Luigi Capuana: Critic and novelist 9783111549743, 9783111180489

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STUDIES IN ITALIAN LITERATURE

4

LUIGI CAPUANA CRITIC A N D NOVELIST

by

VINCENZO PAOLO TRAVERSA University of Kansas

1968

MOUTON THE H A G U E · PARIS

© Copyright 1968 in The Netherlands. Mouton & Co., N.V., Publishers, The Hague. No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 68-13349

Printed in The Netherlands by Mouton & Co., Printers, The Hague

To My Wife Sandra

TABLE OF C O N T E N T S

Page I. Early Literary Studies

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II. Naturalism: Capuana's Critical Ideas

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16

III. Truth and Form in the verista Works .

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29

IV. Impersonality of Art

46

V. Capuana and Literature in Dialect

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64

VI. The Naturalistic Novels: Giacinta and Profumo . VII. II Marchese di Roccaverdina

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101

VIII. Rassegnazione: The Last Novel. Conclusion .

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121

Bibliography

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72

130

I EARLY LITERARY STUDIES

Luigi Capuana was born in Mineo, a small town near Catania, on May 29, 1839. His first formal instruction ended when he, at the age of 10, was sent to school in the Collegio of the Jesuit fathers. But the boy whose main inspiration had been until then the reading and reciting of vernacular poetry, could hardly adjust to the discipline of the new school and frequently ran away with his classmates to nearby Santa Margherita, the hometown of his relatives. On the occasion of these various escapades and on his holidays, young Luigi would remain with the local farmers and at night time, he would listen in silence like the protagonist of his short story entitled Scurpiddu, to the tales of Massaro Turi or Massaro Giuseppe, tales full of the weird creations of the popular legendary tales, like the "Nonne" and the "Mercanti" who guarded their treasures in the "cave of the seven gates".1 It was a period of great delight; his life in the country, the harvest times and the popular pastime of improvising poetry remained forever his most cherished and meaningful memories. His family, however, had decided to put Luigi through the study of law, and had sent him to the Real Collegio of Bronte in 1851. Capuana's natural tendency for letters began to appear during his stay there. Besides writing a sonnet "Per l'lmmacolata Concezione della Β. V. Maria" which was published in 1853 by Galatola, young Capuana devoted himself enthusiastically to the ancient and contemporary authors, meanwhile trying his poetic skill in some easy compositions. He read Dante, Ariosto, ManCf., Corrado Di Blasi, Luigi Capuana", 1954), p. 27. 1

Capuana (Mineo, Edizione "Biblioteca

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EARLY LITERARY STUDIES

zoni, Foscolo and Guerrazzi and attempted to publish a small paper for which the students wrote ironic articles about their school life. In those days he also produced a light comedy having as its main characters striking resemblances to his teachers who, unabashed by the unprecedented satire, accepted with a warm applause the first performance of the young author's play. But those were the years when new ideas from the continent aroused Capuana's intellectual curiosity for the novels of D'Azeglio, Grossi and Cantu that had become his favorite reading. Inspired by the patriotic message of the moderate writers of Lombardy, a new interest for the history and the destiny of Italy was born in the heart of the youth, an interest, however, which was intertwined with the extraordinary local attraction for those superstitions, legends and charms that constitute so large a part of the island's popular traditions. Leaving the Collegio after three years, Capuana returned to his native Mineo free from every scholastic duty and he began a systematic series of readings in order to acquire a good mastery of the Italian language. Some of his "Appunti letterari ed artistici" show his precise research of idioms and terms which he found in the works of Boccaccio, Firenzuola, Giusti and other authors whose styles he sought to imitate in some writings that are nothing but a pure imitation of the language of those authors, considered by Cesario as useful since they offered Capuana "a partial control of the form". 2 During this age of sudden fervors and disorderly studies Capuana experienced love for the first time. It was inspired by the young daughter of a farmer, Sebastiana Conti, who became for him the symbol of the purest love which was never to vanish from his memories. Iana, as he liked to call her, was going to be described in some short stories, and the author would celebrate the flourishing of his first love every twenty-fifth of March by inviting at times his closest friends to participate in this sentimental commemoration. Pietro Vetro relates how Capuana used to celebrate this anniversary by also writing poems but that later he limited himself to dating several of his short * Cf., "Luigi Capuana", in Capitan Fracassa (Roma), June 29, 1884.

EARLY LITERARY STUDIES

11

stories with the twenty-fifth of March.* Capuana idealized Iana and transformed her into the symbol of a youthful, nostalgic, utterly spiritual love. In several of the short stories where the writer creates complex characters of women such as in Iela or Evoluzione his Iana reappears as the inspirer of serene and pure sentiments, a memory that evolved into the cult and nostalgic longing for joyous bygone days.4 Subsequent to his law student days, the time that Capuana spent in Catania gave him the opportunity to get in contact with new people who contributed significantly to his cultural development. Reference is made in particular to Macherione and Vigo. Giuseppe Macherione, while still a university student, had already reached about the year 1857 a certain renown through the publishing of a volume entitled Liriche. Although his way of dressing and speaking after the romantic fashion had somewhat deeply irked Capuana's taste, the first exchanges of ideas established between the two young men a strong friendly relationship. They shared the same love for poetry and the faith in the romantic and patriotic ideals which in spite of the repeated attempts of the suspicious Bourbonic police, had reached the Sicilian intellectuals igniting a flame of fervor particularly among the young people. On this occasion Macherione was among the first poets who in his poems extolled the historical events that were taking place throughout Italy and he contributed further to the cause of the unification of the country by composing an Cf., Pietro Vetro, Luigi Capuana (Catania, Studio Editoriale Moderno, 1922), p. 16. 4 In 1863 Capuana dedicated "to S.C." some lines among which these are the following: " L i k e a gentle dream — faded away at dawn Y o u fled f r o m me, yet deep In m y sad heart — still lives its love f o r you. O h love of ours! O h mysterious — raptures! O h charms! O h pleasure of m y tears! — in the highest inspiration T h a t gave m y clay-like soul — the very life of poetry . . . Y o u alone, loving star — of m y most tender years. Your words come still to me " H e r e the twenty-four year old poet, having overcome the sorrows of his first sentimental experience, has already built on it his spiritual refuge. (These lines were taken f r o m D i Blasi's book, p. 52.)

3

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EARLY LITERARY STUDIES

"appeal to the youth of Catania" which was signed also by Capuana and sent to Guerrazzi. This atmosphere of patriotic enthusiasm inspired in Capuana the idea of putting into a dramatic form the events occurring in Italy and possibly of giving to his country a real national historic theatrical tradition. That was a period spent in feverish readings, hasty dramatic schemes, revisions and frequent discouragements as he realized the vastness of his dream. His accuracy and care of details that appear in these first dramatic schemes, his tenacious study of Dante's and Ariosto's works directed mainly to the achievement of a style capable of giving life to the invisioned national theater, together with a constant exchange of ideas with his university colleagues whom he consulted about the subjects of his works are all indicative elements that help us to invision Capuana's natural bent for drama, a bent that he developed during his literary career as a playwright and critic. The subjects of the plays he intended to write were almost always of an historical character as for instance Arduino d'lvrea, La battaglia di Legnano, 1 Ciompi, Federico II and Cesare Borgia. The idea of dealing with the Sicilian Vespers in a major work aroused the enthusiasm of his friend Emanuele Navarro della Miraglia who encouraged him to bring about that project which would have honored the Italian nation and brought some aspects of the history of Sicily out of the depth of oblivion. The first of his plays to be performed after several revisions, was Ghisola. It was not staged in a theater in Catania as the author would have liked but in the small theater of the Jesuits' Collegio in Mineo on July 25, 1859. The young playwright must have been satisfied with the performance of the "Collegio's" actors since, renouncing for a certain time the idea of reaching the large theaters of the city, he devoted the rest of 1859 to the production and direction of plays finding also the time to instruct inexperienced young actors in the best way to portray various kinds of characters. During those years he became acquainted with Lionardo Vigo who, already known through the publication of his lyrics and documents of Sicilian history, had started his research in the

E A R L Y L I T E R A R Y STUDIES

13

collection of Sicilian vernacular poetry. Through their common friend Macherione, Vigo and Capuana immediately established a close collaboration. Besides supporting with all his strength the regional independence, Vigo defended his ideas also in the field of literature and linguistics. His "Raccolta", in fact, besides giving evidence of the importance and vitality of the Sicilian language, should have proved its remote Greco-Roman origin. On finding out that Capuana was from Mineo where improvising poetry had been for a long time a popular tradition and practice, Vigo urged his friend to direct his research just in that field. Capuana in a few years provided him with about a hundred poetical compositions in dialect, some made up by himself around motives and historical characters that Vigo so anxiously sought in order to prove his regionalistic theories.5 These literary artifices that originated, as Di Blasi said, heated polemics in which even the famed D'Ancona of the University of Pisa became involved, are not simple, friendly tricks directed against an ardent regionalist such as Vigo, blinded by his own ideal, but indicate indeed a firm disapproval on the part of Capuana for an order of ideas that extolled the rights of the "autonomy of the Sicilian nation" at the time the Italian national unity was taking shape.8 At this point it is convenient to note the firm stand taken by Capuana who, although accepting the anti-Bourbonic position of the Sicilian learned bourgeoisie, refused, on the other hand, its regionalistic and anti-Continental reaction, that had already loomed over the insurrections of 1848. For this reason Capuana became a member of a revolutionary committee and later joined the other young men who, as Pietro Vetro states, "loved Sicily, but loved a united Italy much more". 7 From this point of view the episode narrated by Capuana in his Studii sulla letteratura contemporanea, I Series, assumes particular importance. Capuana with his friend Macherione and other young patriots went to visit Lionardo Vigo who seized the opportunity to start reading the introduction of his C f D i Blasi, op. cit., p. 66 ff. • Ibid., p. 80. 7 Op. citp. 19. 5

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EARLY LITERARY STUDIES

history of the Sicilian revolution of 1848. However, because of the solemn attitude of the zealous "regionalist" and because of the frequent recurring of phrases extolling the "Sicilian nation" or "the kingdom of Sicily", the young people at a certain moment could no longer restrain themselves and burst into a resounding laughter which injured Vigo's most cherished ideals.8 The difference of opinion that appears in this episode is most significant because it transcends the characteristics of an internal dissension and projects its revealing light on all the intellectual career of the young Sicilian writer. The twenty year old Capuana who considers as an absurdity Vigo's limited regionalistic ideals leads us to think of the origins of that movement that, much later, Capuana was going to promote in order to bring Sicily to the attention of the European literary world as a region seeking its way out of the long existing cultural isolationism. Capuana, however, came to the great literary adventure of his life and of his times through a long series of events. Having abandoned for good his university studies and the pursuit of a law degree, he dedicated himself to poetry and drama. Meanwhile in 1860 the well known historical events were arousing the whole island of Sicily and Capuana took part in them by helping the preparation of the landing of Garibaldi's volunteers and the government which insued. At the end of 1860 he went to Palermo to represent the Civic Council of Mineo to pay homage to King Victor Emanuel II. In the great turmoil of those years, among the most memorable figures of patriots and fighters, Garibaldi achieved an almost legendary fame on which the popular imagination built a world of myths. Among other things it was rumored that Garibaldi wore a miraculous belt which protected him from bullets in the battlefield and there were also those who went so far as to believe him a superhuman being and called him "Saint Garibaldi". Capuana, experiencing the fervor and the passions of the moment, followed the general enthusiasm and wrote in 1861 a "dramatic legend" in three cantos entitled Garibaldi which was published by Galatola in Catania and that 8

(Milano, Brigola, 1880), p. 45.

EARLY LITERARY STUDIES

15

is considered Capuana's first publication. Strongly influenced as it is by the contemporary trends, Capuana's "legend", more than an historical work, seems to be a glorification of the hero who is portrayed as the offspring of an angel and a mortal young woman. Concerning this aspect, Di Blasi says that no element reveals in this first "mortal sin" of Capuana, [the nature] of the temperate and anti-rhetorical writer he was going to be. The tonality, the circumlocutions and the literary reminiscences of Foscolo's and Maffei's [works] overcome even the most spontaneous points.® The answers and the generally favorable criticisms that the writer received from Augusto Conti, Fanfani and Tommaseo lead him to study stylistics and compose poems whose imperfections he was the first to discover. But the impossibility of fulfilling his own standards and of composing poetry not altogether undeserving of "Italy's forbearance", convinced the writer that he should give up his "sublime illusions" in spite of the favorable acceptance and the encouragements he received for the two small collections of poems entitled Fiori di ama.ra.nto and Vanitas

vanitatum.

The state of dejection that later became a real spiritual crisis was caused by various elements such as his waning religious faith, the lack of contact with his university friends and the isolation he found in Mineo. If we consider Capuana's character and the ideals he nurtured in those years, we will notice in this restlessness of his the impulses that prompted other men of letters as Verga and Rapisardi to leave their native island, still detached in its cultural activity from the rest of Europe, in order to expose themselves to the new and different ideas of another environment. In March 1864, following his mother's and closest friends' advice, he went first to Palermo and then to Florence. With the sole assistance of his own enthusiasm and the recommendations of Vigo which should have facilitated his entrance into the literary circles of Tuscany, Luigi Capuana, at twenty-five, began his career as a man of letters. • Op. cit., p. 85.

II NATURALISM: CAPUANA'S CRITICAL IDEAS

The first months spent in Florence constituted for Capuana a period of time to be devoted entirely to the fulfillment of his intellectual curiosity but it represents as well the beginning of a long series of cultural relationships with well known artists and men of letters. Free from every family obligation he devoted himself to the study of the phenomena of spiritism, to photography and to etching. Thus Capuana began to reveal one of his characteristic aspects, a constant need of knowing more and more, which he tried to satisfy with all his enthusiasm whenever the opportunity came up. In those days he was equally attracted by the elegance of poetry, the beauty of painting and the mysteries of the sciences. Spiritism that he studied and practiced for a long time, was probably the strangest and most unusual of his hobbies, yet he must be given credit for his skill in photography and in etching which is confirmed by Telemaco Signorini's admiration. His Florentine sojourn represents the writer's first contact with the cultural world; a contact which appears to be even more relevant if we consider that Florence, which was celebrating Dante's centennial in 1865 and was preparing to become the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, cradled in its cultural centers and salons many famous artists. One of these, Telemaco Signorini, who belonged to the group of the Caffe Michelangelo, soon became a friend of Capuana and initiated him into the cult of the critical ideas on the dramatic art professed by Diderot in his Paradoxe sur le comedien and in other theoretical writings. Stimulated by frequent friendly

NATURALISM: CAPUANA'S CRITICAL IDEAS

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discussions and inspired by Diderot, Capuana took more and more interest in a kind of theater that he conceived as a source of emotion closely connected with everyday life and detached from the epic, legendary inspiration of his early drama on Garibaldi. Capuana easily made his way into the literary milieu visiting with Francesco Dall'Ongaro where other writers like Prati, Aleardi, Fusinato and Verga used to meet and with the Pozzolini family, as he wrote in 1882.1 Those meetings gave him the opportunity of becoming personally acquainted with some of the best known writers of his time. Aleardi, however, did not impress him either as a man or as a poet; Prati, on the contrary, won his admiration. He and Capuana discussed at length the contemporary poets and writers such as Mario Rapisardi, Capuana's young literary fellow-countryman. Gino Capponi who had been revered and honored by Foscolo, Leopardi, Giusti and Guerrazzi perhaps impressed Capuana the most.2 His stay in Florence soon began to prove fruitful. The conversations he had with Carlo Levi, a correspondent of the Pungolo of Milan, resulted in a great cultural advantage to Capuana because Levi advised him to read Balzac's works. Capuana had already seen for the first time the name of the French novelist in 1864 while reading a book on contemporary literature, but it was in 1865 that he could fully appreciate the importance of the Comedie Humaine, when he read almost all its volumes. This experience greatly changed his opinions. Compared with the direct and natural expression of Balzac's works, 1

Cf., Luigi Capuana, Studii stdla Ictteratura contemporanea, Series II (Catania, Niccolo Giannotta, 1882), p. 342. 2 Ibid., p. 2 ff: "At that time I had read only two or three of his short writings; I knew, however, that Leopardi had dedicated his La Palinodia to him, Foscolo [had written a eulogizing] letter on the comment of the Divina Commedia, Guerrazzi and Giusti respectively Isabella Orsini, Nozze and Terra dei morti. From these recognitions and from Foscolo's and Giusti's letters I had conceived a profound liking and veneration for a man whose acquaintances were so important and estimable, whose name was always mentioned in every noble and great Italian enterprise of the first half of this century. His presence revived in my mind a whole period of enthusiasm, struggling and literary glory (that was my only concern), which at present seems so far in the past to require an effort to be remembered."

