s Dance of Modernity : source of the title 6 Grazia Deledda’s Eternal Adolescents (Kozma) 5 Griffith, D.W., proposal to collaborate with Duse 142–3 Guastalla, Claudio 136 Guattari, Félix 11 Gwinner, Wilhelm 212 happiness 177–8; from Cristiano’s point of view 178–9; pessimistic view of life as quest for 206; theme of renunciation in quest for 218; through love and success 232

300

Index

Hassan, Ihab 6 Hegel, G.W.F.: Idealism 213; personal tensions with Schopenhauer 212 Hegelianism 162, 212 Heidegger, Martin 109, 176, 185 Heraclitus 182 Herczeg, Giulio: on interior monologue 54; on narrative devices 53; simplification of revision of Cenere 116; simplification of second edition of La via del male 50; toward simplification and modernity 46– 58 hereditary theory 218 Hérelle, George 79; on weaknesses of the plot of La via del male 74 Herwegh, Georg 213 Hindu (Vedic) philosophy 204 historicism: concept of time 177 Hoffmann, E.T.A. 193 Holland, Norman 63 Honest Souls. See Anime oneste [Honest Souls] Hübscher, Arthur 217, 218 Hugo, Victor 101, 105, 155 Human, All-Too-Human (Nietzsche) 175 ‘Humanities in a Posthumanist World, The’ (Scholes) 19 human passions: inconsistency of 207 humour: Pirandellian 123–4 Ibsen, Henrik 123, 155 Idealism 159, 213 idée fondamentali di Nietzsche nel loro progressivo svolgimento, Le (Orestano) 162–3 illusion: liberation from 233; semantic field of 231–4

imperialismo artistico, L’ (Morasso) 165 incendio nell’oliveto, L’ 157 independence, mother’s extreme gesture of 134 indirect discourse, in the revision of La via del male 50 individualism, Nietzsche and 161 in-dividuum (undivided kernel of identity) 193 indomabile, l’ (nickname): of male protagonist in La via del male 91 indomabile, L’ [The Untameable] 24, 25; instalment publication of 32; to La via del male 22–35; letter to Provaglio (26 April 1894) 37; social mission of 66 ‘infinito, L’’ (Leopardi) 18 intellectualism: of traditional culture 169 interior monologue: of Anania and centrality of mother’s character 128; of Anania on the train 114; of Cristiano in Il segreto 169, 175; in free indirect discourse 57; Herczeg’s analysis of 54–6; image of the mirror and Maria 84; of Pietro 71– 2; of Maria walking through the woods of life 68–9 intertextual dialogue: between Il segreto and Thus Spoke Zarathustra 180–5 intertextuality: of Colombi e sparvieri 202; and male Bildungsroman in Cenere 101–5; as a narrative strategy 9 irony: role of in literary representation 194 irrationalism 94, 164–5 Isaiah (prophet) 94 Iser, Wolfgang 63

Index isolation: of existential condition 121–2; metropolitan 122 Italia barbara contemporanea, L’ [Contemporary Barbaric Italy] (Niceforo) 30 Italian colonialism: in Northern Africa 81 Italian culture: crisis of 160, 164 Italian language: linguistic shift from ‘aulic’ to standard 58, 113; phonetic changes 43; standardized 41, 43; translation of Sardinian original to 58–61; written 42 Italian literature: Deledda’s significance 11–12 Italian Modernism 7–8 Italian politics: political correctness and 117 Italian prose: evolution of 46 Italian Romanticism: solitude of the hermit 122 Italian unification: De Sanctis as influential voice of 216; language and socio-political power 82; and the middle class 58–63; role of institutional culture in 90; Rome as capital city 191; and Sardinia 14; social problems and 34; social protest against 33–4 Italian Verism: La via del male 36 Ivy. See edera, L’ [Ivy] Jahier, Valerio 223 Jauss, Hans Robert 63 Jena 159 Jesus: and link with Zoroaster 183 journey: as an open quest 66–71 journey theme: of female protagonist in Cenere 109–12; of female protagonist in La via del male 84–5; in La

301

via del male from first to second edition 73; of male protagonist in La via del male 84–5; materialism and the individual 88; radical openness of 91; in search of the truth 70; significance of for Anania in Cenere 100–1; time dimension 91–2; toward salvation 104 joy and sorrow: recurring nature of 179 Joyful Wisdom, The (Nietzsche) 158, 159, 178; last aphorism of 174 judicial system: Pietro’s experience of 77–8 Jung, Carl Gustav 99; theory of archetypes 134, 184 Kafka, Franz 158; and German literary canon 11; on the hermeneutic quest 63 Kant, Immanuel: philosophy of 195– 6 Kantism 162 Kierkegaard, Søren 84 King, Martha: and criticism of Deledda 5–6 Kozma, Jan 5 landscapes: psychological 154; of Sardinia 12, 17, 140–1; Sardinian and Argentinian 62; Tristan’s imagery and La Danza 237; urban 191 language: Capuana’s criticism of 37; in La via del male 36–7; and open journey 90–2; relationship with power 78–82, 81; as social weapon 80 Laterza publishing house 204 Laterza series 217

