DOI article:
Benson, Eugene: Gabriele d'Annunzio: the new poet and his work
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.38746#0299
By Eugene Benson 295
that at once raised him above the felicitous dilettante of classic art;
he turned from that, as from a thing accomplished, to reach after
the refinements of the Provencal, and he attained at once in
F Isotteo an elegance, a lightness, a romantic charm, a laughing
melody and grace of language, beyond anything of our time ; and
last, in his Poema Paradisiaco, behold another transformation.
The artificial, complicated, sensual poet of mediaeval and renaissance
gallantry is the suave, simple, intime poet of home affections—
won back, as to a spring of pure water, after many and strange
wanderings.
It is because of all this Protean and beautiful work that he is
regarded as the first artist of Italy since ’71. He is the new poet
of his race, not of national aspiration or political aims, but of the
eternal life of eternal Italy; of what in it endures while Republics,
Empires, Religion, come and go, or are transformed in that land
of open sensuality, pagan from first to last, excessive in its passion
of life and art, and rich and splendid in the expression of it all.
It is interesting to contrast the noble and unfortunate Leopardi,
the poet of unappeased passion, of great memories, the proud poet
of despair, with the new poet who has gratified every passion and
slacked his thirst for every pleasure. Like Leopardi, the sombre
lover of death, d’Annunzio, the poet of pleasure, exhausted and at
the end of sensation, woos the pale mother of all woe and all peace.
Proved to the uttermost, the intellectual life and the sensual life
leave both men restless for the triumph of death ; and all this
perilous stuff is worked off in expression, in fiction, in novels and
verses, which are the artist’s means of self-deliverance.
Leopardi moaned his anguish for the perishing individual doomed
to an enforced renunciation ; moaned for his country, prostrate
and enslaved, renewing no grandeur and quickening no heroism,
till roused by his indignation, moved by his tears ; d’Annunzio,
more
that at once raised him above the felicitous dilettante of classic art;
he turned from that, as from a thing accomplished, to reach after
the refinements of the Provencal, and he attained at once in
F Isotteo an elegance, a lightness, a romantic charm, a laughing
melody and grace of language, beyond anything of our time ; and
last, in his Poema Paradisiaco, behold another transformation.
The artificial, complicated, sensual poet of mediaeval and renaissance
gallantry is the suave, simple, intime poet of home affections—
won back, as to a spring of pure water, after many and strange
wanderings.
It is because of all this Protean and beautiful work that he is
regarded as the first artist of Italy since ’71. He is the new poet
of his race, not of national aspiration or political aims, but of the
eternal life of eternal Italy; of what in it endures while Republics,
Empires, Religion, come and go, or are transformed in that land
of open sensuality, pagan from first to last, excessive in its passion
of life and art, and rich and splendid in the expression of it all.
It is interesting to contrast the noble and unfortunate Leopardi,
the poet of unappeased passion, of great memories, the proud poet
of despair, with the new poet who has gratified every passion and
slacked his thirst for every pleasure. Like Leopardi, the sombre
lover of death, d’Annunzio, the poet of pleasure, exhausted and at
the end of sensation, woos the pale mother of all woe and all peace.
Proved to the uttermost, the intellectual life and the sensual life
leave both men restless for the triumph of death ; and all this
perilous stuff is worked off in expression, in fiction, in novels and
verses, which are the artist’s means of self-deliverance.
Leopardi moaned his anguish for the perishing individual doomed
to an enforced renunciation ; moaned for his country, prostrate
and enslaved, renewing no grandeur and quickening no heroism,
till roused by his indignation, moved by his tears ; d’Annunzio,
more