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the literary forms of his day seemed to Capuana completely outdated. In those novels which Capuana was avidly reading, everyday life was taking shape, real characters were acting and profoundly human and universal feelings were coming into being, so that his concept of the "historical drama", which had been weakened already by his reading of Diderot, turned into an illusion soon destroyed by the wind of the "modern culture" as he said in the introduction of his novel Homo.3 He was convinced that if valuable dramatic works were to be written, they had to introduce new aspects, real characters and historical facts into the theater. In order to prepare himself appropriately for the new project, he devoted his time to dramatic criticism since he constantly strove to observe the "laudable habit" of learning a profession properly before starting to follow it. Thus he set to work in order to carry out his plan as well as to earn just enough money to live in Florence; he became the dramatic critic of La Nazione in 1866 for which he contributed articles until the early 1868 when he had to return to Mineo to recover from a serious nervous breakdown caused by his heavy work. Capuana's entering the literary world was noticed almost immediately by the theatrical circles and the public in general because of his undaunted attacks against any affectation or artificiality of the contemporary Italian drama. The falsely sentimental declamations, the sensational tirades the audiences of the theaters used to accept with a roar of applause represented for him the deadly defeat of true art, that art which had been brought to fame in France by Augier, Dumas and Sardou who had inherited the traits of the comedie larmoyante upheld by Diderot. Capuana was deeply convinced that if Italy was going to have a national theater, her playwrights had to give up their rhetorical, empty phrases. The attempts the foreign writers had made were valid precisely because they offered new theories to a society on its way to progress. Also the Italian drama, therefore, had to adapt to the new trends, by eliminating every false, superficial characteristic and by turning toward the reality of its 3

Cf., L. Capuana, Homo (Milano, Fratelli Treves, Editori, 1888), p. ix.

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times. In one with these general lines Capuana suggested that the dramatic characters were to be created on the basis of a serious study of the living society. The serious artistic problem consisted in the proper combination of the idea and the action into an indivisible unity so as to create a "living" work, not a "dark room transparent image". Capuana's well balanced essays drew frequent attacks from other critics such as Martini and Fortis against whom he directed the logical clarity of his principles. The critic's brilliant beginning was already revealing his dignified character and maturity of thinking while the polemics that were originated by his innovative position contributed, more than anything else, in winning for his cause, the understanding and the esteem of several competent people. Submitting the manuscript of the new comedies to the young Sicilian critic soon became a custom not only for the entrants but also for well established literary men such as Paolo Giacometti and Valentino Carrera. The rigorous and strict judgment of the critic, however, turned into a great admiration perhaps only once during those days and it occurred when I Mariti by Achille Torelli was produced. The drama of the young Neapolitan playwright seemed to Capuana to constitute a good beginning for the life of that "national theater" he longed for. He thought, in fact, that the plot and the dialogue of the new drama were able to convey to the audience those gentle feelings they had resignedly sought in the foreign plays for a long time. As for the drama technique, it seemed remarkable to Capuana that the author could manage to keep himself detached from the emotions of his characters, which in turn were portrayed without exaggerations and mannerisms, but only for the good of their theatrical effectiveness. We ought to remark at this point that Capuana expressed his point of view on the basis of an inborn common sense rather than on a rigorously formulated theory of the dramatic art. When he returned to Sicily, besides devoting himself to the administrative and public life of his town, he undertook a number of readings among which the study of Angelo Camillo De

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naturalism: capuana's c r i t i c a l ideas

Meis' works is of particular importance. In his philosophical novel Dopo la laurea, published in 1868, as well as in other writings, De Meis had based the evolution of the various forms of civilization he had conceived within the limits of a rigorously Hegelian scheme, on the principles Darwin had disclosed in his Origin of Species. De Meis had maintained that literature undergoes a process of evolution like that of the living species where old forms gradually disappeared in order to be replaced by new ones.Thus, the literary genres—the epic, the dramatic, the l y r i c undergo, in a Hegelian like fashion, a period of flourishing and of decline until they are transmuted, because of their intrinsic exhaustion, into a new poetic form. At the final phase of this process De Meis saw the very end of poetry and in his opinion the contemporary literature proved him to be right since Giacomo Leopardi — the greatest poet of the first half of the nineteenth century — had produced a kind of poetry that tended to become reflective rather than lyric, a philosophical prose in rhyme. By advocating a well known principle of his master and friend Francesco De Sanctis who did not accept too favorably Leopardi's late poetry, De Meis ended by introducing it in the form of an eschatological doctrine which foreshadowed, in a Hegelian way, the death of poetry. But if De Meis accepted on one hand the inevitable decline of poetry, on the other he affirmed that man had to adhere to historical reality, to study its new aspects and find a way to express them in the proper artistic form. If art was declining in order to make way for an era of reflection, the purpose of the artistic genius was to represent the decline of art and to determine the corrupting point in the masterpieces. The decline of art did not involve necessarily the decline of artists but their capability to adapt to the new forms; thus, if the modern times did not belong any longer to poetry but to prose "the artist had to be unpoetic in order to be original".4 By following De Meis' principle one ended by admitting the end of poetry and drama and by considering the novel as the sole artistic form that was 4

I found this quotation in Giulio Marzot's Battaglie veristiche cento (Milano, Casa Editrice G. Principato, 1941), p. 64.

deU'Otto-

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still able to offer some possibility to the writer. As it is known, this concept was accepted for a certain time by Capuana himself. The admiration the Sicilian critic felt for the author of Dopo la laurea was such that he decided in June 1869 to pay him homage through a letter. In addition he would have liked to have written a critical essay on his works. This essay, however, was never completed perhaps because Capuana was more engaged in some research and works of a literary nature, while an essay on the philosophical novel would have taken him a little too far from his immediate interests. Capuana, however, remained firmly convinced that the artistic genres had an historically patterned, limited life and that the most spontaneous among them were those whose origins went back almost to the beginning of civilization, since in the newer ones a certain part of their artistic purity had to be sacrified on behalf of more realistic and philosophical forms. But while Capuana was achieving a maturity of thought through the study of De Meis' philosophy, which attempted to transpose the Hegelian schemes into the study of nature, thus applying the dialectic method, in the rest of Europe and in France in particular, attention was drawn toward the way lead by the positivists. The science of nature was re-evaluated and matter became the object of speculation. A systematic method was followed in analysing both the natural and the human phenomena; the romantic cult of the individual was replaced by the study of the common man as a part of his environment. Reality was examined under the microscope; it was reproduced in specific groups, and the laws that ruled it were classified. With the coming of the Darwinian theory, man had lost his rank of superior creature in order to become one of the elements in the process of natural evolution. It was indeed the time for science, medicine and psychology to reveal the most secret facets of the human nature. Thus, as the romantic ideals had represented the triumph of sentiments and imagination, positivism offered the way to the objective analysis and experiment. Literature also was influenced by this trend and a new kind of writer was born. The traditional writer, who had been con-

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cerned with the satisfaction of preferences and needs not always shared by society in general, made way for his new counterpart who was participating in the common daily life, ready to avail himself of science in order to strengthen his work and to deal with the little known conditions of the masses in order to promote certain improvements. It was society in its entirety that entered the world of art and that became at the end its fundamental element. Art, therefore, had to accomplish its precise function which consisted in bringing about a new culture. But even if the writers intended to insert science into literature, art could not very easily become a purely functional element, a subproduct of society. Some of the works that had been conceived in the light of those principles seemed to go beyond the tolerable limits even in the opinion of the naturalists themselves and a reaction took place. In conclusion, it was maintained that if the purpose of the writers was to deal with science, they actually were dealing with nature and reality, the element that suited art the most. Capuana, meanwhile, during his stay in Mineo, had been reading De Sanctis' Saggi critici and the Storia delta letteratura italiana, two recently published works which, although far from being bought, read and appreciated by many readers, did not fail to open new horizons for art and criticism. 5 T h e y produced a similar effect on Capuana who became interested above all in the relationship between the content and form of the work of art as well as in the solution De Sanctis suggested for it. De Sanctis had stated that the form was not an ornament or a garment, a self standing, "a priori" element, different from the content, but that it was originated by the latter in the active mind of the writer. Capuana, in other words, combined De Meis' Hegelian concept of the form with De Sanctis' principle of the freedom of the same element which ultimately meant freedom of art itself, without noticing, however, as Croce pointed out, that the two theories could not go together because "while De Sanctis maintained the unimportance of the content in respect Cf., Corrado Di Blasi, Luigi Capuana", 1954), p. 147.

5

Capuana

(Mineo, Edizione

"Bibliotcca

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to the superiority of the form which represents its proper expression", De Meis considered art as a regressive and declining series of forms. But the presence of the two passages taken from the writings of De Meis and De Sanctis in the preface of the first series of the Studii sulla letteratura contemporanea reveals the position taken by Capuana in respect to the debated problem concerning the character of the new narrative art.® After reading Balzac's and Zola's works, Capuana was attracted by the naturalistic art to such a degree as to defend its cause in Italy, where it was still considered an "exotic flower". He began by maintaining that the naturalistic novel was to describe human reality in an artistically proper form, avoiding at the same time the tendency to assume an exclusively scientific character. This attitude would have prevented the excesses he had found in some naturalistic works and would have supported the importance of the form in respect to the content. With regard to the content, Capuana thought it could reproduce faithfully every aspect of reality, no matter how unpleasant and brutal, without causing even the slightest flaw in art, as it happened in Balzac's works. In order to be authentic, the work of art had to deal with truth in a direct way, without hypocrisy. Zola, for example, did not look necessarily and only at the brutal aspects of nature; he did not indulge in them and yet he kept his eyes on "la realite immense et putride" because it too was an aspect of nature and it had to be conceived and studied scientifically. In the same manner Capuana, inspired directly by the realistic and naturalistic theories, particularly by those of Zola, does not believe there can be too low and base a matter for a writer who is interested in the social phenomena, because the raw subject is redeemed and raised to a higher and more decorous level; it is purified, so to speak, by the artistic process brought about by the writer. In his attempt to defend the freedom of the work of art, Capuana maintains that when the realistic subject has already * Cf., Benedetto Croce, La Letteratura della Nuova Italia (Bari, Laterza,

1949), III, p. 105.

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undergone the purifying action that brings it from the "novelty" and the "scandal" to the pure atmosphere of art; when, in other words, the character lives and acts in the purity of art without "showing the weakness of a concealed purpose", it is useless to turn to the scruples of a certain false propriety in order to charge the writer with malice and intentions which are contradicted by the success of the work of art.7 On the other hand he felt attracted toward the world he had already visualized during his early readings and literary experiences. His convictions were strongly established on the premise that the purpose of the writer had to be the study of the environment which surrounded him, of man in his actions, in his thinking and in his various classes. Therefore, it was no longer sufficient for a novelist to be endowed with a fertile mind and a romantic taste capable of creating absurd and mythical worlds, totally inadequate to the taste of the contemporary reader. Besides the work of imagination, he had to use the results of his documentary research which had subsequently to be developed into a work of art. As regards the methodological basis we can safely affirm that Capuana accepted in the whole that which the naturalistic theories were suggesting; he even defended those theories in Italy and clarified the terms of the relationship between science and imagination. Like Taine's rigorous theories, this system built on elements such as race, environment and historical background, represented a new "infiltration of science into the work of art"; it was "the characteristic trend of the times". But the writer's ability, Capuana believes, must not necessarily appear as much in this situation as in establishing the exact proportions between the scientific and the imaginary elements so that the free nature of art will not be impaired, and the creative artistic process will comply with all the principles of the positivistic method. In this regard Capuana shows some concern when he admits that art has lost some of its fresh spontaneity in its union with science. He is aware that science can not be circumscribed in a particular given form by the poet's imagination; it is already in 7

Cf., L. Capuana, op. cit., p. 161 ff.

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itself "the absolute negation of the form". Even though science possesses a specific poetical character of its own, it remains indistinct and can not be crystallized into a pure creation. Capuana perceived the danger inherent in the naturalistic method. He was afraid that the scientific content, or any content oriented toward scientific purposes, might cause the writer to lose sight of the basic element, the form, without which no work of art could come into being. Capuana believed in the principle that art was not an abstract or conventional entity because it had covered, both in the past and in the present, a precise role in the history of mankind. Furthermore, it had been transforming itself by following the ideals of the civilizations which had succeeded each other throughout the ages in their evolution. The importance of art might have suffered from this, since it had been relegated into the world of imagination and sentiment which were inferior elements in Capuana's mind. Nevertheless it was still an essential element for the intellectual advancement. According to Capuana's point of view, such a fact could be explained by the very nature of art itself, which could not exist if it were detached from its time, isolated or expressed, so to say, in a language that was dissimilar from the generally used one. Consequently, the subject of art could be either sublime or ordinary, rare or common, because if it succeeded in arousing in the reader's mind the same feelings that had inspired the writer, it was already a true work of art. From this we may infer that according to Capuana, the value of art consisted in giving importance to the common and fleeting everyday impressions, in fixing them in art and in making them even more effective than reality itself.8 The ennoblement of those impressions would not have marred the natural aristocracy of art, which did not reside in the content of the literary work but in its form, namely in its conception and style. Therefore, the goal consisted in reaching a high degree of aesthetic refinement, in giving the content its proper form, an achievement which, in Capuana's opinion, could be attained only by a few exceptional writers. " Ibid., p. 32.

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Another fundamental characteristic of the naturalistic novel had to be the impersonality of art. The writer's creative process should not have appeared in the perfect work of art because his main duty was to eliminate completely his presence in order to live the life of his characters. These artistic qualities can be achieved when the evenness and the cohesion of every part of the work are so perfect that the creative process remains a "mystery"; when the "sincerity" and the reality of the work of art are so evident that it is no longer possible to detect the developing effort of the writer, almost as if the work "had come to life by itself". When Capuana maintains that studying and observing the development of a work of art is an act of questionable taste, he implicitly condemns a work that lends itself to such an investigation, since its development must be "hindered, incomplete and not properly concealed". It may happen, however, that for the professional critics the "process", the "making" and the technical part have a much greater interest than the complete aspect of the work has for the public. This happens, according to the Sicilian critic, because in a work of art there are various grounds on which an analysis can be made: that of the public and that of the critic; the former being somewhat unskilled in carrying out a systematic study but rather inclined to enjoy the good qualities of a literary work, the latter, instead, reacting only to a more refined literary technique, a thing that "fails to capture the interest of the public". The impersonal work of art has also the merit of holding within itself some "sensations, impressions, characteristics and representations" in which a philosophical concept is blended with the form and takes the external aspect of a man, a woman or an action. Such a complete union does not allow the reader to disassociate the elements of this "new, superior nature" but puts him rather, in the place of the writer, it enables him to trace back the artistic creative process. In other words, the reader must derive the concepts condensed in a work of art by himself so that the novelist may not feel every now and then the necessity of "intervening in order to elucidate his concepts". Starting from this idea, Capuana affirms that every literary

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27

composition represents a symbol but in a spontaneous way, "by virtue of its intellectual nature". The historical nature of such a work, its possibility of becoming part of a concrete national literature greatly depend on the spontaneity of this symbolism and upon the creative autonomy of the intellectual process. As for the absolute values of a masterpiece, Capuana suggested the only right way to detect them consisted in occasionally changing the means employed by the writer, such as the language, the style, the outline or some characteristic, those elements, that is, which blend in a single unit. What would happen, he asked himself, if somebody should write a passage from / Malavoglia by following all the syntactical rules? One would be deprived of its incisive and natural qualities because for the argument brought to light by Verga, there is no other form but the one the author gave to his novel. These words seem to confirm again that in the work of art there can be no separation of elements. In spite of Capuana's assent with the naturalistic works, he constantly defended the fundamental principle that truth, in order to become art, must transform itself into sentiment, for the mere imitation of reality can not be good literature.9 From the moment reality is represented in art, it must necessarily give up part of its material nature, since its essence is ennobled by the writer. Capuana strengthened this principle by also asserting that if the action, the spirit or the characters of a work of art did not achieve their completeness in art, they had to be considered a failure because they had not been represented in the best way. Along these lines we can already visualize the fundamental principles of Capuana's critical theories. In fact, he understood and rectified De Meis' rigorous principles on the substance of the novel by having recourse to the analysis of the form as suggested by De Sanctis, and he interpreted the crisis of the novel which followed Manzoni's death as a problem concerning the content. In view of these facts he preferred to consolidate his theories by means of a firm declaration supporting the unity of the form and of the content when he thought that the accen* Cf.. G. Marzot, op. cit., p. 232.

