Molisan Literature
Molisan Literature
The narrative and poetry of Molise in the nineteenth century, despite the fruitful period marked in the fields of glottology and philology by Francesco D’Ovidio and in that of popular traditions by the tireless work of Melillo, missed the rendezvous with the great national and foreign literature of the time, translating - with a few exceptions - into mere attempts at imitation. I would venture to say that the only great novel of nineteenth-century Molise - even though it reflects eighteenth-century structure - is "Plato in Italy" by Vincenzo Cuoco. An original voice was missing, a tone and an approach capable of highlighting Molise's identity in literature. Therefore, rightly so, Luigi Russo spoke of an absence, a "gap," a void in literature in the landscape of nineteenth-century Molise culture: a gap that, partially and with new accents, was thought to be filled first by Lina Pietravalle and then by her "successor" Francesco Iovine.
It is thanks to Lina Pietravalle, the quintessential storyteller of Molise—this epithet was attributed to her on the occasion of the Viareggio Prize in 1932—that Molise found its place in Italian literature. The author achieved for her land, Molise, what Grazia Deledda did for Sardinia and Matilde Serao for Naples. In particular, Iovine, especially with his novel "Signora Ava" (our "The Leopard," which speaks of "peasants and written from the perspective of the peasants," Fofi) offers a vast fresco of Molise society at the time of the fall of the Bourbon Kingdom, reclaiming that verist art (and more) that had been missing in nineteenth-century Molise literature, as it was imbued with a second-hand Manzonian art, derived from the influence of Manzoni’s epigones such as Prati and Aleardi, to be clear.
I do not believe that Luigi Russo provided a plausible explanation of what happened. We believe, within the limits of an extemporaneous and immediate vision—which demands a necessary deeper analysis—that the intellectual from Molise (expression of a petty-bourgeois society, newly emerged, and sometimes almost servilely, at the threshold of history—greedy, selfish, and rigid, at least in intentions and outward behaviors), wrapped as he was in the old Risorgimento Enlightenment tradition, sensitive to the influences of neo-positivist sciences, showed more interest in the historical, juridical, and administrative sector than in belles lettres, which seemed to promise escapism and fantasies but offered few prospects for concreteness.
Furthermore, education (in seminaries and the few local schools, through pedagogues nostalgically tied to a past, albeit glorious in ideals, nevertheless gone and impractical) was imparted almost exclusively on texts from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and certainly did not encourage the practice of the new, in a territory where the circulation of ideas, especially those worthy of transgression and liberation, proved difficult, despite the proliferation of local newspapers. In conclusion, we cite a judgment by Francesco Iovine, who reminds us that the libraries of the gentlemen "abruptly stop at the beginning of national unity."
The 20th century, which opened with the exaltation of human and technological progress, and with the swift promise of pleasure and carefree life trumpeted by the Belle Époque, soon found itself in the chilling and distressing grip of a borderless war, with the threat of an impending economic crisis, the countless deaths caused by the epidemic called "Spanish flu," leading within a few decades to the misery caused by the Great Depression of 1929, and the bombings of Guernica that shattered the last illusions and mortified hope.
In Molise, the first significant experience - from a literary point of view - is provided at the dawn of the new century by the poetry of Luigi Antonio Trofa. The author breaks the rigid patterns of the hendecasyllable in the name of novelty (or perhaps truth?) to use free verse, more flexible and suitable to his song, and does so with a modern approach that anticipates in some verses the thought and linguistic elements that characterize the poetry of Ungaretti. His witty and learned poetry has only one "flaw": that of being happily written in vernacular and thus in a language little accessible to those unfamiliar with the dialect, and therefore not easily transferable outside the Molise territory; this difficulty is further accentuated by the author’s reluctance to publish. Nonetheless, his poetry is open to futurist instances and the poetics of Pascoli or D’Annunzio.