302

Index

Lavinio, Cristina 169, 248–9nn21–2, 252n43 Lawrence, D.H. 97, 253–4n2 Leonardo, Il (journal) 164–5 Leopardi, Giacomo 18, 101–2; comparison with Schopenhauer 214– 15; theme of pessimism 213 Letter on the Aesthetic Education of Man (Schiller) 174 liberation: through asceticism 232–5 Liberty movement: dance in 228 Light on the Path, The (Atisha) 205 linguistic changes: against aulicismo 40–2 linguistic criticism: ‘jeratico’ 45 literary modernity 9 literature: and philosophy in the narrative 9 logos: and eros 166 Lombroso, Cesare 6, 33, 109, 124–5, 160, 200, 201; positivism and criminal psychology 30 loneliness: of the wanderer 122 love: as force against social order 35; as primal expression of life 172 M: male protagonist’s novel of formation 152; as a synecdoche for mother 112, 131, 152 ‘Madman, The’ (Nietzsche), ‘God is dead’ 174 madness: alienation and fragmentation 174; bourgeois label 15; female voices and 15; modern theme of 66, 70, 71–2, 128, 155–6; motif 71–2; radical questioning of 177; secret of 175–7; ‘solitary man’ and rejection of the mask 176; and truth as central theme of Il segreto 176 madre, La [The Mother] 97

Magistro, Elise: journey theme 66–7 Mahabharata 204 Malaspina, Currado: and Dante 104 male protagonist: cities of his cultural journey in Cenere 124; cultural tools of 100–2; journey theme of La danza 191; path of evil 90 Mamiani, Terenzio 160 Manca, Stanis: Deledda’s love for 27; letter to (4 August 1891) 15 Mann, Thomas 158, 240; relationship between philosophy and the arts 224, 240; voices of modern crisis 198 Manzoni, Alessandro 38, 43, 46, 57, 68, 78, 102–3, 104 Marcus, Millicent 151–2 Margherita (queen of Italy) 25 Mari, Febo 98; and imbalance with Duse’s acting style 146, 149 Marianna Sirca 5, 61 marketing: of Cenere to a middleclass audience 117; strategies 119 marriage: and materialism 87–8 Marrocu, Luciano 60 Marx, Karl 33; socialism 162 Marzocco, Il: Zoccoli on Zarathustra in 162 mask: theme of 175, 176 materialism: guilt of Maria on the theme of money 85; social ascent through 84; society and the individual 88 materialistic positivism 160 Mathieu, Vittorio 220 mattino, Il (Roman newspaper) 159– 60 Maxia, Sandro 50, 54, 249n23, 252– 3nn49, 50, 51

Index Maya: veil of 195–6; veil of appearance 196–7; veil of illusions 206 Mazdaism 182 Meister, Wilhelm 100 Melli, Giuseppe 218 Menaechmi (Plautus) 193 Menschliches, Allzumenschliches [Human, All-Too-Human] (Nietzsche) 108 Messaggero, Il (Roman newspaper): review of Cenere (film) in 150–1 Messina 159 Meysenburg, Malwida von 183–4 Michelangelo: Sistine Chapel 143 Michelini, Gaia 159 Michetti, Vincenzo 136 middle class: integration of Pietro into the 73, 80, 83; materialistic values of 88; moral descent of Pietro 73; stereotypical reactions of Italians 60 mind and body: Nietzschean themes 168–71 miserables, Les (Hugo) 101 modern: use of term 6, 7 modernism. See modernity Modernismo 7 modernistic. See modern modernity 6, 94; cinema as art of 98; culture of 11, 18; dance of 3–5, 19; of Deledda’s work 157; development of Anania’s character toward 127; development of Margherita’s character toward 128; European avant-garde movements of 144–5; European culture of 11, 66; of Il segreto 180–5; intellectual independence on the linguistic level 43–4; Italian unification and 14; journey toward with La via del male 112; in

