Poetic Postures of the Twentieth Century

Undergraduate / Graduate

Modern poetry begins with a crisis-the loss of the poet's authority. What are the cultural and historical factors that determine this loss of authority? And what are the Italian poets' reactions to such a this crisis? The variety of possible attitudes is wide and ranges between two extremes: the shame for the poetic gesture and the pride of reaffirming its importance. This survey course explores chronologically how these reactions are embodied by poetic postures that go range from the poet as idol (D'Annunzio) to the poet who is ashamed of his own verses (Gozzano), from the playful clown (Palazzeschi) to the sleepwalker (Sbarbaro). Throughout this course, we will see how these attitudes postures can expand into literary movements, but we will also pay attention to how postures can be textualized, manifesting themselves in specific stylistic elements, which we will analyze with careful close readings.