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tuation of either terms of the dichotomy might lead criticism toward an imperfect appraisal of the literary work. On the other hand, his instinctive tendency to a realistic form of art caused him to accept a new kind of literature, in which the scientific elements blended freely with imagination and sentiment. This, however, did not constitute for Capuana a compulsory trend of thought, because he considered himself at any time totally free from any school or dogmatic rule as some of his critical writings can clearly prove. In one of them, which appeared in 1899, he affirmed that a work of art must be accepted in its entirety "without our trying to find out in it the realization of the author's theories, if they are known".10 And he continued with a statement that would have amazed a naturalistic writer: "Did [the literary work] turn out to be a good one? So much the better for the theories and the writer. Does it contradict the theories? So much the worse for them." 11 Even the dualism of the writer's personality could be justified, according to Capuana, because he admitted that the writer could contradict the critic in the same person since "discussing the aesthetical principles differs greatly from using imagination in creating". This sense of freedom in art, particularly deep in Capuana's mind, appears in several of his short stories in which the reader will notice a difference of quality between the ones that are developed on a pre-established plan, after the naturalistic method, and the others where the writer's only concern is to portray the characters and customs of his native land. In the former he works out a theme that, however interesting and modern, offers mainly the evidence of his knowledge and erudition; in the latter, instead, while he remains fairly close to the verista rules, he brings to life and develops veritable characters.

10

»

Cf., L . Capuana, Cronache Ibid.

letter arte (Catania, Giannotta, 1899), p. 257.

III T R U T H A N D F O R M I N T H E VERISTA

WORKS

Capuana's critical writings frequently refer to the French naturalistic trend which he considered as a real literary faith. T h e first interest the young critic showed for this trend which was dominating the French literature, concentrated mainly on the problems of the content. Naturalism, in fact, excluding abstract and rhetorical forms from art, brought it into the reality of contemporary life; it inspired a sound desire for truth; it carried out, in short, what Capuana had wanted to do during his early experience as a critic in Florence. But the Sicilian writer's reaction was not an isolated case. It could be said, indeed, that the success of the verista movement in Italy corresponded to a spiritual necessity of the young writers who supported more and more the ideal of a factual truth and were profoundly interested in transposing the serious and strict method of the sciences into narrative art. In the last years of his life, De Sanctis himself was strongly attracted by the realistic theories which, in his judgment, were leading art toward the most profound and essential human sources. T h e enthusiasm of De Sanctis for realism also appeared in his speeches on Zola, which he gave at the Neapolitan philological center and in those pages of the Storia della Letteratura that show so much concern for the realistic appreciation by the Italian mind. In a language which is not so different from the statement of D e Sanctis, Capuana expressed his love for life as follows: " A b o v e all, in art, I love life," the innermost life, that is, the rational life of sentiments, "the spontaneous impulse of the mind that transforms the work of art into an organic, living element like every

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living thing." These words represented an ideal connection with what he had been writing in his articles as a drama critic for the Nazione, where he had attacked the contemporary Italian theater because it was deprived of any "study of truth" which he conceived as "the passions and the characters not to be portrayed with the photographer's cold precision", but with the creative process from which they derive "their essence and an immortal existence". One has to bear in mind, however, that a trend like the one we are discussing implied such binding and innovating goals that a deep penetration into the mass of the readers was hardly possible. In fact, it seemed to meet, as it actually did, with the disfavor of the public and of several critics. Verism seemed to disappear from the literary scene at least for a certain time, under the onslaught of D'Annunzio's fame. Capuana remained practically alone to carry on the fight against the negative attitude of the critics and the public. Verga, who had been defended and proclaimed the head of the verista school on several occasions by Capuana, gave almost no evidence of taking an active part in the movement either by declaring his theoretical ideas or by becoming involved in polemic discussions. The task of divulging verism and of renovating the concept of the Italian narrative art was left almost exclusively to Capuana. When we say that Capuana was one of the very first among us to discover naturalism and to support the ideals of the verista school we do not think of him as a mere promoter of foreign ideas. He analyzed the works of the French naturalists, accepted some of their views but reelaborated many points such as the concept of the form, which became so important because of the value that was attributed to it by our writers. In 1871, writing about Assommoir by fimile Zola, Capuana pointed out that the book was not dealing with delicate matters for sensational reasons. In Assommoir, he says, "the touch [of the writer] is incredibly moderate" and it creates "a sharp relief and a marvelous outline". When we are introduced into the "dim [environment] where the dreadful drama of the laborers' existence comes to life and has its epilogue", he adds, "we are spellbound by an

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31

evil charm" that causes the reader to feel the "very same effects of the slow degradation which takes place in the characters put into action by the author." In his choice of the "facts", that is to say, of the human actions, Zola, according to Capuana, had not simply tried to penetrate into the mind of the people, had not limited himself to recreating it, so to speak, in an entirely genuine way in the literary work, but had gone further; he had traced back the very sources of those actions, the environmental and spiritual conditions that had caused them. This goal had been achieved through the knowledge of the natural laws, the sole and true foundation of the naturalistic writer's work. Capuana accepted enthusiastically this theory. T h e impression you receive in reading a book of this kind is indescribable, he says. Only an immediate sensation remains in your mind; you forget the work of art, yet you are under the impression of being put into the world described by the novelist; he makes us participate in his feelings and actions. Such an identification was possible because the writer did not make use of details, nuances and colorful images for a purely exterior purpose, but gave the reader the impression he was in a different atmosphere, so as to introduce him into the soul of other human beings. In revealing his enthusiasm for Zola, Capuana concerned himself in pointing out the right relationship between science and imagination which had been reached in a balanced synthesis by the French writer's narrative works. Zola does not remain "indifferent, cold or ironical and mocking l i k e . . . Flaubert, when he observes the object of his study", Capuana observes, but on the contrary, he is affected, he is moved by it." Sensations are not conceived and portrayed as such but they are "ennobled, purified, they b e c o m e . . . poetry. Poetry! It seems a misused word when we deal with Z o l a " ; says our critic, yet even if the narration follows an exact analysis to the point of becoming almost scientific, that feeling, "the true life of his works, is pure and profound poetry". As Capuana wrote in his Per Parte, the analysis may reveal an abstract being, in his various elements such as heredity, environment, the individual circumstances, the uncontrolable events and

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WORKS

other elements, but when we have reached this point we are just at the beginning. That is only raw material which remains such until imagination infuses into it "its great spiraculum vitae". Only then those separated elements will come to life, will become form, will be, in short, a work of art.1 Even if Capuana could consider Zola's narrative art poetical, nevertheless he made some reservations on the theories of the experimental novel the French writer had upheld. "I do not believe Zola ever took seriously his own theories", Capuana wrote in Gli ismi contemporanei. He went on saying that Zola had probably become familiar with Claude Bernard's Medecine experimentale, with the adaptation of its scientific principles to literature, as had been done by Taine, and he might have thought that a novel containing both art and science would have stirred up the curiosity of the readers. Capuana made these statements particularly because he was firmly convinced that Zola did not attach too much importance to the content of the novel but to the way in which it was expressed. It was precisely on the subjects of the content that our writer came often to a compromise, by declaring again and again that the search of the "specific case" and of the proper scientific method to study it was, after all, a secondary element, an accessory when it was compared with the basic fact, the form. It is well known that Capuana, under the influence of De Sanctis, believed that in the narrative works, art had to reflect the truth of human life in a completely free form, as if it were disengaged from every pre-established program. As for the evaluation of the work of art, Capuana seemed to proceed by following a research method which was quite different from the one De Sanctis proposed. The latter, in fact, had invited the critics to judge the literary works without any preconceived ideas or abstract rules, but had also pointed out that in order to proceed properly toward this goal, the critics had to adopt an historical research method; in other words they should have analyzed those elements such as the atmosphere created by 1 Cf., Luigi Capuana, Per Parte (Catania, Niccolo Giannotta, 1885), p. xxxv ff.

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33

the writer, his form, his style and his nature which had contributed substantially in the creation of the work of art. Capuana, on the contrary, because of his aversion for any kind of program or theory, followed an order of ideas that led only to the revelation of art in its purest and most abstract form. However, when Capuana became involved in the literary debates, to which he contributed by writing articles for the newspapers, his attention was attracted not so much by the discussion of these theoretical problems as by the analysis of the works where their rules were put into effect. But even in examining the literary genres, Capuana follows a rather personal idea. T o him the novel and drama seem to have a more dynamic evolution because, in his opinion, they are bound to become the only artistic forms which can reflect the changes and the progressive movements of the human thinking. Poetry, on the contrary, cannot benefit by a possible connection with science not only because it has reached the stage of philosophy and has exhausted its resources, as De Meis had foreseen, but mainly because science, limited as it is by its nature, would only prevent human imagination from reaching its sublime goals. The time when poetry and science could live together "like the soul and the body of the same person" was over and science had become deeper and more important. The conclusion Capuana reached by following this thinking was that the new generations, no longer anguished in the quest of salvation, turned their minds to something that was already among them, science, that is. For this reason they were no longer expecting anything from outside but only from themselves and from human mind. In the introduction of his Libri e teatro, bearing the title "The Literary Crisis", Capuana mentions a great reawakening, a glorious flourishing of works, which began in 1860 "and blossomed everywhere, miraculously, promising the best results". The public that was accustomed to reading literary works permeated with politics, was confronted now with the arising of new motifs which, besides representing a novelty in themselves, tried to "attract among us the novelty [represented by] an absolutely artistic work, where concealed purposes and extrinsic tendencies

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were no longer predominant".2 What the critic meant was that the work of art should not have any aims different from the artistic ones, consequently he condemned the literary production of the early nineteenth century and declared he was in favor of the trends which were being followed in the second half of the century. "If I should tell you my opinion about the literary production of the second half [of the century]," he wrote in the Prefazione, ο quasi... of his Gli ismi contemporanei, "I would admit it seems to me more vital than [the production] of the other half; it has a better resistance; it is a pure work of art, it is not mixed with politics or anything else."3 He was aiming at a complete autonomy of art, "therefore he believed that the Italian narrative literature should not have taken the way indicated by / promessi sposi, but it should have started an altogether new one" possibly close to the French writers' art, "a pure and unbiased" art, which in Italy was represented by Verga's works.4 What is Capuana's attitude toward De Sanctis who had reached his intellectual maturity through the romantic and idealistic concepts of the first half of the century, yet had been able to make a correct evaluation of Zola's writings? Capuana believes that De Sanctis' culture is influenced both by his romantic nature and by his lively interest in reality in art. It has, therefore, some intrinsic limits, which prevent it from appreciating in a complete theoretical conscience, the voice of the new art. In this respect Capuana considers typical the complete lack of interest shown by De Sanctis for Verga's works.5 Cf., L. Capuana, Libri e teatro (Catania, Niccolo Giannotta, 1892), p. vii. Cf., L. Capuana, Gli ismi contemporanei (Catania, Niccolo Giannotta, 1898), p. 5. 4 Cf., Vittorio Spinazzola, Federico De Roberto e il verismo (Milano, Feltrinelli Editore, 1961), p. 21. 5 Capuana precisely says this: " . . . I doubt very much [whether] De Sanctis may decide to do for 1 Malavoglia that which he had the courage to do for Zola's Assommoir. Yet it seems to me that few of our modern books deserve the attention of the Neapolitan critic's keen analysis as much as / Malavoglia, so as to make conspicuous its first class qualities, which are profusedly distributed in those four hundred and more pages." Cf., L. Capuana, Studii sulla letteratura contemporanea, Series II (Catania, Niccolo Giannotta, 1882), p. 133. 2

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35

But it is necessary to add, at this point, that Capuana's difference of opinion from De Sanctis goes further than the specific case in which it originates. In this activity as a theorist of art, Capuana is influenced by his attitude of a militant critic. One of the characteristics of militant criticism is precisely its keen observation of the contemporary phenomena and of the predominant trends. T h e theoretical compromise between De Sanctis and De Meis, which had been contrived by Capuana, was in fact, the coherent result of his desire to follow the evolutionary ideas of the predominantly naturalistic trend. 8 As it has been already said, Capuana considered as masters of the art of criticism both De Meis for his romantic theory of the evolution of the literary genres, and De Sanctis from whom he drew most of his ideas concerning the relationship between the content and the form. In his Studii sulla letteratura contemporanea, Series I, he promptly clarifies that art means, above all, the form and that the critic who would trace the evolution of art, should write the history of form. But for Capuana the evolution of this element, which is strongly influenced by Kantian and Hegelian ideas, in a sudden change of speculative direction, follows the evolution that we find in the creation of the forms in nature. For this reason, the form should be studied according to the same method, the inductive one, which is followed in the study of the natural sciences. A very effective tool, in the * See the letter dated August 12, 1869, sent to Rapisardi together with D e Sanctis' writing on Petrarch. A m o n g other things, Capuana says: " D e Sanctis is an excellent analyst, a very delicate writer; but it seems to me he dwells too much on the details to the disadvantage of the great lines which represent the main aspects of a work. Everything he writes is carefully considered, elegantly said, but it is inconsequential and ineffective. I am not a great admirer of Petrarch; I consider him a more than secondary poetic exponent and m y opinion grew stronger and stronger after reading this essay. T h e Neapolitan writer wanted to discover at any cost a Petrarch of his own creation, and it seems to me he is amazed he still has to discover the true Petrarch he wanted to reveal to us, according to his promises, without seeing if he could have kept [his promise] . . . it seems to me he set to work with a little prejudice. His book represents a great e f f o r t deserving a sincere and profound admiration, but, with due rcspect, it is a wasted e f f o r t . " Corrado Di Blasi, Luigi Capuana (Mineo, Edizione "Biblioteca Capuana", 1954), p. 147 f f .

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process of this research, will be the human mind, its reasoning. By setting the problem on a scientific basis, Capuana affirms that as it is possible to find in the museums specimens of prehistoric animals and plants, which will never live again, together with other species whose life is still continuing "out of a mere vegetative accident", so we can find in the realm of art some forms which have already reached their full development and cannot be brought back to life. The "true reality" of art consists in the constant capability of the various species of surpassing each other (we should think in terms of forms in literature), a phenomenon that would seem antithetical only to an untrained mind. The reproduction and the subdivisions of the forms are based "on a general reason of their own", from which other particular forms derive, and reveal themselves through the minute ramifications of the subforms, "as occurs precisely in the flora and the fauna". The consequence is that a secondary form blends with a primary one and becomes a part of its entity. To demonstrate this theory, Capuana draws a parallel between "the science of religion" and "the science of literature". In the religious evolution there is a transition from fetishism to Catholicism, "[which is] the most perfect religious form and therefore of all religious forms, the closest to corruption"; so in literature, the transition from the early epic poem, for example, to Goethe's Faust, "a masterpiece which is very close to the corruption of the real poetic form", is a phenomenon ruled by the same laws of evolution. The poems, the tragedy, the comedy, the lyric poetry and the novel are not accidental forms. The process could not begin from Zola's Assommoir or Leopardi's La ginestra and finish with the Iliad or the Orphic hymns. He also maintains that the science of literature found a solution from the problems concerning the evolution of the forms, particularly in the case of the epic poetry, which had changed first into the tragedy and then into the comedy. The same can be said for the lyric poetry and the novel. What is needed is a synthetic work, he affirms, a writing that might clearly demonstrate the method and its results . . . "even to the layman.... [This work] will have to distinguish that which by now is an

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acknowledged fact, a pure scientific axiom, from those hypotheses in the process of becoming theses."7 T h e intrinsic power of the form overcomes the passing of the time, "it works the miracle" of changing a writing inspired by feelings and ideas of centuries ago, into something clear and modern. Thus the brave deeds of the Greek warriors in the war of T r o y still attract us because we are fascinated by the way those actions are reproduced in the poet's language and style, which fit so perfectly the subject of the poem that one would not notice any intrusion between "the concept and its representation". In Capuana's opinion, therefore, Homer's greatness consists in the simplicity of his thought and in the clearness of his form which, infused in his poetry, make it so real that life itself would differ very little from it. Our critic insists on a fundamental point of the verista school: naturalness in narrative art. But we must notice that the defense of a natural and clear art is accompanied in him by a well defined attack against a certain artistic expression "[which is] overburdened with 'color', useless details and wayward diversions" that engender confusion and destroy the balance in the work of art. Capuana's aversion for artificiality appears in a chapter of Gli ismi contemporanei in which he analyzes D'Annunzio's writings, particularly Giovanni Episcopo and Innocente. The critic believes that, contrary to D'Annunzio's most natural vocation, the two novels had been influenced by the Russian writers. The Russian novelists' creations, says Capuana, are so alluring for us because (and these are Dostoevski's own words) "the Russian's soul is as immense as his fatherland, it is violently inclined toward everything unreal and disorderly". In the Russian novels we find "dejected characters tormented by ideal necessities". T h e y have an unyielding will power, their hearts "long for a strange desire of suffering". After a careful observation, those characters will prove to be in an abnormal condition, something is wrong in their minds or does not work normally"; they are Cf., L. Capuana, Studii sulla letteratura contemporanea, Series I (Milano, Brigola, 1880), p. 304 ff. 7