303

La danza 11, 225–40; in La via del male 21; Maria as radical character of 83, 84; morality of 185–7; Nietzschean themes of 168–80; openended journey of the self-taught Sardinian writer 240; openness of Deledda to 15–16, 240; philosophical discourse of 6, 17, 19, 83; poetics of in La via del male 9; reduction of direct discourse in Cenere 124; shift toward in La via del male 24, 37; textual variations of the conclusion in the three editions 131; texture of 70–1; thematic changes toward 66– 74; topoi of 193–5; train as symbol of 114–16; use of term 7–8; voices of in Colombi e sparvieri 202, 207; Wagner’s musical language of 236 modern themes: journey, madness and dream 70–3; self-deception 77 Moleschott, Jakob 213 Momigliano, Attilio 5, 186 monde comme volonté et comme représentation, Le (Schopenhauer) 213 money: theme of for Maria 85–6 Moni, Luigi 205 monotheism: of Judeo-Christian tradition 182 Monte Gonare: pilgrimage to 36, 68; procession 44–5; procession from Nuoro 50–2; role in the plot 67–8 moral behaviours: corrosive approach to 76–7 moralism: reduction from morality to 58 morality: between good and evil 109; in Il segreto beyond good and evil 185; Nietzsche and 161; and the quest for joy 173; radical question-

304

Index

ing of 177; of sublimated virtues 178; and truth as central theme of Il segreto 178 moral quest: of La danza 210 Morasso, Mario 165 Moravia, Alberto 8 Moretti, Marino 230; letter to (20 May 1923) 188 Morra, Gianfranco 220 Morselli, Emilio, on Nietzsche 161 Mossa De Murtas, Mario, letter to (1920) 3–4 Mortara Garavelli, Bice 38, 40–1, 43, 62, 63, 113, 117, 131, 134 mother. See also M: as the ‘preliterary idea’ of Cenere 152; true novel of formation of the 152 Mura, Piero 243n4 Museo Nazionale del Cinema (Turin) 106 music 196–7, 220; aesthetics of 239; blind female singer 231–2; blindness topos and 232; as liberation 227, 231; liberatory role of 235–40; in narrative structure of La danza 219, 227, 229; Schopenhauer’s supremacy of 238; Wagner’s language of modernity 236 Musil, Robert 158 mystic spiritualism 160 myths: archetypes 134–5; Dannunzian myth of superman 226; journey to lower levels of consciousness 99; motif of clearsighted blindness 232; of the phoenix 134; Plato’s myth of the cave 195–6 Naples democratic revolution 1848 214

narrative: choral dimension of 50–2, 59, 93; focus of 5; in the philosophy 9; as poiesis 4 narrative devices 53. See also free indirect discourse narrative structure: intertextual discourse of Cenere 96; of La via del male 36–7; Maria’s reaction to Pietro’s murderous revenge 82–3; and Nuorese traditions 36; openended 91 narrator: and journey to modernity 53–4 Naturalism 105; and tragic love of Pietro and Maria 27 nature: in the author’s work 96–7; return to to overcome illness 200 Neera (pen name of Anna Radius Zuccari) 111 New Testament: key for Nietzsche’s Zarathustra 183 Niceforo, Alfredo 15, 30, 32, 60, 66, 138; dedication 94, 125; on Deledda 32; essays about Sardinia 30–1; Ferri’s preface to La delinquenza in Sardegna 125; Positivism of 71; social protest against unification 34 Nietzsche, Friedrich 6, 8, 19, 94, 101, 174. See also Zarathustra (Nietzsche); active nihilism of 154–5, 163, 211; bad masks 176; belief 163; challenge to the Christian scheme 183; critical debate on 165; critique of philosophy of 161; debate on ethics and aesthetics of 163; Deledda’s appropriation of elements of 165; Deledda’s intertextual dialogue with 13; destabilizing ideas of 164, 185; Eternal

Index Recurrence of the Same 173–4; on the The Genealogy of Morals 76; on human existence 211; impact on Italian literature 221; influence of on Deledda 10, 240; and intertextual dialogue of Deledda’s later works 156; Italian journeys of 159; mental illness of 159, 161; pessimism of 211; poetry anthology 159; publication of his works 158; reception of in Italy 157–65; reference to in Margherita’s words 107; subversive thought of 95; Svevo’s reference to 224; themes of modernity 168–80; translations 158–9; voices of modernity and 156; Will to Power 163, 164, 176 Nietzsche Contra Wagner (Nietzsche) 159 nihilism 6, 19, 94; of Nietzsche 13, 15; of Schopenhauer 13 Nobel Prize 1926 4–5 noontide: in Zarathustra’s journey 179 Nostalgic Feelings. See Nostalgie [Nostalgic Feelings] Nostalgie [Nostalgic Feelings] 6 Notturno [Nocturne] (D’Annunzio) 232 noumenal: world of permanent reality 236 noumenon: and contrast between phenomenon and 195–6, 225–7 novels of formation: of female protagonist in Cenere 109–12; of male protagonist in Cenere 99–100; of male protagonists 156; transgressive 128, 131 Nuorese region: oral poetic traditions 13