Indeed, in this recovery of the dialect, marked by careful research of linguistic purity according to the guidelines provided by Francesco D’Ovidio, the main thread emerges that determines the (and not the only) characteristic element of the literary identity within which the Molise intellectual takes his first uncertain steps: and I refer not only to Trofa, but to Michele Cima from Riccia, to Giuseppe Altobello himself (with the Saga of Minghe Cunzulette, the peasant philosopher poet - who really lived - in whom the author, lending him his own thoughts, ends up identifying), and especially to Don Raffaele Capriglione, the doctor poet, with his erratic existential journey, who, breaking with outdated schemes, provides us with a sparkling poetry made of onomatopoeia and iterative epanalepsis: it is like witnessing the unexpected burst of sudden fireworks in a nocturne. His poetry can be compared to a painting by Arcimboldo. With Domenico Sassi, a specific reference circle closes, referring to those poets identified as archetypal poets, original poets of the vernacular poetry of Molise, belonging to the first dialectal generation of the first quarter of the century.
In the strand of dialect poetry is to be found the poetic identity of Molise, which will find its most complete and elevated form in Cirese, the author of Lucecabelle. Indeed, the poet reminds us: "Dialect is a language. For it to be a means of poetic expression and transform into language and images, it is necessary to fully possess it; to be aware of its cultural content and its expressive human force. In childhood and early youth, I spoke, collected, and sang songs, rejoiced, cried, and thought in dialect."
It is a real school that gives rise to the dialectal poetry of this century: a school that finds its poetic unity, made of stylistic rigor (even though a common grammar is lacking) and common poetic elements such as attachment to the land (in Giose Rimanelli's "Call me Molise," there is a true identification, roots strongly felt by Beppe Jovine), the theme of toil (Giovanni Cerri, Eugenio Cirese), memory and death, love and hope (Beppe Iovine, d’Acunto, Iacobacci, albeit with different nuances in the various authors), the beauty (flowers) of the landscape into which evil (thorns) begins to penetrate, pain (Nina Guerrizio).
An innumerable list of those who thought and wrote in dialect. Nor are there any lack of experiences in the language, such as the poems of Sabino D’Acunto, the poet of memory and faith in "Sulla strada di Emmaus," and those of Nicola Iacobacci, the poet of love in "La baia delle tortore."
Emilio Spensieri of Vinchiaturo is a poet who died in the 1990s, remembered for his serene humanity veiled with nostalgia. For several years, a prominent place in Molise's dialectal poetic arena has been occupied by the volume “U pensiere" by Pasquale Di Lena from Larino, which has aroused much interest and favorable reception. Significant also is the experience of Laura Vitone, a reserved woman with a "serious, strong" poetic tone.
As for narrative, only a few notes. On the one hand, as we said, the attempt to fill the gap noted in the previous century with the stories and tales of Lina Pietravalle; but the realism of the latter was tinged with a robust psychological focus attentive to the decadent trends of the time and enriched with a personal, lofty, and embellished linguistic expression, significantly effective; on the other hand, we have a mature Iovine, who reaches neorealism, mending the tear that occurred in the nineteenth century, and brings Molise narrative back into the fold of national literature, especially with "Le terre del Sacramento": the tragedy of Luca becomes the drama of an entire people, a symbol of every just struggle in the name of human dignity. There will always be a Luca Marano to lament, to exalt in memory: and the song becomes epic, thus transcending the narrow limits of time and space.
A unique case in our narrative landscape remains that of Rimanelli, endowed with a complex culture (not only European), with an experience (and not only cultural) expanded to the extreme. "Molise, call me, Molise!" (Molise as a metaphor for existence, as the navel of the world to detach from and return to, as a womb that nurtures poetry and expels it to grow) is the place internalized throughout his life, the receptacle of knowledge processed and filtered by a harsh existence (where solitude burns in the flames of passions), is the product of a reality that is not only made of land and memory, but is myth, and personal history, it is a celestial vision and regret, damnation and hope of salvation: all boiling matter, a magma of ideas, flesh, blood, thoughts, desires, appetites, dreams, hatreds, grudges (some justified in the face of History) placed before us and controlled by the skillful, intelligent, and refined use of the various linguistic codes he uses at will and with extreme ease; which had to elicit the enthusiasm of a critic and an expert in languages such as Anthony Burgess, the author of "A Clockwork Orange."