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neurotics "who should be entrusted to the treatments of Charcot or Lombroso". 8 D'Annunzio's mind, Capuana continues, inclined as it is toward emotions and sensuality, was attracted by the qualities of the Russian novels and overstepped all limits. Consequently, even if our skepticism and our sensibility are perturbed by those elements, we cannot identify ourselves in them because they are too different from us. He adds also that the pessimistic attitudes which are predominant in the new Latin Germanic society are quite different from their Slavic counterpart. In our case, reason is the main characteristic, not sentiment. Furthermore, for the Russian writers, the work of literature is not only such, but it becomes political, religious and moral according to the specific circumstances and needs of their country. "For us the work of art has already become independent, not so passionate"; and our critic points out that "it [our literature] is closer to science . . . [it is] more balanced. Its form is clearer, more concentrated and more harmonious since it developed through the Greek and Latin classicism." 9 If we try to introduce the "Russian perturbed passions" into our literature, Capuana concludes, "we do a foolish thing for various reasons. W e deprive it of its character, we prevent it from reflecting the nature of our society, it will be a derivative art, a nonsense." 10 If this might constitute a grave mistake for the French and the Germans, "it would be an enormous blunder for us Italians, because we must still complete our evolution toward a more advanced society whose new elements we should assimilate, because they would suit perfectly the nature of our race, without depriving us of our genuine individuality... Firmly convinced that the new Italian literature, rather than following the spirit and the meaning of the other national literatures, should focus its attention on the life of our country, he equally believes that documented reality is not sufficient to Cf., L. Capuana, Gli ismi contemporanei, p. 87. » Ibid., p. 88. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid., p. 89. 8

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create a veristic work. It is truly one of its basic elements, but the realistic novel will not be created b y "photographing" life as it is revealed under our eyes. In discussing D'Annunzio's ideas on the novel, for instance, Capuana considers it naive, particularly when it suggests "to study men and things directly, without any changes". H e does not deny that Giovanni Episcopo and lnnocente are documents that demonstrate the convenience of a scientifically based methodical observation, but in art, he stresses, they do not represent any new value, because their material " [ w h i c h is] disunited and sparse, must be enlivened b y the creative form that operates haphazardly, unconsciously and mysteriously and constantly eludes the writer's attempt to rule it". 12 A n absolute and essential condition is, therefore, the adaptability of the form which can be applied not only to reality but also to an abstract concept, provided that it is endowed with a value of its own, outside of art. T h u s it will become a living creation, a "poetic reality" In Studii sulla letteratura contemporanea, Series I, the problem had been set on a different ground. T h e writer, said Capuana, may feel dissatisfied or offended by reality, consequently he withdraws into a completely different ideal, where he can find consolation and dignity. In so doing, the writer will turn his world of images into a real w o r k of art, which may stand out because of its antithetic, excessive yet powerful nature, or because of its human characters, disturbed and confused b y their passions. Capuana's conclusions prove that in the first case, the w o r k of art will live until it will be necessary to balance its contradictory elements; in the other case, instead, since the reintegration is carried out on unchangeable characteristics of human nature, the w o r k of art may have to undergo the changes of tastes and ideas, but it will live forever in the synthesis of the elements of the form in which the writer composed it. Capuana's absolute faith in his theory sometimes is condensed in statements as the following: "a w o r k of art is an abstract concept materialized into form; the essence of an artistic form 12 Ibid., p. 85.

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is higher than any intellectual power" or "a composition in which the form is the last thing to be considered [by the author] is not a work of art". W e can notice in these ideas the contrast between De Meis' Hegelian theories and De Sanctis' principles on the form. But if Capuana accepted to compromise on the subject of the human documents, he was inflexible in his principles concerning the form, principles that, starting with De Sanctis, were to characterize a great part of the Italian critical works. We depart, therefore, from an omnipotent concept of the form considered as the spark which gives life to the perfect work of art. Yet it must not be understood only in terms of the style and of the language, but as a combination of artistic implements and of creative powers. T o conceive the form as an individual impulse or a whim of the times is to misunderstand the law of evolution where, as we have seen before, a certain form generates another one or even a group of them, which, in turn, become exhausted and finished after reaching their ultimate stage. The language and the grammar do not possess any value of their own, says Capuana, and even if they can be used as effective implements, the results depend substantially from the hand that uses them. Upon a certain occasion, some writers have no longer respected the rules and had the great courage "to write ungrammatically". Even if Fenelon said, "C'est dommage que Moliere ne sache pas ecrire," Capuana points out that Moliere nowadays is considered a classic.13 T o create the illusion of the voice, the inflection of the accent may concern the purists, Capuana admits, but at the same time he defends the nature of art, its means, the language and the literary style by justifying the fears of those critics who foresee the use of dialects in narrative writings. He seems to believe that a certain balance between the language and the content must be sought (as Verga did) and that an inappropriate linguistic elegance should be avoided because, as in D'Annunzio's case, it transforms into unreal and detached figures those characters that in the author's mind should have been real and human. 13

Cf., L . Capuana, Per Parte, p. vii.

TRUTH AND F O R M IN THE " V E R I S T A " WORKS

41

At this point, Capuana strongly disapproves of the use of dialects in the literary work, since it would turn out to be lessened because of the implement itself, of its content which would be limited within a certain area and social class and finally because of the very artistic intentions which, in a writing of this kind, would come last in the author's mind. This is one more reason to stress the concept of form in the verista work which not only tries to reconstruct the local color (as in the case of the drama in dialect), but to open new perspectives without destroying the balance of artistic values, including the language. As a consequence, the style will consist of the form which is taken by the language to fit the idea, "to dress and reveal it", as Capuana suggests. The style will acquire directness and elegance with the progress made by the form of the phrase and the ideas toward their union. On the other hand, the use of commonplaces which were perhaps employed in the classics, will not be able to create a work endowed with the qualities of its model. As the literary genres and their motives are subject to change, also the language evolves and eventually assumes completely detectable features that are suitable to a particular genre or work and could not be used in other cases. Capuana, therefore, believes in an historical evolution of the form, a phenomenon that interests not only the ideas but also the language in which they are expressed. As we remarked previously, Capuana also considers this element in Zola's style, since he did not limit himself to studying the subject he wanted to deal with, but went himself among the people, lived in contact with them, learned their language, their thoughts and habits, so that at the moment of drawing up his novels, he would instinctively find in his mind the distinguishing qualities of his characters. In Capuana's opinion this aspect of Zola's art was not only necessary but a fundamenal part of his theories. Capuana generally observed the recreation of truth in art in his short stories and novels. This procedure, however, did not prevent him from keeping a certain flexibility that allowed him

42

TRUTH AND FORM IN THE "VERISTA" WORKS

to consider, in some cases, aspects, characters and ideas not quite real. What makes them such, in the writer's elaboration, is the form and its components, the concept and the language. In a chapter of Gli ismi contemporanei, Capuana opposes Ojetti's ideas on the novel which should be a "sublime dream", written in a language "purer than marble", as "fluent as water", more "complicated and varied than the sky at night". The novel will become a sublime or a humble dream, the critic says, if its prose is suitable for the subject. This prose style "will not exist for its own sake, but for the subjects matter with which it will constitute an indivisible unity". Such a form will be born with the novel; it will be so much "a part of it" that no distinction between the two elements will ever be possible. T o try to do otherwise means to force imagination, to create hybrid forms; it means, after all, to underrate the nature of the work of art. A particularly valid documentation on this subject can be found in Capuana's Per Parte. The introductory chapter is at the same time a clarification and a defense of the ideals of the verista school. For our work, the writer says, we needed a prose style which had to be "lively, effective and capable of portraying all the imperceptible nuances of the modern thought". Capuana's position with regard to the language problem will be evident when he implicitly admits the lack of a tool which may be used to reflect the newly born order of ideas, the scientific concepts, as well as his initiative (which coincides with the position of the verista school), to create so flexible a language as to satisfy the new literary demands. "Our masters," the writer adds, "did nothing but advise us to read the fourteenth century writers! W e needed an easy, vigorous and dramatic language and our masters suggested reading the sixteenth century writers of comedies."14 In this attack against the ideas of the conservators and purists, we notice Capuana's resentment toward the latter and the writers themselves. The situation of the literary world did not give rise to any hope. The Tuscan writers who should have set the 14 Ibid., p. vi ff.

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43

example "weren't doing anything; they were brooding over Dino Compagni and the Crusca". Such an activity "made them drip with sweat". But an unexpected help was to come from another part of the country and the inspiration was going to have foreign characteristics. The French naturalists, who had equally received sharp attacks from the critics, had started using a very original language and we, says Capuana, "have put one together, [which is] partly French, partly regional and partly confused, as are all those things that happen to be put together in a hurry".15 In his conclusion, Capuana doubts that the lexicographers will consider it, but he also stresses an unquestionable truth when he says that " . . . the writers who will come after our time will give us some credit, at least for having said something clear in our writings".16 We could not disregard the value of his prophecy if we observe the evolution of the novel, the regional novel in particular, as it appears in our literature. The new language, then, still had to be improved and it failed to satisfy even those writers who had created it. Yet it was better to toil in the search of a significant style, rather than "wait for the prose that was to come". When it was created, it proved to be organic and modern, in spite of its defects, "its solecisms and provincialisms". Capuana's competence in defining such an important problem appears at first sight in his writings, which are humorous and ironical at times but constantly permeated by his investigating and innovating mind. To evaluate more precisely his strong defense of coherence in style, we must go back to some of his writings which were published at the dawn of D'Annunzio's fame. In an article on D'Annunzio's Canto novo and Terra vergine which Capuana wrote in 1882, the critic enthusiastically welcomes the originality revealed by the young poet from Pescara, he points out his "exaltation of light and colors", and his resplendent descriptions of the seaside which bring back to the critic's mind the paintings 111

Ibid., p. vii. Ibid.

44

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AND

FORM

IN T H E

"VERISTA"

WORKS

of Michetti, who had revealed to the poet the secret of "not painting an imaginary view . . . but of portraying a certain view, at a given time, in a determined place". Capuana also stresses the magic power of the word which, seemingly inadequate in the poet's opinion, exceeds its limits and creates a pictorial impression which, in spite of its visible artificiality, is not lacking a great appeal. He equally examines its style which he thinks derives from a "state of pure sensation" that leads the poet, however, toward the "repetition of certain images he considered newer and more effective". But in conclusion Capuana manifests his admiration for the young poet's imagination, for the "child", as the poet liked to define himself, and it even seems beautiful to him to see that the poet freely puts into his lines both good qualities and defects of the form. Later on, in 1898, while writing about D'Annunzio's novel Innocente, he finds in the author's style some reflections of his artistic personality represented by the permanence of stylistic forms which become "a dissonance" in the linguistic evenness he thought D'Annunzio had achieved, and he definitely excludes as good prose, some phrases of a highly lyrical form. 17 In the same book, in discussing idealism and cosmopolitanism, he asserts that the problem of the style and the language had to be visualized according to Verga's principles. While D'Annunzio's solution did not lead to any practical result in the creation of real characters, Verga, instead, had succeeded in giving life to artistic figures [made of] "blood, flesh and bones". 18 This criticism shows Capuana's concern for the suitability of the style to the form and the content, and his purpose of putting in the right perspective the uselessness of D'Annunzio's direct observation, when it fails to achieve a truly artistic level as he seems to notice in Giovanni Episcopo and Innocente. In another article in which Leopardi's prose although similar in beauty to a Greek marble decoration, is considered cold and unfit to express complicated sensations and our modern passions, 17

18

Cf., L. Capuana, Gli ismi conteniporanet, p. 108.

Ibid., p. 16.

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45

he also notices in Carducci's prose a certain influence caused by a new style, the verista style. "Compare one of his early compositions," he suggests, "with a recent one [In the latter] you find a m a n . . . a great writer who has a message; [in the former, you will find] just a writer." What opportunities were given the verista novelists of studying philology in a complete manner? None, says the critic; furthermore they had to be content with a "little and inaccurate work". Yet, even this contribution, however unacknowledged by Carducci, was of great use in offering him a starting point in order to prove with a prose style which was "all muscles and energy, penetrating like a knife blade and brilliant in its facets as the purest diamond" what the goal of the verista writers could be. If one should search among the Italian writers' works of the last three centuries, even among the best and the most classic, Capuana says, he would not be able to find an example of a better formulation of the feelings and of the artistic power than Verga's prose. The writing of a novel does not simply entail the correct use of style and grammar. In our time there are even too many writers who send some works to the press that indicate the presence of an enviable technical skill and yet do not represent any remarkable value in art. The readers are left spellbound by their skill and the perfection of their language but, in the end, they feel that those beautiful phrases have nothing to do with truth.

IV IMPERSONALITY OF A R T

If Verga deserves the credit of having given verism for the first time a voice and a form, Capuana has the merit of having foreseen and clarified it by fostering its development. In fact the history of the Italian narrative literature unites the names of the two writers in the evolution of the verista trend; it integrates the one with the other by attributing to Verga the practical realization of what Capuana studied and openly asserted in the newspapers of several Italian cities. In truth it is possible to see in them a common concern even if the ways they followed in their work were different: it is the representation of reality, which if in Verga it became the artistic expression of the humble people's sufferings and anguish, in Capuana, on the contrary, it revealed itself as the defense of the sense of real life in art. When Verga ended the phase of his "sentimental" novels and published in 1874 the Sicilian narrative sketch Nedda, Capuana was the only one who understood not only its immediate but its potential value. Naturally this was not the result of a temporary vision or of a lucky fortuitous intuition, but the conclusion of a long period of maturation and elaboration that in Capuana's case could be considered as its starting point in 1864 when his "almost virgin" mind began to analyze Balzac's works. When Capuana concluded that, as a basis for the verista theory, a "search of the human documents" had to be carried out scientifically and expressed in a novel in a language suitable to the content, he maintained that the Italian novel to come was to inquire into the fertile ground of the historical and social facts with particular regard to the great changes in ideas and customs that were taking place along with he progress of the country. In

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47

fact the novelistic literature which developed in Italy was oriented according to Capuana's expectations, toward the regional aspects, particularly because if the writer wanted "to portray in all sincerity his contemporary life", he did not have to turn to the high social classes, where life had become rather uniform, but to the populace in whom life had remained "more varied, more dynamic and virgin", and for whom it was "less social and more natural". 1 But even in this group the writer would have preferred the country people rather than the urban masses, because they lived far from the large centers, where vices and corruption predominated, and because they were closer to the "spontaneity of the state of nature". 2 A social study carried out on these principles represented for Capuana the scientific phase of art, in which the writer, besides following the other rules, had to respect the principle of impersonality. This particular aspect of Capuana's thought originated not only from the critic's natural tendency for an exact and documentative literary art, but also from the necessity of establishing in Italy a literary tradition solidly based on the social ground, free from the abstract production and shallowness into which he thought it had fallen. His plan for the reorganization of the national literature presupposed a very cautious and purely functional use of the linguistic elements. This battle waged by sincerity against rhetoric, by "truth" against the neoclassic style and the exasperated expressive skill of D'Annunzio's new star, was not simply supported by a vague acknowledgment of factual truth in the novels. On the contrary, he even went so far as to exclude historical truth as an indispensable element of the work of art, since one should not have thought of "truth" as a copy of reality, but as a reconstruction of the same which, through the accomplishment of the writer, would have created human characters with authentic feelings. In Capuana's opinion the writer had first to recognize the deep moral necessity of the new Cf., Gaetano Trombatore, "Luigi Capuana critico", Belfagor, IV, 4 (July 31, 1949), p. 44. ! Ibid. 1

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narrative art, and if, later on, while following his path, he happened to need an imaginary character or a pretext, he could freely "borrow them from history", if he wished to, because the main problem did not involve the subject as much as the truth it contained and the style in which it was represented.3 The combination of external and spiritual elements that constitute the individuality of the characters must portray the real human being, not a fictitious being taken out of historical recollections or from imagination. In order to give birth to an Italian realism the writer had to be conscious enough not to fall into the naturalistic extremes, but he also had to keep in mind the effectiveness that trend had achieved just by virtue of its horror of what had been a vain fruit of imagination. The "man of four centuries ago is not the modern man", it was said; he had represented a reality on behalf of his time and to try to recreate him meant to destroy history and the evolution of the human mind. For the same reason, if modern man was to be deprived of any one of his good or bad qualities or of his passions, what was left of him? Only an abstract figure, a character without art, quite contrary to human nature. Even if the writer's attention were aimed toward proper goals, their mission appeared to be anything but easy since they could not simply "observe, study and photograph [in order] to have at the end an original work of art". Briefly, what Capuana wanted the new writers to portray and identify was the "present time of Italian life": its traits and qualities had to remain in the artistic documents of that time, and the Italians had to become accustomed to making out what was typical of that elementary society of ours in order to discover, through a more intense research, what was typical of the higher social classes. All this corresponded to the program Capuana says that the artistic character "will only take from reality its external traits, it will be called N e r o or Messalina; its name could be Caio, Tizio, Armando . . . either a classic or a romantic or a c o m m o n name, but on the whole it will be a living character, with its virtues and vices, dominated by his passions, agitated by sublime or cowardly feelings, shocked and attacked by the inflexible fate of its nature, its sentiments, and its actions " Cf., Luigi Capuana, Studii sulla letteratura contemporanea, Series II (Catania, N i c c o l o Giannotta, 1882), p. 259. 3