305

Nuorese traditions 13; devoid of spiritual value 77; narrative sequences 36 Nuoro: conflict between Cagliari and 117; Deledda in 25; journey theme 99, 112 Nuoro region: ethnological research 36, 44 Nuova Antologia (Rome) 159 Nuova Antologia (Rome): ‘Biblioteca Romantica’ 23, 25 Nuova Antologia (Rome): Cenere [Ashes] published in instalments in 112; debate on Nietzsche’s views in 163; publication of Cenere in 98 Oberdorfer, Adolfo 158–9 Odette (Sardou) 146 ‘Oedipal’ structure of time 177 ‘Of the Vision and the Riddle’ (Nietzsche) 177 Old Testament: Christianity 94; in Deledda’s corpus 34 Olla, Gianni 135, 136; criticism of Cenere 147 ‘On Love, Women, and Marriage’ (Schopenhauer) 202 ‘On the Higher Men’ (Nietzsche) 180 open-ended narrative: of silence in Cenere 97 operari (doing and acting) 188 Operette morali [Moral Essays] (Leopardi) 213 Orano, Paolo 15, 66, 125, 138; dedication 94, 125; essays about Sardinia 30–2; lecture of on Deledda at Collegio Romano 32; on Nietzsche 163; Positivism of 71; social protest against unification 34

306

Index

Orestano, Francesco 162–3; on Nietzsche’s philosophy 163 Orlando Furioso (Ariosto) 71 orthography: variations of 43 oscillation: between phenomenon and noumenon 225–7 Ossani Lodi, Olga (pen name: Febea) 137–8 ‘ottimismo di Schopenhauer, L’’ [’Schopenhauer’s Optimism’] (Amendola-Kuhn) 220 paese del vento, Il 194 pagan rituals: and Christian traditions 99 Papini, Giovanni 146, 164; on Nietzsche’s philosophy 163, 165 Parerga und Paralipomena [Parerga and Paralipomena] (Schopenhauer) 212, 214, 216 Pascendi Dominici Gregis (encyclical of Pius X) 7 Pascoli, Giovanni 40, 112; and Colombi e sparvieri 201 Pasquinelli, Angelo 211 passive nihilism 173; overcoming 177–8; of Schopenhauer 155 Pavolini, P.E. 159 peccato, Il (Boine) 231 Pensées, maximes, fragments (Schopenhauer) 213 Pensiero italiano 161 ‘Per la morte di un distruttore’ [‘On the Death of a Destroyer’] (D’Annunzio) 160 pessimism: studies on 213 pessimisme au XIX siècle. Leopardi, Schopenhauer, Hartmann, Le (Caro) 213 Petrarch, Francesco 12

phenomenon: and contrast between noumenon and 195–6, 225–7; world of ephemeral appearances 236 phoenix: myth of the 134 Piccola antologia (Roman journal) 32 Pirandello, Luigi 4, 8, 11, 63, 112, 123, 135, 193; irony of 128; naked masks of 176; theory of L’umorismo 194 Pirodda, Andrea: Deledda’s defence of Orano to 31–2; Deledda’s love for 27; letter to (22 March 1893) 14 Pirodda, Giovanni 117 Pius X (pope) 7 Plato: myth of the cave 195–6 Platonic-Christianity: contempt for the body in 170; spirit of revenge inherent in 173 Plautus 193 Pliny 182 Plutarch 182 Poe, Edgar Allan 105 poesia italiana d’avanguardia, La (Curi) 9 politics: Deledda’s approach to 66; of gender 61; of Sardinia 61 polysyndeton: elimination of 47 Positivism 6, 19, 37, 71, 94; anthropological 66; concept of time 177; and criminal law 30; crisis of 164, 218; in Deledda’s novels 15; Deledda’s overcoming of 127; fading of 218; and Italian unification 34; Italian version of 164; in La via del male 10; from L’indomabile to La via del male 22–35; Nietzsche’s critique of 200; optimism of 194; scientific determinism of 34; theories of the supremacy of the race 226; and tragic love of Pietro and Maria 27

Index positivistic determinism: Deledda and 125 Prezzolini, Giuseppe 164 Primoli, Gégé 24 prison episode: in La via del male 78–9; reading and writing skills 80 Profilo autobiografico (Autobiographical Profile) (Svevo) 222, 223–4 Programma dei modernisti (1907) 7 Promessi sposi [The Betrothed] (Manzoni) 78, 102; and Anania’s interior monologue 114; Manzoni’s revision of 38, 68 pronominal variations 43 Proust, Marcel 63 Provaglio, Epaminonda: letter to (11 November 1893) 22–3; letter to (23 November 1894) 32; letter to (26 April 1894) 23, 37; letter to (September 1892) 30 provincialism: attitude toward 119 Psicologia della Sardegna [The Psychology of Sardinia] (Orano) 30; Deledda’s review of in La Roma Lettaria 31–2 psychological analysis 128; of Anania’s character 127–8; of characters on the way to modernity 128; of illness of the unconscious 128; of Margherita in Cenere 128 psychological novel 13 psychologism: overcoming of 156 Puccini, Giacomo 93 punctuation: rhythmic use of 123 Puranas 196 Purgatorio (Dante) 103 Pushkin, A. 100 radical cultural criticism: of Nietzsche 174