Rimanelli’s work represents the attempt to open up to the vastest world literature ever undertaken by us. I believe Rimanelli attempted to do for Molise what Sciascia, following in the footsteps of Verga, Pirandello, and Quasimodo, did for his Sicily.
Significant to us are the testimonies of Luigi Incoronato, a left-leaning writer who cared deeply about the fate of the Molise people, inclined towards literary anarchism, and author of "Scala a San Potito" and "Morunni," which Giorgio Barberi Squarotti described as "constructed by a convergence of narration around the central nucleus of a southern village, tackled with the precise awareness of the fundamental unfeasibility of a simplified immediate relationship between fact and words," and also open to neo-avant-garde experiences concerning language. Another is Franco Ciampitti, a sports writer, who in "Il Tratturo" recalls the end of the Transhumance civilization. Felice Del Vecchio, author of the novel "La chiesa di Canneto," depicts an entire world destined to disappear revolving around a church. Among others, we remember Fiora Luzzato, author of the novel "L’incontro," which contrasts two different and opposing worlds. Elvira Tirone with "Oltre la valle"; Vincenzo Rossi, author of poetry books, novels, and short stories, including "Fonterossa" and "Il tarlo," sang of his love for his land, sometimes with nostalgia, sometimes with regret (especially with an indescribable love for his Molise, defiled and violated by the insidiousness of man and modernism), ultimately contrasting the countryside with the city, the fathers with the sons; Donato Del Galdo with "Vita di contadini"; Simonetta Tassinari with "Gente di Pietra." We also remember Beppe Iovine with the stories "La luna e la montagna"; Sabino D’Acunto with "Le farfalle non volano più." Lastly, Pietro Corsi (described as an "irregular of Rimanelli ancestry"), the writer of "Palenche, o dell’ozio," and the novel "La Giobba, o della speranza," which rests elsewhere, far from Molise, in distant America. Here too develops a literature that shares roots with our land. Among the many, we find significant the work of Nino Ricci, author of "Lives of the Saints," translated into Italian by Gabriella Iacobucci. The book, the first of a trilogy (a true saga), tells of a child (whose father went to America in search of fortune), torn from childhood too early, striving to defend his mother's honor—a "white widow" who became pregnant from the bite of a "blue-eyed snake" in a village where everyone knows and talks, in a place where love, birth, and death, myth, fable, prejudices, superstitions, traditions, and customs are tightly intertwined in a continuous interplay.
Among the many dialect poets, we remember: an artisan, Luigi Bifolchi, who is an authentic example of a popular poet, in the sense of someone who can express the true feelings of humble people, those who have not studied but have much inner wealth. Ermanno Catalano is a singular figure of an authentic Molisan for his characteristic enthusiasm for everything concerning his land. Camillo Carlomagno, a poet with a mystical soul, originally from Agnone, lived in the favorable atmosphere of a town in Alto Molise, a generous cradle of intellects and renowned characters, singing and exalting the supreme creator and the beauties of creation. Sergio Emanuele Labanca, also from Agnone like Carlomagno, has a rich inner charge expressed in dialect and Italian verses, mastering three expressive tools: language, dialect, and music. Nicolino Di Donato is a character who intensely lives the Molisan spirit, a particular feeling, the privilege of those who appreciate the things of the past in the present, experiencing a sweet melancholy. Giovanni Barrea, whose copious poetic production offers reasons for reflection that satisfy the close relationship between his way of feeling and the surrounding reality. Nicolino Camposarcuno wisely keeps alive the dialect of Ripalimosani, perpetuating its traditions to make them known to fellow townspeople scattered worldwide. Mario Saverio De Lisio is by definition the bard of his town, Castellino sul Biferno, a community now reduced to a few hundred inhabitants due to emigration. Carlo Cappella from Termoli, an extraordinary character, has made a true cult of dialect poetry and popular traditions, creating a cultural heritage of great interest. Throughout his life, he has published numerous books on the history and culture of Termoli.