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49

Giovanni Verga had proposed in the introduction of his / Malavoglia. In the particular case of Verga and Capuana, although both belonged to a different social class, we notice a deep sense of brotherhood, a sincere understanding of the Sicilian people's mind, which enables us to believe that they succeeded in grasping the regional spirit of their land and in transferring it into some works which, detaching themselves from the limitation of the insular culture, are pervaded by a profoundly Italian and European character. W h a t Capuana feels and expresses through his observations and his forebodings on the future of the Italian literature does not represent the order of ideas of a limited trend, but the symptoms of the change in the Italian and European taste. Francesco De Sanctis, in his Storia delta Letteratura Italiana, urges the Italian writers to search within themselves, to discover Italy's "real elements of existence", to re-establish her moral world and to find in her spirit a new source of inspiration such as the woman, the family, nature, love, freedom, the fatherland, science and virtue, all real and familiar factors which are integrating parts of her life. And in order to bring about a type of literature that may suit the time, he suggests we must "first observe ourselves, our customs, ideas and prejudices"; we must "convert the modern world, our world, by studying, assimilating and transforming it". 4 He foresaw the imminent formation of the new Italian literary spirit and he condemned emphasis and rhetoric; the coming of the new era was a positive fact for him. The Neapolitan critic, however, was not destined to see the realization of his ideal or to participate in the development of European realism. He died, in fact, in 1883 and the Italian verism achieved a tangible and mature form between 1881, when / Malavoglia appeared, and 1889, the year in which Mastro don Gesualdo was published. Yet after De Sanctis' death, his ideals continued to gain ground, they became a militant drive in the journalistic polemics, they turned out to be a faith and a reality. 4

Cf., Francesco De Sanctis, Storia della letteratura 19S8), vol. II, p. 436.

italiana (Bari, Laterza,

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The man who inherited those principles and divulged them without cease was Capuana. His initiative, which is particularly important if we consider the firmness that inspired it and the consequences it had in art, must always be taken into account whenever our attention is directed to the origin of the Italian "verista" literature. The publication of the short stories entitled Vita dei campi was stressed by Capuana as an event everybody was waiting for, since the day in which Nedda had given hope for a decisive change in the Italian narrative literature. When Verga wrote Nedda, says the critic, "perhaps he did not believe he had found a new vein in the almost intact mine of the Italian novel".5 The character of the olive harvester was indeed bringing a new air into the worlds of Verga's feminine characters of the early novels. These seemed to live in an atmosphere which was very far from the naturalness of the Sicilian countryside; they were women with "fascinating" names, whose lives were an alternation of pleasures and refinements. In the world of art the humble countrywoman was much more worthy than those ladies; she seemed to be coming out of an unknown land and aroused in the reader, with her vigorous and intuitive instincts, a new emotion. Furthermore, the author himself "had had the shrewdness" of remaining out of the picture and he had allowed the characters of the story to stand out by themselves and to speak a spontaneous language. In fact, in Verga's short stories, we are no longer able to find the artificiality of the worldly society of Eros and Tigre reale. The main defect of those characters that Verga could observe constantly in their daily reality, was the fact that, in his novels, they did not assume a real form. At this point Capuana understood that if Verga had dwelt on the same narrative theme he would have never succeeded in giving a complete and a convincing evidence of his literary qualities. To do so, he had to turn his attention to his land and his people and forego all the ideas and types he had been building up in his stay in the North of Italy. But then, after a long period of silence, the short stories of Vita dei campi were coming to light and represented for our critic a deeper sign of maturity 5 Cf., L. Capuana, Studii sulla letteratura contemporanea, Series II, p. 117.

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and a more refined mastery of art. His satisfaction was greater also because he thought he could see in Verga's new style the triumph of that impersonality of art he was defending so strenuously. The short stories are successful not simply because of their originality, he declares, but because they are true works of art and they can be placed on the same artistic level as Sand's and Auerbach's writings. In these stories there is a perfect cohesion among their components and Capuana believes that De Sanctis' theory of the ideal expressed through reality has reached its full development. It must be noticed, moreover, that in Sicily some research on folklore and the psychology of the people was already under way. Capuana himself, who, following Pitre's and Lionardo Vigo's example, had contributed to the completion of the collection of Sicilian popular songs, introduced Verga's short stories as a true documentation of a particular aspect of Sicilian life. He stated that Mara, Pina and the She-wolf, in short, all the characters of the Novelle, were not insular conventional figures but real creatures, whose environment could be located between Monte Lauro and Mineo. If one should remove them from that area, Capuana added, they would not even have fitted into another Sicilian town. He supported his opinion by scientifically explaining that the feelings and the ideas of those characters were the obvious consequences of the climate, the geographical configuration, the natural aspects, the customs and the traditions which constituted "the particular character of that ancient Greco-Sicilian land".« Inspired by his fervent belief, Capuana participated in various polemics in order to defend the new "verista" concept of art and foresaw a thorough transformation in the narrative literature, a movement which could not, however, have taken place in a short course of time. First of all, in order to have a favorable reaction from the critics, more writings had to be published, and this was still to come. In the second place, such a radical change of concepts and forms was not simple. This was proved by Verga himself who, after publishing Vita dei ccanpi and I Malavoglia, • Ibid., p. 123.

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had resumed the style of his former narrative productions by writing II marito di Elena. Moreover, there was another aspect which, according to Capuana, diminished the enthusiasm of the readers: the absence of the personality of the writer who refrained from a direct intervention in the plot of his novel. In reading a novel like I Malavoglia, the readers were confronted by nature; it seemed, instead, they preferred to see it through the pleasant personality of the writer, with all the ornaments, the trifles and the frills of the old styles; they felt completely out of their way. 7 T h e theory of the impersonality of art materialized in a particular form of the naturalistic novel, a form whose origin could already be noticed in Balzac's novels. According to this theory, the novel, in a certain way, had to develop by itself. Once the writer had found the right subject and had inspired life into his characters, he had to leave them free to play their own roles, without intervening in one way or another. As Capuana pointed out in his chapter on Verga, positivism and naturalism deeply influenced the novel only in its form and the evident consequence of such an action was represented by the "perfect impersonality" of the work of art.8 As a result the writer's greatness reached its highest level when he, standing aside, allowed his characters to play their parts, free of following their impulses, their "tragic fate". In order to comply with the rules of impersonality, the writer should not only have been objective with regard to the development of the action, but he would have been obliged to "forget, to obliterate himself" and to live, instead, the life of his characters. T o observe this rule meant, in other words, to respect truth not in the very limited way of recreating real facts in art, but in Ibid., p. 134 ff. Ibid., p. 135 and also what is quoted from Vaquerie's ideas on page 142: "From century to century the poet has emancipated the action. He did not have the courage of freeing it on the first day; it was necessary for it to grow gradually, to speak and to be understood by the public; he hesitated; he started out step by step; he always kept turning back to look at it. He took two thousand years to disappear from the scene." 7

8

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53

keeping a certain coherence in the qualities of the characters, in their environment and in their mentality. The realization of this principle in Verga's works was observed and defined by Capuana who considered verism and its theories, however, as a method. It is evident, therefore, what the critic thinks about the difference between naturalism and verism which becomes a method based on the form, its main element, from which the concept of impersonality is derived as a natural consequence. By following this principle no one of the writer's moral or political ideas should appear in the novel; he should try, instead, to analyze and understand them all as far as possible. The main advantage of the writer, in this case, consisted in the fact he would not have needed to postulate any thesis, since he was not expected to conclude with a demonstration. Some special cases, it is true, could be analyzed and explained but the demonstration of a thesis required a procedure which was very different from the artistic creation. The good writer would instinctively reject such a novel because the demonstration he would offer in one case might have undergone radical changes in another situation. T o have the vitality of a novel depend upon the problematic value of a thesis was the same as "introducing into its organism an element causing decay and death". Finally the worst danger consisted in the writer's necessity of forcing and sometimes altering truth itself in order to solve his thesis, which was an artificial procedure completely opposite to the artistic aims. Going back to Verga and his method, we will notice that in Capuana's point of view not even Zola had succeeded in reaching such an artistic perfection, that impersonality that is, "which represents the ideal of the modern work of art". The originality of Verga's works consisted both in subjects and in their impersonal methods. Capuana, however, expected an unfavorable reaction from the critics who might have seen, just in that method, not so much an improvement of Verga's artistical power, but an impoverishment of his originality and imagination.· • Cf., L. Capuana, Git ismi contemporanei 1898), p. 69 ff.

(Catania, Niccolo Giannotta,

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As for him, he had diligently applied the verista method in his short stories, and in his Confessione a Neera he defended the form of those compositions, the last form art had created. Even though this new style appeared to be temporary, yet it encouraged him to use his "weak strength" in order to develop, extend and refine it by removing what was superfluous.10 This renovation of narrative literature had to constitute, in Capuana's opinion, the starting point of a literary regeneration. The young Italian writers, besides following the example of the French writers, would have found in Verga's works a suggestion that was much closer to their experience. This would have enabled them to direct their attention toward different objectives such as the study of the individual and of his environment and it would have dissuaded them from abstractions and mannerisms. When II Piacere was published, for example, Capuana wrote a review of more than forty pages which concluded by recognizing that D'Annunzio, keeping his promise, had studied life but his reality had not succeeded in becoming completely an "artistic essence, free from every obligation, living by itself outside of the writer's personality". This happened because D'Annunzio's nature was too intrusive and it did not only completely influence the protagonist's character but it "poured over everything and everybody" thus transforming the novel into an "odd and powerful synthesis of the writer's complete artistic work".11 Discussing again in an essay D'Annunzio's production and La citta morta in particular, he pointed out that its concept and form showed the writer's intention of avoiding trivial or vulgar elements but that the developments of the feelings and of the circumstances were totally lacking. Even if D'Annunzio did not employ any artificial device in order to have the usual effects, he adopted other artificial devices to obtain some effects which were as defective as the former. It seemed to Capuana the characters were afraid of using the right words, the most simple Cf., L . Capuana, Homo Cf., L . Capuana, Libri p. 3 f f . 10 11

(Milano, Treves, 1888), p. xxx. e teatro (Catania, N i c c o l o Giannotta,

1892),

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55

and effective expressions. As for the action they thought and acted in a certain manner because the writer had decided they should think and act that way. Capuana's opinion in this regard is revealed also by a direct comparison between D'Annunzio's and Verga's styles. In Gli ismi contemporanei in a chapter entitled "Idealismo e cosmopolitismo" he declares that for D'Annunzio the words had a value of transformation and idealization, an almost self standing value. If Verga, instead, has to speak of an old peasant woman, he will simply call her "za Maruzza" and he will describe her, if necessary, so as to give us a living image of her. D'Annunzio, instead, will not resist the temptation of repeatedly calling her "ancient Cybele". For Verga, a group of girls who gather grapes or weed the wheat, will simply be a group of girls who are working, laughing and singing; if necessary, he will describe them, but in a simple and penetrating way so as to give us a living image of them. D'Annunzio will classically call [that group] a "procession".12 In supporting the theory of impersonality, Capuana was fully aware of the dangers which could be faced and of the excesses to be avoided. Perhaps it would be proper to consider the essence of Capuana's theory of impersonality as a form of immediacy, very similar, after all, to Verga's style. What constitutes Capuana's theory is a constant struggle to reach verisimilitude and coherence in art. This concept originates in him as a postulate of the form, representing the fundamental rule of verism. Reality can become sublime in art provided that its basic elements are respected. The most immediate reality for the Italian novel, according to Capuana, was the one the writers had under their eyes: the land, the traditions, the ideas and the customs that were offered in abundance and were only waiting for a capable writer to be put down in their full lines and colors. Moreover, this subject had to be worked out with a new method, it had to be transformed into literature without losing its characteristics; the writer had to give it life in art and, at the 12

Cf., L. Capuana, Gli ismi contemporanei,

p. 14.

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same time, put it on the right way and allow it to proceed until it became a complete work. As we have seen, Capuana never believed in a verista formula which should simply offer a photograph of life. He was constantly adverse to type-patterns because he held in high esteem the contribution of science which taught the writer and the philosopher that every human being "was a world in himself, as limitless as the universe". The writer, therefore, was the real creator of his characters, as Verga was the creator of his fishermen of I Malavoglia and De Roberto of his lordlings of I Vicere. The problems of their souls, whether noble or ordinary, had been imagined by the authors. The characters obviously could not think of it by themselves, but this was done by Verga and De Roberto who had completely created them through a long process of observation and imagination, and not through a simple photographic process.18 The critic also stressed the element of imagination which completed all the preliminary phase devoted to the gathering of the material which was painfully analyzed, gathered in an organic form and materialized in the figures of the characters. "Everything is condensed, concentrated and put in view in the . . . representation," affirms the critic because in reality it is not the same thing. Those two writers had a concept of reality which Capuana defined as being "idealized". In Verga's works nature revealed itself through a moved and compassionate interpretation of the destiny of men, while in De Roberto's it became an "attitude of controlled irony, of ruthless crudity". That compassion and that crudity seemed so much more verisimilar and clear because the characters, their actions and feelings were objectively described, without showing any relationship between them and their authors. Considering Verga's two main novels, we find interesting what Capuana wrote in Gli ismi contemporanei about the symbol they 13

Ibid., p. 47 ff.

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represented. "A sense of deep depression and sadness emanates from the pages of those two books," he affirmed, as they would spontaneously emanate from our souls if we were present, as true witnesses, during those actions. Certainly, characters and actions are symbols, shadows of ideas, yet there is life in them and most importantly they do not know they are symbols. What had been done by Verga and De Roberto corresponded to the ideals of verism as it was visualized by Capuana with regard to the style. They had tried to eliminate from their works what was useless and untrue and did their best to give the words the purity and clearness which made of them a single unity with the concept. From this situation to the achievement of a completely pure concept of the work of art there would have been only a short step. If Capuana was particularly concerned with the search for truth, he was also aware of the danger involved, above all, in an absolute observance of the theories. Thus he disapproved of some scenes in the French and German dramas which, in his opinion, disgusted the audiences, and then he concluded by writing: I am mentioning the aberrations also because the naturalistic form has revealed itself through these excesses rather than with other means. But one can see clearly that the facts betray the theory. 14 If the naturalist writer were free to bring reality into art without, however, hurting good taste, he was obliged, on the other hand to shun away from a moralizing literature. For Capuana morality and immorality can never be referred to the behavior of the novel characters, to the significance of their action because, if such were the case, the greatest masterpieces of the early and modern drama "should all be dismissed". Morality, however, can be introduced in the work of art "provided that it does not overcome life". W e notice, therefore, in Capuana's way of thinking a characteristic fluctuation between the adhesion to a positivistic taste common to many French writers of his time, 14

Cf., L. Capuana, Libri e teatro, p. 77.