307

radical egoism: of Stirner 161 Ramat, Silvio 5 Ranieri, Attilio 159 rationalism 171–5 rationality: class concept 71; control of 168; and irrationality 176 ‘razza’: in La danza 226 Re, Lucia 147 reader-response criticism 63 reading and writing skills: and Pietro 80; social ascent through 84 Regionalismo 6 Regno, Il (journal) 164–5 religion: etymological meaning of 171 religious rituals: resurrection of the pearl necklace from the bank 231 Republic (Plato) 195–6 revolution in Naples 1848 214 revolutions of 1848–9 212 Revue des Deux Mondes 213 ria: as ancient funeral scene 60; depiction of in the kitchen 59–60; information about through narrative 59–60 ‘ricetta’ scene 149; mythic-sacred dimension of the narrative 99–100, 110, 144 Rich and Strange: Gender, History, Modernism (DeKoven) 7 ricordanze, Le [Recollections] [Leopardi] 101–2 Rilke, Rainer Maria 158 Ring der Niebelungen, Der (Wagner) 212 Rivista delle tradizioni popolari italiane (De Gubernatis) 25, 30 Rivista per le Signorine : ‘Federico Nietzsche’ 162 Romanticism 8, 93, 105; in La via del

308

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male 21; renditions of the double 193; and textual journey of La via del male 9 Rome: Anania’s arrival in 122; Deledda’s move to 105; desolation of an urban courtyard in 123; Duse’s offers from film producers in 142; journey theme 99, 112; as metropolis of modernity 122; Nietzsche in 159; significance of for Anania in Cenere 125–6; as theatre of the absurd 124; topography of in revision 124 Rosenblatt, Louise 63 Sacchetti, Lina: double vision of Deledda 140–1 Sandmann, Der [The Sandman] (Hoffmann) 193 Sangue sardo [Sardinian Blood] 27 Sanguinetti Katz, Giuliana 111, 157, 184 sanity: and insanity 176 Sapegno, Natalino 5 Sardinia 5; art scene in 144–5; authorial criticism against 119; Bellorini’s traditional poetic songs 13; childhood and youth of Deledda in 12–13; compared to Argentinian pampas 62; and the Continent 18; crisis of at onset of modernity 57; critical response to Cenere [Ashes] (Duse’s film) 151; culture of 61; and Deledda’s revisions 117–18; folklore 30; identity of 60, 105, 156; image of 25–30; insular traditions of 138; intellectuals in 199; Italian unification and 60, 199; landscapes of 12, 17, 62, 140–1; and Lombroso’s theories 30–1; migration 81;

and modernity 10–11; oral traditions of 17; people of 57; politics of 61; prison system following unification 78; Sardinian novels 238; stereotypes of 28 Sardinian Flower. See Fior di Sardegna [Sardinian Flower] sardità: Deledda’s modernity 157 Sardou, Victorien: Odette 146 Saussure, Ferdinand de 19 Savarese, Gennaro 222 Savy-Lopez, Paolo 204, 217 Scano, Antonio: letter to (10 October 1892) 41 scapigliatura 40 ‘scarnezza’: of La danza 189, 190–1; of plot and characters 238 scarnificazione: of narrative structure of La danza 190–3 ‘scarnificazione’: of plot and characters 238 Scenario sardo per il cinema: Deledda’s script 136–41; as image of Sardinia 139; script summary 139–40 Schiller, Friedrich von 174 Schnapp, Jeffrey 264n10 Scholes, Robert: ‘The Humanities in a Posthumanist World’ 19 Schopenhauer, Arthur 19, 94, 109; aesthetics of music 239; aphorisms 202–3; asceticism and ‘denial of the Will-to-Live’ 235; biographical works published after death 212– 13; in Colombi e sparvieri 198–210; comparison with Leopardi 214– 15; death of 212; Deledda’s intertextual dialogue with 13; double vision of human nature 218; Eastern thought and 205; epistemological and moral concepts 223; ethics

Index and aesthetics 210–24; existentiaist thinkers reading of 219–20; influence of De Sanctis’s interpretation of the philosophy of 216; foundation of scepticism 240; free will concept 222–3; hereditary theory 218; image of the veil 201; and intertextual dialogue of Deledda’s later works 156; isolation of from academic culture 212; in La danza 224; metaphysics of suffering 212; misogyny of 202, 217, 218; mystic asceticism 169; passive nihilism of 155, 189; pessimism of 130, 195, 198, 206, 212, 218, 219–20; on the phenomenon 195–6; philosophy of 11, 15, 83, 211; psychology 223; reception of in Italy 210–24; ripped veil of appearance 207; sarcastic criticism of by De Sanctis 215–16; spiritualism 218; that knowledge follows will 222; theme of illusion 188, 228; themes of 176; themes of modernity 195–8; translations of 213; veil 198–210; ‘velo’ 83; voices of modern crisis 198; Will 196–8; Will and the subconscious 224; Will to Life 163 Schopenhauer als Erzieher [Schopenhauer as Educator] (Nietzsche) 211 ‘Schopenhauer e Leopardi’ (De Sanctis) 213 Scrovegni Chapel in Padua: Giotto’s works in 144 Scuola positiva di diritto penale 30–5 Secret of the Solitary Man, The. See segreto dell’uomo solitario, Il [The Secret of the Solitary Man] Secret Sharer, The (Conrad) 193 segreto dell’uomo solitario, Il [The Secret

309

of the Solitary Man] 6, 8, 15, 46, 107, 176; analysis of 154–5; as cipher of modernity 157; conclusion of 180; Cristiano’s sense of belonging to the world 172; Cristiano’s sentimental education 168; Di Pilla’s analysis of 198; illness and health borderline 167; image of the ribbon 166; intertextual dialogue with Nietzsche’s philosophy in 11; journey theme in 70; conclusion of 179; masks and Cristiano’s confession 176; median point of the narrative ‘S’ 169; modernity of 10–11, 188– 9; Nietzsche and 11, 109, 154–87; open ending of 157, 175; openness of modernity 165; plot of 155–6, 165; ‘S’ as the metaphor of the winding path 165–8; secret in 155; solitary man of 108; suffering of the mentally ill 167; theme of madness 128, 155–6, 158; voices of modernity in 13 Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore [Six Characters in Search of an Author] (Pirandello) 194 sentence structure: modification of in second edition of La via del male 50; simplification of 46, 46–58; simplifying pattern of in La via del male (1906) 46–8 Serao, Matilde 111 servo, Il [The Servant] 24–5; version of La via del male (1906) 89 seventh art: Deledda and the 135–41 sexual attraction 202–3 sexual desire: and dissatisfaction from fulfilment of 206 Shklovsky, Viktor 194 silence 149; affirmative force of 152;

310

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and Duse’s film of Cenere 97–8, 149; of the mother in Cenere 97, 110; suicide of mother character Olì 131 silent film: Cenere [Ashes] (Duse 1916) 95–7 simplification: anti-emphatic 121; from hypotaxis to parataxis 49–50, 116–17; and modernity 46–58; to reach a middle-class audience 58; through direct discourse in Cenere 119 Sistine Chapel 143 S. Landi publishing 159 Smith, Sidonie: and the autobiographical I 111 social class: ascent through marriage 84; ascent through marriage of Pietro 73; barriers 44; in Cenere 98– 9; cultural and linguistic skills 90– 2; of female protagonist Maria 27; individual and society and 121; Italian middle class 58; in La via del male 27, 71–2, 156; of male protagonist Pietro 26–7; Pietro’s wedding to Maria 73; of the poor 61 social criticism: of the author 77–8 social function: of veristic chorus 52–3 social hero: bandit as 80 social inequality: of Sardinian society 27 socialism 61; Deledda and 125; evangelical 79–80; Marxian 162 social mission: from L’indomabile to La via del male 22–35 social order: love as force against 35 social power: of culture 81 social system: injustices of 61 social themes: judicial system 77–8 social violence: of Barbagia 33

Società Geografica Italiana 125 Società Nazionale per le Tradizioni Popolari 25 Società Romana d’Antropologia 125 ‘Societé du Mercure de France’ 159 Socratic rationalism 211 Soggiorno londinese [London Stay] (Svevo) 221, 223–4 ‘solitary man’: in Il segreto 189; in La danza 189; rejection of the mask 176 solitude: of Cristiano 172; of the hermit 122; of Jorgj 200; urban 124–5 Sorrento 159 sorrow: common destiny of 234 Speirani edition 23; division of La via del male 90 Spinazzola, Vittorio: on Il segreto 165 spiritualism 218; crisis of 164; mystic 160 Stanford Friedman, Susan 6–7 Stefani, Manuela Angela 161 Stella d’Oriente [Star of the Orient] 27 Stendhal 100, 155 Sterne, Laurence 155 Stevenson, R.L. 193 Stirner, Max 161, 165, 265n15 Storia della letteratura italiana [History of Italian Literature] (De Sanctis) 214 Strindberg, Johan August 158 Striuli, Giacomo 99 structural changes: language and culture of La via del male’s male protagonist 90–2; La via del male [The Path of Evil] 74–92; modern theme of self-deception 77 style: Capuana’s criticism of Deledda’s 37–40 suffering: as liberating 201; universal destiny of 232