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to a kind of civilization which did not want to detach itself from the concrete facts, and the observance of the traditional rules of the Italian school of thought particularly concerned with the artistic outcome of the writers' creative imagination. In brief, in Capuana there is a tendency toward a literary determinism, for which the evolution of the genres necessarily leads to the verista novel and to a strong sense of the artistic personalities and their negative reaction for pre-established schemes. His admiration for Verga then, is determined, more than anything else, by the synthetic quality of the style of I Malavoglia

and Vita dei campi,

which is so romantically

"original" and yet so close to the hie et nunc, to the character's life so deeply rooted in "a very small piece of land not larger than the palm of a hand". This awareness of the concrete facts strengthened, in Capuana's opinion, the writer's conscience. To follow the example proposed by Verga meant to win a lasting place in modern art and to belong to the present time. If a comparison could be made between the modern novelist and the scientist, it could be acceptable only in the field of research. Nature offered to both of them some facts whose existence would have been useless if they had been unable to detect its process. To the advantage of the scientist there was the possibility of combining the elements, of reproducing their natural processes in the laboratory by using his imagination to reach this goal. The novelist was not given such a regenerating possibility. After creating or discovering a process he could not verify or reproduce it at will; what he had at his disposal was only his imagination that he used perhaps more intensely and honestly because it was free from any rhetorical form. These principles help us to understand Capuana's attitude toward those persons who saw in him one of the leaders of Italian naturalism. In 1887, in the above mentioned "Confessione a Neera", he complained about having been attacked by the critics because of his "verism, naturalism, pessimism and other isms" of that sort that, as it had happened to many of those words, no longer attracted the attention of anyone since they had

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lost in the eyes of the critics and of the public that demoniac air which had been forced upon them when they first appeared.15 Many years later, in 1898 answering Ojetti's La difesa di Empedocle and discussing his statements, Capuana stressed his independence from Zola's theories. In that occasion he was pleased to quote some declarations of fidouard Rod in whose opinion nature, for Luigi Capuana, did not represent, as it did for many other writers, the great entity in which man is nothing but an atom, dominated and oppressed by his senses and his will. Far from doing this Capuana kept nature in the background and only man seemed worthy of his interest. Wasn't it a beautiful thing to notice such an indifference for the material world? And he concluded by saying that the Italian writer was much more likely to deny the reality of the external world than human personality.16 These statements and others, not too different in their spirit, which can be found in many of Capuana's writings support the idea that he was interested in every novelty both in the field of letters and in the arts and sciences. A study of his writings will also prove that although he was the theorist of a well defined Italian literary trend, for which he discussed and changed many theories coming from beyond the Alps, this position did not limit the future development of his taste toward new ideas and forms which he was always ready to consider or even adopt. This particular characteristic of his nature may be responsible for Capuana's difficulty in synthetizing his artistic belief which is based on the two elements of the form and the content. As far as the "documentation" and all elements pertaining to 15 "From a critic as keen as you a r e . . . I did not expect to be considered for the past and the present time one of the leaders of the Italian naturalists l a naturalist? But when and why? Perhaps because almost twenty years ago I dedicated one of my novels to Zola? In which way, please, must my Paesane, belong to the Sicilian travesty of Zola? It was conceived and written in a method that could be considered the opposite of Zola's. W h a t about my Appassionate, the fables of Cera una volta..., Raccontafiabe... and Profumo·, are they all a travesty of Zola? Are they, really?" Cf., L. Capuana, Gli ismi contemporanei, p. 50. 18 Cf., E. Rod, fctudes sur le XIXe siede (Paris, Perrin et Cie., 1898), p. 171 ff.

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naturalism are concerned, we notice how the writer, after presenting and discussing its entity, compromises with those principles and finally abandons them. This move must not be understood as an actual change of literary faith, but as an indication of Capuana's reluctance in adapting to and limiting his literary inspiration within the limits set by the theories he was supporting in his critical works. W e find in him a difference between the critic's and the writer's personality which often leads to completely different standpoints. Capuana himself was aware of a possible divergence between critical theories and works of art in the same person and he discussed this problem with regard to Zola by extensively considering the repercussions of such a divergence on this writer's fortune." It is for this reason that, in some of Capuana's writings, we find clear evidence of his intention to follow the rules of impersonality and scientific research but, as a certain number of critics maintain, these works are not among his best productions. On the other hand, the short stories centered on country life seem to be more spontaneous because in this case his inspiration did not have to submit to the development of a certain thesis or to the analysis of passionate and morbid cases or of exceptional states of mind. Although the critics' opinions seem to recognize that Capuana offers the best of his narrative art when he portrays characters and facts of his native land, we will have to consider the abundance of his production which is remarkable and involves a great variety of subjects. The reason for a certain qualitative difference could be attributed, in certain cases, to a not well marked separation between the pure imagination generating the work of art and the critical function which covered such an important role in Capuana's literary activity. This fact is even more remarkable in Capuana's case since he, besides working as a critic and theorist, purposed to give a new direction to the Italian literary taste through some publications which, from his point of view, had to clarify the nature of the trend he was supporting. One could notice this both in some short stories in which he attacks ideas considered out-dated and in examples of retouchings (as in 17

Cf., L. Capuana, Studii sulla letteratura contemporanea,

Series II, p. 188.

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the case of Giacinta) in which he rewrote a novel almost completely. "When the subject of a short story, of a novel or of a fable attracted me" he wrote in 1899, I never asked myself whether or not it was naturalist, verista, idealistic or symbolistic; I was only concerned in giving to it the most truthful and suitable form. 18 Capuana firmly believed in these principles and we must believe him when he declares, for instance, he never thought that a fable, a story for children could be at all different from a psychological or regional short story or a novel since the writer was not concerned with the content of his work but with the form which, according to his taste, is not necessarily connected with a particular literary genre or trend. Throughout Capuana's work one can notice a constant attempt to suit the narrative form to the evolution that takes place in literature during the writer's career. According to Capuana, then, all subjects seem at the same time interesting and equally valuable for the writer if he is able to draw from them a real work of art. The world is so vast and so characterized by so many external and internal aspects that all of them should be considered in the "superior [field] of art". Trying to limit it or to "impose on everybody the annoyance of having to consider it from the same standpoint "would be a negative approach". 19 Regarding the relationship between the plot and its style De Sanctis' theories offered the solution Capuana considered the only possible one. He stressed it, in fact, maintaining that "for every concept or a shadow of a concept there is only one form: the difficulty consists in attaining it". Consequently Capuana tries to find the style suitable for every plot, completely different from the others and he declares that the writer, in a certain sense, must have as many styles as the plots he is attempting to develop. This flexibility of views represents one of the most significant 18 Cf., L. Capuana, Cro7iache letterarie (Catania, Niccolo Giannotta, 1899), p. 248. 18

Ibid., p. 248 ff.

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elements of the trend represented by Capuana, Verga and the other verista writers. As was said before, to confine them only in a provincial world, constituting the only element they could thoroughly analyze and on which they could build a lasting tradition, would not correspond to the actual facts that occurred after their ideals became widespread and some repercussions were felt in our literature. When Capuana composed his Parodie he leveled his satire against a whole way of thinking, a narrow and limited way that was a belated imitation of the Sicilian literature of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Capuana's mind was directed mainly toward the present and the future; he felt, perhaps before everybody else in Italy, the necessity of moving our narrative literature from the stationary position it had assumed. Truly, he incited our writers to describe the regional environment, but he did not do this just because he was more familiar with that element but because, if we study his works, we will notice how equally effective he is in building up the characters of city life since the object of his searching is reality in the whole and not only a certain aspect or a few isolated instances of it. "I never had any preference for one subject or the other, for this style or the other", he declared; "I tried subjects of every kind and I tried to express them in the fittest way." His short stories and his novels consider "cases" of a scientific nature as well as characters, customs and ideas of every social class from a new angle which reflects the most significant aspects of the European literary trends. His characters, however, do not simply bear the peculiar traits of their social or environmental condition, but they have a different physiognomy: they already belong to that group of literary figures that, because of their universal features, are by now part of every culture. Verga's fishermen and peasants as well as the imaginary inhabitants of Mineo and the other characters created by Capuana speak, in reality, a language of a certain town and have decidedly local habits, yet they are involved in certain problems which do not only interest a particular Sicilian town but all mankind. The Malavoglia's struggle for survival, the sad life of Mastro Don

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Gesualdo, the characters of Paesane and Paese della Ζagara as well as the more important figures of Capuana's novels, carry in themselves the elements of a revolutionary movement of ideas and of faith which is equally felt in all countries of the continent. They speak to us in a language we can still understand and they propose problems which are still up-to-date. Italian verism, therefore, flourished on a large series of varieties and concepts because its ideals worked as a method, not as a final goal. Capuana's purpose was that of creating a work with real elements, whether they were taken entirely from everyday life or from pure imagination. Capuana's reaction toward all attempts of limiting his art within a determined school of thought, even verism, must not surprise us because he only aimed at changing a certain state of facts in Italian narrative literature in the deepest and most complete way. In pursuing this goal, through his work as a critic and writer, he was, on the whole, the strongest supporter of De Sanctis' ideal which, through Capuana's contribution, became a concrete aspect of Italian narrative literature.

ν C A P U A N A A N D LITERATURE IN DIALECT

An analysis of Capuana's critical works leads one to consider the element of the language and more precisely the use of dialect in literature. At the time of his first literary activity Capuana devoted himself to the research of documents for Vigo's Raccolta amplissima to which he contributed both documentary and folklore material as well as a dialectal composition in octaves he made up himself entitled Lu cumpari. If these lines, written during Capuana's collaboration with Vigo as we noticed before were only a youthful attempt to which Capuana did not give too much importance, nevertheless they had a considerable role in the literary development of verism.1 Capuana's association with Vigo increased the former's interest for the Sicilian songs and the collections of popular traditions to which Giuseppe Pitre was already dedicating his unceasing scholarly activity. Between Capuana and Pitre, in fact, there was an interesting exchange of 1

A not so mythical yet much more authentic father is recognized, instead, in one of Verga's letters, dated September 24, 1882, in which he said to Luigi Capuana: "I will never forget a certain short story in rhyme of yours, which was attributed to Vigo, if I am not mistaken, as a popular tale, in which it told that a husband, pretending to be drunk on carnival night, convinces his wife's lover to go to bed, the three of them together, and finally cuts the man's throat. That is a little masterpiece and I must admit that I owe you the first inspiration of the purely popular form I tried to put into my short stories." . . . Capuana sent Vigo his own octaves entitled Lu cumpari (later changed into Cumparaticu), as if they had been documents of popular poetry: Vigo included them in his Raccolta amplissima in 1870-74; Verga read them, admired and assimilated them and composed Nedda in 1874 The fact that Lu cumpari was the starting point is confirmed by Luigi's campaign in favor of Giovanni (Verga). Luigi, in other words, considered Giovanni as an offshoot of his own and celebrated, in Giovanni, himself. I refer to what is written in Gino Raya's, La lingua del Verga (Firenze, F. Le Monnier, 1962), p. 17 ff.

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letters that originated on account of the poems of Paolo Maura from Mineo, whose works Capuana had supported and recommended to Pitre. Thus, Pitre was induced to write a review on Maura's book which appeared in Rivista Europea (August 1871). From this exchange of opinion with his fellow-countryman, Capuana took incentive to discuss the first volumes of Biblioteca delle tradizioni popolari siciliane in which Pitre had profusely applied his erudition and examined the relationship between popular poetry of literary origin and spontaneous popular poetry as well as between old and contemporary popular songs. Particularly important is Capuana's opinion about the third volume of Vigo's Biblioteca, which encloses a wealth of ideas both subtle and complicated on the idiomatic spontaneity of the popular poetic language, on the historic ground from which it originates and on the technique which must be used by the folklore critic in order to find it. Capuana's review clarifies in a cautious and at times an oversimplified way, what Pitre visualizes in the light of his romantic enthusiasm. Which elements can be really attributed to the spontaneous, unlearned poet? Capuana seems to ask. Not certainly the important part, that appears to the reader in a coherent and rigorously controlled form, but the didactic part, the fundamental moral that no learned poet can transform or change into myths. In the composition the critic has to examine there will be, so to say, a double direction; one represented by the archaic nucleus of the work which reveals the never-ending humor of the people that does not express itself through enigmatic forms but by means of proverbs; the other indicates, instead, a work of revision and retouching, in short, of artistic refinement. Is the folklorist, therefore, like the archeologist of an ancestral ethic motive, which he gradually unveils by discovering the ancient tones of a message conceived for other purposes; or is he the literary critic of these learned deviations equally caused by the ages, even though these ages are more conscious and less anonymous? For Capuana the ideal solution would consist in a folklore scholar who would be both an archaeologist and a critic. But in considering Capuana's attempt

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to mediate between the two terms, we ought to determine the entity of his refined journalistic habit, aiming at smoothing difficulties and reducing everything to a conciliatory atmosphere as well as his actual capability of examining in its entirety the problem of popular literature as such. At any rate, on January 23, 1873, Pitre wrote to his friend (Capuana) thanking him for his review and added: I cannot tell you how much I liked your article and how grateful 1 am for it. It was written with love and intelligence; thinking about it, now, I would like to say: Why, when a book has to be discussed, they do not think as Capuana does? You, in fact, think of and discuss my poor observations, and if, for some reason, we cannot agree, the whole of your reasoning pleases me so, that I would like to use your very words myself.2 In 1879 Capuana published the poems he had already collected in the book dedicated to Maura, adding other compositions of some poets from Mineo. On that occasion, he remarked in his introduction, that Maura's poems had the qualities of a real work of art, which, in spite of the time, still maintained its freshness, thanks to its style which, to a certain amount, was enhanced by that which he liked to call its "Tuscan character" or the classic nature of the Sicilian dialect. At the end of the book Capuana included those poems he himself had composed and had sent to Vigo pretending they were original popular compositions to be collected in his Raccolta amplissima? A reviewer of the Rassegna settimanale, however, raised some doubts on the authenticity of some poems attributed to Maura and also of the anonymous lines that he acknowledged as a good imitation. Among those who read and praised the collection edited by Capuana there was Pitre who stated that "Those really beautiful poems" showed how Capuana "could wonderfully imitate and reproduce popular poetry". During this first phase we notice, therefore, Capuana's appreciation for the qualities of popular art, by studying its origins, 2

Cf., Corrado Di Blasi, Luigi Capuana (Mineo, Edizione "Biblioteca Capuana", 19J4), p. 152. 3 Regarding the possible typographical errors found by Giuseppe Costanzo in Maura's book of verse see C. Di Blasi, op. cit., p. 230.

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its evolution and its characteristics which he assimilates so thoroughly as to make them appear like a creation of his own, as he clearly proved in his well known imitations of popular poems. On the other hand, we should notice that which he wrote in a book which was published almost at the same time with Maura's collection of poems. We refer to 11 teatro italiano contemporaneo, published in 1872, and especially his opinion concerning drama in dialect. The critic said: . . . another symptom of the illness that is killing our dramatic art, is to be found, and logically, from my point of view, in this somewhat fictitious revival of dramas in dialect. Drama in dialect means chiefly an inferior [artistic] life for various reasons. It is inferior because of the implements that are employed, because of its content, which does not and cannot expana beyond the limits of a certain social class and because of its artistic aims which occupy the second, third or last place in the writer's mind.4 Capuana, who since his early youth had been longing for the creation of a true Italian national drama, could not accept as a genuine dramatic art a work reproducing the regional environment and language, not only for its intrinsic limitations, but also and mainly because the longed for realization of his plan was powerfully stimulated by that anti-isolationist ideal which had already prompted Capuana to reject Vigo's regionalistic ideas. Moreover, in Capuana's opinion, the Italian regional theater had already contributed to the development of the European drama through the Commedia delVArte, which constituted the foundation of comedy. Other countries and other playwrights, in turn, had given to this literary genre a structure of emotions and of thoughts the Italian drama of conventional characters could not have, because of its regional and dialectal nature. Thus we reach the moment in which Capuana embraces De Sanctis' ideals. The theory of the form fitting the content causes him to reject definitively dialect as a medium of artistic expression. Then, as we saw in one of the preceding chapters, he began 4

Cf., Luigi Capuana, II teatro italiano contemporaneo, (Palermo, L. Pedone Lauriel, 1872), p. 390.