Index Sull’Orthobene [On Mount Orthobene] (Niceforo and Orano) 32 superman: Dannunzian myth of 226 Superman: Nietzsche and 161 ‘Superuomo’: D’Annunzio on 160–1, 164, 226 superwoman: and relationship with Jorgj 201 Svevo, Italo 4, 8, 63; foundation of scepticism 240; irony of 128; literature and philosophy 222; narrative of 9; on philosophy and literature 10–11, 16; Uebermensch ingrained in narratives of 162; voice of modernity in Italian culture 221, 223–4; voices of modern crisis 198 Symbols of Transformation (Jung) 134 symposium (1971) 5 Tarchetti, Iginio Ugo 105, 201 Tarsis, Paolo 160 Tasso, Torquato 105 tentazioni, Le [Temptations] 193 texts: mulilayered significance of 16– 17 thanatos: and eros 35 themes: of the double 193, 194; in La via del male 36–7; of the mask 175, 176, 194; multiple truths 63; openness of interpretation of 63–4 Thérèse Raquin (Zola) 71 Thoughts out of Season (Nietzsche) 178 Thus Spoke Zarathustra [Also sprach Zarathustra] (Nietzsche) 10, 107–8, 158; conclusion of 180; Deledda reads the first Italian translation of 159, 187; as existential journey 180– 2; intertextual dialogue with 157; Italian translation of 162; Nietzsche’s ‘fifth gospel’ 185; Orestano

311

on 163; quest of the protagonist in 108 Tiber of Rome (movie studio) 137 time: ‘Oedipal’ structure of 177; protagonist of Il segreto and relationship with 177 Tolstoy, Leo 155, 201 topoi: double and the mask 193–5 Tosca (Puccini) 93 Tozzi, Federigo 8 traditional culture: intellectualism of 169 traditions: of Nuoro region. See Nuorese traditions; of Sardinia 17 Tradizioni popolari di Nuoro in Sardegna 25, 32 tradizioni popolari in Sardegna, Le: pivotal role of 44 train: aulic depiction of 116 ‘Transvaluation of All Values’ (Nietzsche) 159 Treves of Milan publishing house 23, 42–3; Cenere [Ashes] 98; exclusive contract with 112; La danza della collana 188 tribuna, La: on Nietzsche’s Il caso Wagner 160 trionfo della morte, Il [Triumph of Death] (D’Annunzio) 160 Tristan und Isolde (Wagner) 235, 236– 7; expression of the blind Will 212; Tristan’s journey toward reality 239 truth: critique of notion of 171–5; and illusion 176; and love 173; radical questioning of 177 Tuscan speakers: Antine 79 Tuscany: art scene in 145; geographic setting to replace Barbagia 138

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Twilight of the Idols, The (Nietzsche) 159 Uebermensch: attraction of for readers 161; doctrine of 108–9; feeling of power of 172–3; of Nietzsche 157, 163, 221; as ‘Superuomo’ 160 Una vita [A Life] (Svevo) 222 unconsciousness: mysterious voyage of the soul of Maria 82–3 University of Basel 211 ‘Un piccolo uomo’ (A Little Man) 193 ‘un uomo’ (universal human being) 191–2 Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen [Thoughts out of Season] (Nietzsche) 211 Upanishads 205 Valesio, Paolo 9 varietà umane pigmee e microcefaliche della Sardegna, Le [Pigmy and MicroHeaded Human Varieties in Sardinia] (Niceforo) 30 Vattimo, Gianni 109, 158, 170, 185; concept of the ‘mask’ in Nietzsche’s work 175–6 vecchio della montagna, Il [The Old Man of the Mountain] 113; changes in second editions (1899>1912) 38 Vedas 196 veil: of appearance 196–7, 207, 209– 10; covering tears transformed into pearls 209–10; of illusions 206, 229; image in Cenere 206; image in La via del male 206; Mayan 195–7; as metaphor in Colombi e sparvieri 196–7; semantic field of 234 Venice 159 Venturi, Gianni 228