Saggi

critici

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searching that language which the young writers of his generation had vainly tried to find in the linguistic tradition of the classic writers of our literature. What was needed consisted in a work of revision and adaptation of a new language to the contemporary demands of the literary men and of the public's taste. In 1874, with the publication of Nedda, the first of Verga's short stories to be written in the new verista style, it appeared evident to Capuana that the solution of the linguistic problem now could be found in Verga's pattern; in a language, that is, which recreated in art, by means of a syntax reflecting the dialectal structure, the psychology and the language of the people, the true protagonist in the writings of the new trend. 5 T h e fact that Capuana was the first to defend the value of his great friend's work is remarkable not only for its undeniable artistic value, but also because he was brought to consider it, in a certain way, a creation of his own. Yet Capuana did not have the opportunity of taking advantage of his brilliant intuition as Verga did in his main works, because he concentrated on the field of popular and storytelling traditions, by writing his Cera una volta and some short stories of regional atmosphere, in which his preoccupation with reproducing and studying the psychology of the people, its beliefs and superstitions, prevented him from establishing a "popular language" of his own. These writings, in fact, reveal the narrator's concern of achieving, through the assimilation of Tuscan forms, a linguistic purity rather than the evidence of a concrete representative maturity. On the occasion of the publication of the tales, Eugenio Checchi wrote to Capuana from Florence, saying: T h e language and the style almost always fit the subject; in some places [they are] absolutely perfect; in others they need, if I am not mistaken, a very light retouching. V e r y few [writers] even in Tuscany, can use tne living language so effectively and with so much good taste. 6 Cf., G. Raya, op. cit., p. 18. • Cf., C. Di Blasi, op. cit., p. 290. 5

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This eulogizing statement confirms what to us seems to be a limit in Capuana's art, which reached a linguistic purity that may not be found in Verga's works, but never achieved, however, the sublimity of his artistic level. When Verga read the short stories of Cera una volta, he believed Capuana had mainly transcribed them and had put into the language some of the Italian tales he had heard from popular storytellers. He remarked, however, how the language and the subjects were well blended and wrote to Capuana saying: It seems to me, now, that the efforts which have been made in collecting and analyzing the popular poems, should be concentrated on his early, virgin form of popular imagination, which bears the large and genuine mark left by the ethnographic characters of the people itself... it seems to me we could say that the theory on natural character is proved to be exact by these ancient documents of the Sicilian nature.7 Verga's exhortation was addressed to a writer who had already revived in various short stories that spirit and that local color. Capuana had never really relinquished his attachment for the Sicilian popular world, in which he had grown up and in which his literary personality had taken shape. But differently from Verga, he liked to pass from one form to another as we can notice in the attitude he took toward verism itself. Verga, after all, was the antithesis of the dialectal narrator. He did not rely upon episodic or conventional elements but he always gave a certain stability to his characters, even those he outlined with a few strokes.8 Capuana, instead, was particularly effective in giving life to local types and situations. This tendency of his toward the facetious detail, his preference for local life seen in its peculiarities, lead him to take some positions that, at first, might seem in contradiction with his own principles. While it seemed to us, in fact, that the writer had made a final theoretical choice between language and dialect, his old regional fondness for the Sicilian dialect rises to the surface, in order to defend Cf., Giovanni V e r g a , "Storia de I Malavoglia·. Carteggio con l'Editore e con Luigi Capuana", Nuova Antologia, A n n o 75 (1 aprile 1940), p. 140. 8 Cf., Massimo Bontempelli, "Giovanni V e r g a " , Nuova Antologia, Anno 7 5 (16 marzo 1940), p. 140. 7

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the dialect from the aggressive generalizing action of the standard language. From this originates the substantial difference between Verga and Capuana. In the former the choice of the language corresponds to an inner representative necessity and no doubts or hesitations ever occur. On the other hand when the subject Verga wants to represent seems to resist the stylistic synthesis he proposes, rather than rush to search incoherent solutions, he prefers to withdraw into a sorrowful silence. In Capuana one can notice a stronger restlessness in his principles, a secret attention to the ideas of his opponents and a tendency for literary experimentation which constitute all his modernism but also his weakness in art, his inferiority in penetrating the world of his characters, a world he shares with his great fellow-countryman. It is very important to see, at this point, a letter sent by Verga to Capuana, in which he says: Well done, Don Lisi! . . . precisely because you say vidi [I saw], and at a short distance from Mineo they say viri\ and the good poet Di Giovanni writing ccu la parrata girgintana [in the dialect of Agrigentum] is not understood by a n y b o d y . . p r e c i s e l y you, I, all of us writers do nothing but mentally translate our thoughts into Sicilian, if we want to write in dialect. Because our thoughts are born in Italian in our minds [which are] addicted to literature, according to what you say, and none of us, neither you, nor I . . . is able to translate into pure dialect the sentence which was born pure in another form... .9 One can infer that Verga recognized the great limitations inherent in a work of art written in dialect. As for the directness of expression of the literary language, we will notice that according to Verga's opinion, this appeared to be much closer to the thought than the dialect, since the writer who was "addicted to literature" instinctively thought in Italian and in order to write in dialect he had to make a translation. It is certain, however, that when Capuana thinks of a dialectal work, he mainly refers to drama. This was one of his great loves, almost as great as the one for narrative literature, and he fol• Cf., Giovanni Verga, "Storia de / 75 (1 aprile 1940), p. 251.

Malavoglia", Nuova Antologia, Anno

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lowed its attraction hoping to be successful. Unable to obtain the public's consent with his dramas in Italian, nevertheless, having previously deplored the revival of the taste for the drama in dialect, he wanted to try his luck and began to translate into Sicilian his play Malta. Performed in dialect, the play was a great success and the newspapers of the time reviewed it with much admiration. Federico De Roberto, in a letter dated December 23, 1891, praised his friend's work and said: You laid hands on a very interesting subject, full of character, of local color and theatricality; but you handled it masterfully, you obtained some extraordinarily fine effects. 10 On this regard Vetro says that Capuana wrote the first edition of II cavalier Pedagna in Italian, but that some managers did not accept it. Once he translated it into Sicilian dialect, it was staged with great success by Giovanni Grasso. Lu cavaleri Pidagna became well known also abroad and an Irish writer translated the play into English. From then on Capuana continued to write plays in Sicilian dialect as it is proved by the two volumes of the Teatro dialettale siciliano, both published in 1912. Capuana's versatile imagination, together with his natural ease in adapting to various trends, enabled him to follow the public's taste. W e will not be surprised, therefore, if in the preface of the Teatro dialettale siciliano he is no longer doubtful about the necessity of attaining the Italian national theater through the tradition of the dramas in dialect.

10

Cf., Pietro Vetro, Luigi Capuana (Catania, Studio Editoriale Moderno, 1922), p. 138.

VI T H E NATURALISTIC NOVELS: G1AC1NTA AND PROFÜMO

The novel entitled Giacinta represents the first remarkable narrative effort in which Capuana applies the naturalistic theories he had learned by reading the works of Balzac, Flaubert and Zola. After a long period of time which was spent in the preparation and the study of the documentary elements, Capuana proceeded to carry out a minute analysis of them and finally began to draw up the novel during the months he spent in Milan in 1877. Under the impulse of a complicated research of formal values which was confirmed and justified by his realistic principles, Capuana ended by visualizing a magic ennoblement of reality and at the same time a transformation of imaginary elements into something real, so that what was a pure fruit of his mind could be identified, at a certain point, with a real event that happened to him in a bourgeois society of the late nineteenth century characterized by the presence of senators and mysterious and elegant ladies. Capuana said: Thus Giacinta appeared for the first time to my imagination, an alluring vision, through the warm description of a senator. I thought I could see her as a living being when he drew iny attention to a beautiful and elegant lady who was passing in front of us. She was very similar, in his opinion, to the woman who had become so suddenly a part of myself, just as I felt I had become in a short time a prey of hers. From that moment on I did nothing but fancy ana dream of my future heroine.1 If the main lines of the novel could be considered an accomplished fact and its atmosphere could be seen between an accurately 1

Cf., Luigi Capuana, Giacinta (Catania, Niccolo Giannotta, 1889), p. ix.

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7 3

studied reality and pure imagination, the main problem consisted in finding the right form. Even though the writer was aware of his lack of experience, he was endowed with a certain amount of confidence and an equally great enthusiasm. What gave him support and made him follow without a moment's hesitation the new way of narrative art was the faith he had in the theories which he wanted to uphold in Italy, for the glory of his country's literary tradition. When one speaks of new ways in narrative art with regard to Capuana's works, we should think of the two elements which the writer considered fundamental for the success of a narrative work, its language and its form. Like some contemporary writers, Capuana had taken a position for innovation, since the Italian literary tradition of his time could not offer him a means of expression which suited the new narrative forms. It was necessary for the writer to create a language which would fit his needs. The form, on the other hand, was somewhat uncertain, and reflected both the direct judgment and thinking of Balzac and the determined objectivity of Flaubert which tended to give the characters complete freedom of action. But, in the meantime, through the various moments of self-confidence and discouragement and in the difficult search of a language of his own, the personalities of his characters had fully developed to the point of completely dominating the field of action the writer had devised for them. He revealed, in fact, that Giacinta and Andrea had to be the only characters to stand out in the plot; he also said that he intended to concentrate on them "all the light of analysis, all the liveliness of the color, all the expression of the plot", and consequently he confined all the other characters to the background, by merely sketching them, by drawing them with a few, quick strokes, only to represent a background for the two protagonists he wanted to portray. 2 Having gone back to Sicily, Capuana continued to work hard on his novel and kept in touch with his friend Verga in whose *

Ibid., p. xi.

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letters he often found words of advice and support.3 During the time in which the novel was being published, Verga's letters were particularly encouraging for Capuana. He knew very well that his novel would be received with much disapproval and that it would not be put under the right light. He feared, furthermore, that the public and the critics would not appreciate his unprecedented attempt of analyzing a character, "of studying a true passion, although a strange and a pathological one". It was Verga, at last, who, in view of the imminent publication of Giacinta, urged Capuana to go to Milan as soon as possible to "see the birth" and defend the first naturalistic Italian novel from the attacks of the "moralists". When the novel was published, the author's expectations materialized. It was considered scandalous and Capuana was blamed for taking advantage of licentious motives to arouse the public's curiosity. To some critics it seemed that the main theme of the novel, which portrayed an illicit love affair in a direct, objective language, free from pedantic forms, had a tendency to stress the low and immodest instincts of human nature rather than the understanding of a pathological case. But there were also some reviewers who were able to see in the novel the good qualities, the novelty and the serious intentions of Capuana. Among them, spontaneous and generous as always, was Verga who wrote to his friend on June 18, 1879 to express his congratulations for a success which he considered a common victory since he identified his cause with Capuana's in the hope of giving our literature a real work of art. In that letter he remarked, however, that his friend had been a little too "scrupulous" and added: . . . if you had sacrificed sometimes the truth of the analysis on behalf of the dramatic effect you would have perhaps won a larger consent from the great public. For those who are fond, 3

Concerning the exchange of opinions between Capuana and Verga who, at that time, was writing Padron 'Ntoni, see Pietro Vetro, Luigi Capuana (Catania, Studio Editoriale Modemo, 1922), p. 174 ff., and Capuana's letter dated February 1, 1879, as well as Verga's answer on the same date both included in Giovanni Verga, "Storia de I Malavoglia Nuova Antologia, Anno 75 (March 16, April 1, 1940), p. 117.

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in this sense, of truth in art, your work will be more valuable simply because of its high integrity and its rigorous psychological analysis.4 It also seemed to Verga that Capuana had not eliminated all the influence of Zola, and he found in Giacinta "some coarseness of details" which was "neither necessary nor proper". He stated, in conclusion, that he had much preferred the first half of the book in which the action was more dynamic and was presented with a better "staging". Although these observations were directed by a writer and a friend and not by a professional critic, deprived as they are of any acrimony because they are suggested, so to say, by the same narrative ideals, they are still valid for the understanding of the developing process that Capuana followed in the second and final drawing up of the novel. Verga's nature, which was highly passionate, sad and bitter, albeit prone to accept a simple and vigorous form capable of expressing the naturalistic thought in an artistic form, contrasted with Capuana's character which was much more inclined to scientific research. It is perhaps from this difference of personalities that Verga's observation concerning Capuana's excessive "truth of the analysis" originates, in place of which he would have preferred an ampler dramatic development. The plot of the novel, as it appeared in 1879, is simple but its characters, and in particular the feminine ones, are subjected to a stringent psychological analysis. Giacinta is the only child of a middle-class family. Her father, an unassuming administrative official, is perhaps the only person who seems to feel a shadow of affection for the little girl. Her mother, instead, a shrewd, calculating and selfish woman, completely ignores the existence of her daughter. When she is still a child, Giacinta is assaulted by a boy who works as a servant in her house and often plays with her. The girl, who is still too young to understand completely the seriousness of her misfortune, is sent to a boarding school for girls by her parents, who are afraid that the incident 4

Cf., Giovanni Verga, "Storia de

1 Malavoglia", Νnova Antologia, p.

122.

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would become known among friends and relatives on whom their success in society so greatly depends. Giacinta deeply resents her parents' indifference and especially the attitude of her mother, who is at the bottom of the psychological trauma which, in the ensuing years, will determine her slow and inexorable process of self destruction. Yet, in the young girl's mind, there lingers the indistinct and confused hope for the coming of her mother's love. But reality is brutally revealed to her when, at the end of her school life, she goes back to her home and has the opportunity of seeing how corrupt her mother is, while her father, a person of weak character, is unable to react even against the most degrading offenses. The situation becomes even worse when suddenly and by a mere chance she is told of the accident which had happened to her when a child, exactly in the house that at present seems so cold and hostile to her. This disturbing revelation agitates the already mature girl's mind and she falls ill. The period she spends under treatment seems to coincide with the beginning of a new phase of her life; it is like the premise of the future events. As soon as she recovers from her illness, however, she goes through a calm and balanced time. The young woman is no longer isolated and lonely because many boys of her age visit and admire her. Her mother, who had so strongly opposed Giacinta's entrance into social life, seems to be better disposed toward her daughter's wishes. But truth will not be delayed for long: those young men who are courting Giacinta enjoy also the personal favors of her mother who, in spite of her fading beauty, is still able to attract some men with her graces. In the group of idlers and family friends who constantly crowd her house, she notices some people whose faces seem to express something hideous and repugnant. She believes they know what happened to her in her childhood and try to humiliate her. A feeling of hatred accompanied by the desire of challenging that repulsive environment makes its way in her mind. It is a sentiment which makes her feel even more deeply her isolation and forces her to withdraw in a world of resentment. After a short time, however, Giacinta falls in love. Among

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the friends of the family, she notices a hesitant, reserved young man, whose glances seem to be more eloquent than his words. He is Andrea, a young man from Naples. In the great reception offered by Giacinta's mother on the occasion of the girl's recovery, he is invited to sing some of the airs of his native city. The beautiful music and the young man's warmth do not elude Giacinta's notice; she is won by them and she gives herself up to her feelings. Andrea would like to marry her but she is firmly set against the idea. What she considers a brand of infamy, the offence she received in her youth, becomes in time a nightmare that destroys her delight. She denies herself to the man she loves essentially because her still honest soul does not want to deceive and offend the only person who loves her by uniting with him in a marriage which would be marred by impurity from its very beginning. If Andrea, undecided and perplexed, had had a different moral fiber, if Giacinta had found the strength of confessing to him her involuntary misfortune, if, in other words, in the young woman's life there had been the possibility of receiving that human understanding she was unconsciously seeking and had always been lacking in her life, she might have saved herself. But Capuana does not want to be a writer who portrays characters who find redemption or their lost innocence. The situation he prefers is the one in which a woman with a strong mind is surrounded and almost annihilated by the malicious, mediocre society to which she belongs. Between Andrea who does not understand her and the anguish of her soul, Giacinta begins to misunderstand her position in life as well as the other people's and she finds herself on the course of a senseless desire of selfdestruction which will be observed by the careful analysis of the writer. In order to get revenge against the environment that is oppressing her, she marries count Grippa di San Celso, a mental defective who becomes her scapegoat. At the same time, however, she does not want to give up the only love of her life, and in a passionate impulse, which already bears the characteristics of an advanced state of unbalance, she concedes herself to Andrea, the evening of her marriage with the count, in the bridal suite.

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At this point, the study of the "special case" becomes more detailed while the protagonist's actions show an increasing degree of extravagance. Capuana wisely uses his knowledge of the woman's disturbed mind, he analyzes her pride, whims, her haughtiness and her downfall. Giacinta acts without restraint; she wants to keep her lover all for herself, at any cost. The latter, on the other hand, is carried away by Giacinta's impulses and considers himself satisfied for having the favors of a woman that everybody considers proud and unattainable. In time, his love turns into a habit and an obligation. He becomes Giacinta's paramour, at night he remains at the San Celsos and he realizes the impossibility of continuing such an affair also because of the consequences it might have on his career. Boredom and disgust finally develop, and Giacinta has first the intuition, then the certainty of the change that is taking place in her lover's behavior. She tries to save her love by alluring Andrea, by attracting his attention in every way, even the most humiliating. He is decided, however, to get free from the unbearable bonds and taking advantage of a large sum he won gambling he attempts to go away to redeem himself. Now Giacinta has no other choice but death. The unfavorable, moralizing judgment of the public and of the critics did not take Capuana by surprise: he expected a violent as well as a hypocritical reaction against the content of the book. But what worried him most was the critics' opinion about the narrative form he had adopted in his novel. The favorable reviews were very few: the one which appeared in the Rassegna Settimanale on August 3, 1879 and the other published in the Fanfulla della Domenica on September 14, 1879 made some reserves on the social and psychological aspects of the novel but pointed out at the same time its structural solidity and the serious intention of the novelist to express himself in a new way. Among Capuana's friends there were many who accepted it with admiration, as it can be seen in the writings of Navarro della Miraglia, Paolo Heyse and Verga. 5 5

Cf., Corrado Di Blasi, Luigi Capuana (Mineo, Edizione "Biblioteca Capuana", 1954), p. 223 it.