Verga, Giovanni 12, 86, 135 vergini della rocce, Le [The Virgins of the Rocks] (D’Annunzio) 160, 226 Verism 8, 19, 37–8, 92, 93; in La via del male 21; textual journey of in La via del male 9; theme of ‘la roba’ 85–6 Verismo 6; and Decadentismo 4–5 via del male, La [The Path to Evil (1896)]: changes from first edition 1896(A) to second edition 1906(B) 36; changes from second edition 1906(B) to last edition 1916(C) 36; dedications 34; Herczeg on 46; Pietro as the wandering knight 71–2; revision of La via del male (1906) as The Path of Evil 36–42; theme of madness 71–2 via del male, La [The Path to Evil (1906)] 23; Bessi’s review of 92; changes in second edition 1906(B) 38; dedications 35; moralistic statements purged from 56; revision of second edition (B) from 42–5; second edition authorial comments 55; sentence structure in first revision 48– 9 via del male, La [The Path to Evil (1916)]: revision of third edition (C) 42–5; after revision 89–90; in Nuova Antologia (Rome) 159; via del male, La [The Path of Evil] 6, 15; dedications 34–5, 94; edition 1896 23; editions of 62; interpretations of 63–6; moral debate through Pietro’s character 57; narrative structure of 44; open ending 84, 91, 93; revisions of 60; structural changes 74–92; synopsis of 1916 edition 21–2; three editions of 9 via del male, La [The Path to Evil]:

Index dedications 125; development of female protagonist 87; and education through ethnological studies 58, 136; ethics of female protagonist in 88; first utterance of title syntagm 82; Il servo [The Servant] version of 89; interpretations of 63– 6; journey theme from A to B 67; narrative ending 89–90; revisions of 112–13; rewriting of 159; secret in 155; social inequality in Sardinia 198; socio-cultural mission 27–8; syntagm occurrences 88; ‘veil’ image in 83; weaknesses of plot in 74 Vincenzi e Nipoti publishers of Modena 162 visual arts: and Deledda’s work 166, 238 vita cinematografica, La. Revista quindicinale illustrata dell’industria cinematografica 135, 136 vita e il pensiero di Schopenhauer, La [Schopenhauer’s Life and Thought] (Covotti) 218 vita internazionale, La: Zoccoli in 162 Vita Sarda journal 28–30 voyage: as geographical and moral wandering 229–31; as motif 99–100 Wagner, Max Leopold 248n20 Wagner, Richard 11, 160, 164, 211– 13, 235; letter to Liszt (December 1854) 235–6; voices of modern crisis 198 Walküre, Die [The Valkyrie] (Wagner) 235 wanderer: addition on the journey theme 70 Weisel, Edmondo 158, 187

313

Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, Die [The World as Will and Representation] (Schopenhauer) 195, 196, 203–5, 212, 216; discord and reconciliation 236; ‘The Metaphysics of Sexual Love’ 203, 206, 217; Wagner and 235 Weltanschauung: of De Sanctis 213; materialistic 85–6; pessimistic 198, 235; of Schopenhauer 220, 235 Western metaphysics: hierarchy of 170 Will: at the source of life 206 Will to Life: Darwin and 163; Schopenhauer and 163 Will-to-Live: negation of 235; quest for liberation from 221; Schopenhauer and 196, 197; sexual impulse and 203–4 Will to Power 178, 180; Nietzsche and 161, 163, 164; Nietzsche’s letter to publisher Ernst Schmeitzner 184; superhuman 227 Will to Power, The (Nietzsche) 170 window: and the journey 18–19 women: autobiographies of formation 111; in modernism 9; and politics of gender 61; Schopenhauer on alleged inferiority of 202–3; writers 4–5, 8, 111 writing: as the centrifugal force 18; as poiesis 19; and reading skills 80; tools 19 youth: voyage as metaphor for 100 Zambon, Patrizia 111 Zarathustra (Nietzsche) 8, 16, 72, 74, 122, 180–5; active nihilism of 158, 211–12; alienation and fragmenta-

314

Index

tion 173–4; analysis of compassion 173; archetype of the sage 184; D’Annunzio’s references to 160; Deledda’s reading of 205; discourse on ‘The Despisers of the Body’ 170; eternal recurrence of the same 83; ‘God is dead’ 157, 171–2, 174, 181; happiness of 179; historical prophet from Iran 182, 183; intertwining of all things 177; introduction of in The Joyful Wisdom 175; morality as lies 178; ‘Of Redemption’ 154, 182; radical lone-

liness of 122; recurrence of during epochs of religious crisis 184–5; roaming through the mountains 74; search for his children 181; on the summit of the mountain 181; Will to Power 183 Zend-Avesta 182 Zoccoli, Ettore 160–1, 162; on Nietzsche 162–3 Zola, Émile 156; Naturalism of 13, 71; Thérèse Raquin 71 Zoroaster: and link with Jesus 183 Zürich 212