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When the first wave of favorable and negative criticism had passed, Capuana decidedly set to make those changes and corrections he deemed necessary. Because of a series of financial mishaps, the second edition was delayed, so that Capuana ended by finding himself, as he himself said, more mature and detached from his work so as to be able to handle it freely and give it the form he had envisioned at the very beginning. The revision of Giacinta was mainly linguistical; it aimed at eliminating any stylistic sign of the author's intervention and it replaced, as far as possible, the narration with the action. The second edition, published in 1885, revealed what Capuana conceived as a propriety of terms, a precision in the phrases and a simple and fluent narrative form. The plot of the novel, however, was not extensively modified, with the exception of its end in which Giacinta, contrary to the first edition, is left alive; since death seemed to Capuana a form of expiation and catharsis absolutely contrary to that moderate ending tone, that everyday tragedy deprived of shocking events which, in his opinion, the naturalistic theories demanded. The originality of the novel resides in the reactions of the protagonist which cannot be foreseen. It is obvious that the most specious and moralistic criticism was directed against the artistic coherence of Giacinta's character, but in one with that there were also those judgments which acutely determined the writer's artistic limits. Those critics who insisted on the protagonist's moral extravagance by reasoning from the point of view of the ethics of Christian origin which has a clear notion of good and evil probably did not see clearly the artistic intention of the writer. These must be visualized in the tendency toward the pathological cases and in the aesthetics of the horror whose highest exponent was Baudelaire in his Fleurs du mal and in the narrative art of the Goncourt brothers in Germinie Lacerteux which appeared about twenty years before the second edition of Giacinta. But in Goncourt's work, in spite of the aesthetic aim of their reform, there resides the polemic spirit directed against the bourgeois readers of their time, who were corrupted by their

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economic welfare and unable to conceive strong emotions. From this derives the choice of fictional characters taken from that social group which they had started to call the fourth state. In Capuana one can notice, instead, a preference for middle class environments, because they are closer to the end of the century Italian life; together with the acceptance of the naturalistic theories only for the reason that they lead to a work of research in the tormented psychology of the characters. By following this line, we detach ourselves more and more from the pure and popular art of Verga's I Malavoglia, in which the humble people's life is described in a sorrowful and desperate way, and we enter into the aesthetics of the exceptional character which was so dear to D'Annunzio, and that appears in its extreme manifestations in the rebellious protagonist of a novel by Alfredo Oriani entitled No. In the light of these considerations Giacinta's rebellious actions are aesthetically justified such as her strange decision to celebrate her symbolic wedding with Andrea in the house of count Grippa di San Celso, and her inexplicable stubbornness with which she carries to absurdity and ridicule through her absurd demands the inborn hesitation in Andrea's character. We might ask ourselves, rather, if Giacinta's devouring and possessive passion is really under the writer's control or if we are confronted by a stereotyped and an exploited projection of fragmentary intuitions and of a literary "cliche" that in France was already at its end. To understand how unfounded are some of the elements of Giacinta's world, it will be sufficient to think of what will become the dichotomy hatred-love and love-destruction in a more homogeneous social environment and in a very high dramatic coherence such as Verga's. Let's think of the short story entitled the She-wolf, in which the torrid insanity of the protagonist who goes toward her destiny as the heroine of an ancient tragedy, is counteracted with the vehemence of a desperate and irreducible hostility of her victim-lover Nanni, who, by killing her, becomes almost the executioner of fate. In reading the conclusion of the first edition of Giacinta we can understand the reason for the young woman's suicide: a character who

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founds all her actions on an irreducible pride cannot find in the external world the measure for her behavior; she can find only in herself, in a hostile split personality her own avenger. The change which was made in the conclusion of the novel, starting from its second edition, is an interesting indication of the prevalence, or better, of the persistence of the critical mentality of the writer. He realizes that he wrote, in spite of the scientific-positivistic character of the analysis, a novel with a romantic-like passionate exaltation in which Giacinta appears like an Emma Bovary of the Italian provincial life, and he tries to attenuate, in a far less heroic revision, its possible consequences. But the uncertainties of the draft, the undecided representative power of the writer are still present in the revisions, the symptoms of a work that is indisputably unsuccessful yet quite significant of Capuana's artistic personality. It can even be said that if the revisions brought improvements in the form of the work by making it simpler and more "impersonal", the technique of the narration, as far as the artistic individualization of the protagonist is concerned, became more and more incoherent and uneven. Such a discontinuance is, from our point of view, the consequence of a fundamental oscillation of Capuana who sees, on the one hand, all the world of the novel as it appears reflected in the protagonist's mind, and on the other, is attracted by the theory of representative objectivity, and therefore he tries to give an autonomous dimension, totally free from any centripetal dependence, to those characters that we would consider secondary. Very revealing from this viewpoint are the relationships between the mother and the daughter as they are seen, at first, in their consequences in Giacinta's childish mind, and then for the purpose of the definition of the objectively represented character of the mother-step-mother. Thus we are able to see the appearance of the mother, a mysterious and aloof lady, in the child's world which is occupied by the figure of an understanding and affectionate nurse; and then, in a radical change of the narrative situation, we witness the entrance of a still unrefined girl, Giacinta, into the life of a

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woman in constant search for emotions, her mother. This twofold point of view is not exposed by the writer in a clear way, but rather in a slightly obscure manner, with a narrative technique in which the dialectic relationships between subject and object are seen in a primitive and unsophisticated way. This is, for example, the way in which Capuana describes Mrs. Marulli, Giacinta's mother: In her heart, which had been slowly corrupted, raged all the lowest vices of luxury, greed and uncontrolled desire for money. In those tormented years of expectations and vexation, she had seen in herself the end of the divine womanly spirit and the arrival of the gloomy shadow of the worst animal instincts, without that insane sensuality which, somehow, could have explained, let alone, justify them.® The personal judgment of the writer and the rather moralizing hostility against his character are evident in this passage. What is the origin of this representative strictness? From our point of view it is due to the overlapping of the girl's viewpoint with that of the writer. It is as if the latter, having become a witness of the girl's sad childhood and feeling hatred against her mother's behavior, could no longer refrain from addressing to the unnatural mother the rebuke she deserves. For this reason, as if obeying an early lyrical tendency that concentrated the whole motive on a single character, the writer, in the first edition of the novel, had followed for a long way the events of the protagonist's childhood, since he identified in it the center of the effects of the novel. With respect to the character of the mother, more artistic independence is left to Beppe, the boy, even if, because of the tendency for the strong tones so common in the first edition of the novel, he is portrayed in overly vivid colors and in an involuntarily caricature-like manner. Heavy set, with a large head and the eyes full of malice and of animal desires "which showed also in the shape of his lips and in the thick neck", he had spent most of his life by working as a helper of a shopkeeper, as a waiter in an inn and as a groom. Mistreated by everyone and 6

Cf., L. Capuana, op. cit., p. 20.

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even by the people for whom he worked, he had been compelled to run away from several places to avoid the worst. He had never had clothes that fitted his size, and he wore in an indifferent manner the rags which badly covered his body. He was a "dissipated, corrupt and, above all, a foul-mouthed" boy because: Those cart drivers, those cabmen and those regular customers of the inns, among whom he had difficultly earned his living, had sharpened his malice, now by getting him drunk, then by teaching and making him sing some dirty songs or by initiating him into all the mysteries or corruption with an inhuman obstinacy. At twelve years of age, Beppe uttered incredibly offensive words to the lowly women who were the mistresses of his bosses; and these women contributed in making a young brute out of him: they had such a good time with that bastard boy, as they politely used to call him! 7 But during the first period of his stay at the Marullis, Beppe, although corrupted by his disorderly life, shows at times his cheerful and jesting nature by playing with the girl and by keeping her company. Having passed the phase of naive arrogance of his early childhood, Beppe is described in his rough exuberance, more like a victim of a hostile social circumstance, rather than like a brutal bully. He is nothing but an adolescent craving affection, who succeeds in winning the sympathy of the Marullis with his instinctive cunning and thus remains in their house, in order to enjoy even for a short time being carefree and peaceful like every adolescent. But Capuana's young characters never seem to enjoy such fortune because life often inflicts upon them deep suffering. His whims, his endless jokes and his good and bad actions make him dear to the little girl who becomes so fond of him to be horrified if he threatens to refuse her as a playmate. This strong need for attention will force Giacinta to tolerate, although reluctantly, a different sort of playing which is started by the boy. With the passing of the time, in fact, he no longer considers her a little girl, a kind of toy with whom he can 7

Ibid., p. 26.

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spend his spare time. He slowly realizes her changes, he feels a new restlessness in her presence. In this period of the two young people's lives Capuana outlines "Beppe's evil cunning" to whom his natural impulses suggest an infinite number of shrewd actions and caresses in order to arouse in Giacinta "the germs of the feminine fine sensuality". When he unsuccessfully tempts the child for the first time, he withdraws in solitude and then some feelings, which had lurked in the depth of his soul and had never been understood by him, suddenly wake up again: . . . he remained for a long time . . . to think, turning over in his mind a great many nasty ideas and perverted feelings, which had arisen in his heart like a pit of snakes accidentally disturbed. He felt as if something were biting his heart and poisoning his mind. He felt as if his blood had been contaminated by a moral hydrophobia which now was spreading in his organism all the corruption which had been inoculated in it by the miserable life he had led since his childhood.8 Beppe's character does not only inspire in us that sense of resentment which his role would deserve but, on the contrary, he makes us think of the destiny of many outcasts like himself, sacrificed by the negligence and the ignorance of a society which can offer them only evil. Because of that representative ambivalence which is usual in him, Capuana also tries to give us another "peculiar" type, a precociously evil person, marred by all vices. As his great naturalistic masters would have done, he takes him from the city haunts of the criminals and lowly people, he puts him among wicked persons and he shows him to us at the time when all the perversions the boy had lived in are about to become a clear fact for him, an understandable feeling which must inevitably manifest itself through acts of violence. Thus the character finishes by tempting and destroying the person who is in misery because of a destiny which is not so different from his own, since it seems natural for unfortunate people to have to hurt each other. A character that seems to be detached from the picture of vulgarity and corruption which is represented in the novel is 8

Ibid., p. 31.

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doctor Follini. His first appearance in the narration is accompanied by some facts which outline his dynamic and honest nature. The episode portrays the time immediately preceding the consultation of three doctors who are to study Mr. Marulli's case of gout. The family doctor, talking of doctor Follini, reveals that he was in America for five years in order to study the most advanced pharmacology. The news leaves the other two doctors in great doubts because they are unfavorably disposed toward the new medical methods. After examining Giacinta's father, doctor Follini suggests the use of curare, a strong but effective medicine for such a serious case. Follini bewilders the other doctors with his ideas that they define "a quack's", but he equally succeeds in creating around himself an atmosphere of curiosity and mystery. T w o years later, when Giacinta begins to discover in Andrea the signs of boredom and indifference toward her, doctor Follini is still one of the family friends and takes more and more interest in the case of the young woman. Although she is beautiful, rich, loved and envied by the other ladies and has everything a woman can wish, the doctor sees in smiles and in her behavior something of the intimate suffering of Giacinta. Then he talks to her, he asks her some questions which ought to lead her to a complete confession of her state of mind and of the reasons which cause the sadness he perceives in her face; he tries to find out, in short, whether his suppositions are groundless or whether they correspond to some causes whose symptoms he is studying like those of a pathological case. Finally Giacinta discloses her secret feelings to him, trusting that the doctor will be reserved toward her and will not turn toward her the irreverent curiosity which had already hurt her so much. Capuana, who feels a particular liking for his character, describes Doctor Follini not only through the reactions of the other characters but also directly. He says that he was: . . . a doctor-philosopher, for whom the nerves, the blood, the fibres and the cells could not explain everything about a man. He did not believe in an immortal soul; but he believed in the soul and also in the mind: he combined Claude Bernard, Wir-

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choff and Moleschott with Hegel and Spencer; but his idol was De Meis, of the University of Bologna. He had absorbed so well his master's doctrine, that he had taken even his style and mannerisms, especially his characteristic smile, half naive and half mischievous.· In the following editions, Capuana, in describing Doctor Follini, said that for him passions like Giacinta's could not be generated only "by the cells, the nerves and the blood. He wanted to discover its process, the essential elements". The case interested him in particular because he was preparing a treatise on the Physiology and pathology of passions and Giacinta offered him the possibility "of discovering the symptoms in their spontaneous activity". In this book it is possible to find some of the main theme of the naturalistic theories such as natural heredity, the law of determinism and the study of moral pathology which are among the main interests of Capuana not only in this novel but also, for example, in Profumo. Under some aspects, Doctor Follini is Capuana himself, with all his theoretical infatuation for the scientism of the time. There is in him the man and the poet but also, and above all, the scientist who examines the human case in order to make a useful experiment on behalf of his future research. However great was the liking inspired in him by Giacinta, he kept in her regard his scientific objectivity. He skillfully questioned her, he tried his best to surprise her and discover the symptoms in their true spontaneity. He was interested in the slow and mysterious evolution with which that good case proceeded toward a certainly terrible solution, according to that which could be inferred by its premises; but he stopped at t h a t . . . The scientist did not want to lose, by falling in love with Giacinta, the benefit of such an important analysis, so difficult to obtain once again. He controlled himself and restrained his feeling with great ability.10 Although Follini gives us an unintentional autobiographical caricature of the naturalistic writer, he must also be considered » Ibid., p. 133. 19 Ibid., p. 134.

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in his function toward the revealing of the passions in the novel. As in drama the writer avails himself of the confidant to reveal to the audience the most secret plot of the characters' feelings, so Doctor Follini becomes the reflection of Giacinta's passions, the pretext for a full confession of the heroine. W e may say that the impersonality upheld by the scientist is artistically justified by Giacinta's affective exuberance of which it is the necessary counterpart. But since Capuana as a writer upholds a slightly affected scientism which gives in under the assault of the characters' passions and lyrical exuberance, similarly his favorite character loses the impassive mask when he enters the sphere of Giacinta's violent passions. "It had happened to Follini as it happens to those people who play with fire", says Capuana, "he had burned himself a little." From another point of view Follini represents the sentimental idealization of a life which Giacinta could have had but never did. He represents what is good and sound in the world, and Giacinta becomes attached to him with a pure sentiment and with all her hope. The image which is left in the mind of the young woman by the doctor has the power of ennobling and exalting her. She abandons herself to this new feeling with all the sorrowful longing that is inspired by the unattainable ideals. If, because of this spiritual communion, Giacinta succeeds in feeling again like a "young, virgin woman, whose heart is lost in the sky and whose imagination eliminates reality"; if this woman, who had not experienced the sweetness of youth, is now able to feel the fine illusions of that age, this is the result of the doctor's human understanding. Luigi Capuana can masterfully give us, through various meditations and observations, a realistic view of a woman's mind, who, in order to keep the man she loves bound to herself, kills her dignity, humiliates herself to the last degree and at the same time she sinks in a "sky inhabited by diaphanous visions" whose essence is light and follows childlike, simple impressions aroused by Follini's attentions. This sentimentality finishes by fascinating also the doctor who will confess to Giacinta he has loved her "as a child" for that necessity of purity to which all honest minds aspire:

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. . . with my ideas, I could not love you in another way. When one thinks as I do, we, who live deeply immerged in the mud of the filthiest reality, we feel, perhaps more than the others, the necessity of raising our eyes up to a place where reality is purified, without losing ourselves in unrealistic ideals.11 In the words of this character we notice the ideas of Capuana himself for whom reality does not only consist of low and impure elements, but also of the sublimation of human thought, the necessity, that is, of rising above the large quantity of ugliness of certain naturalistic works. Considering the novel in its entirety, we will not fail to notice Capuana's ability in giving life to characters with fascinating personalities, but also in portraying realistically a certain social group with its good and bad qualities, traits that can please or repel but that are ultimately very human. It is with this in mind that we must consider several secondary figures of the novel, such as Count Giulio or cavalier Mochi, in order to see how the writer is able to reveal in a few sentences their brutal, shrewd nature, corrupted to the roots. In other cases Capuana creates a character like Marietta, in whom we perceive a feeling of sympathy for human suffering and an understanding which is, indeed, the outcome of a century old experience which became part of the people's heritage through their hardships and renunciations. How much pity and serenity do we not find in this humble woman when she tries to soothe Giacinta's despair caused by the news referred by her maid Camilla. — Poor young lady! — she went on saying, half asleep. If we, poor people, had to give ourselves up to despair for such a trifle! At least I was right! It would have meant the sacrifice of an innocent creature! That was indeed a real anguish! . . . But, after all, also she is right! 12 These are words in which a whole past drama is revealed in its immediacy, one of the many cruel experiences of an unfortunate person who succeeded in getting out of adversity by herself. 11 18

Ibid., p. 165. Ibid., p. 45.

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If Capuana applies in this novel with a scrupulous precision the rules he learned from the naturalists, he also proves how able he is in using his intuitive power in the analysis of the protagonist and of the minor figures, by inspiring in the reader, not only the curiosity for the exceptional case but also a profound understanding of the human problem which it presents. The apt and direct form of the narration, in the last editions of the novel, besides revealing a stricter control of the sentimental motives, brings to the surface the writer's meticulousness in penetrating some secret instincts and abnormal aspects of human mind. The experimental importance of Giacinta, extremely significant in itself, in the history of the verista school, is not confined within its own limits but it is, at the same time, the beginning and the foundation of a long series of narrative works culminating with the masterful Marchese di Roccaverdina. Proftimo, Capuana's second novel, was published first in Ν nova Antologia (July - December 1890) and then as a book in 1892. From a letter written by the author we learn that the environment he selected as the background of this new work is a little town in Sicily, Spaccaforno (Ispica), that in the novel is called Marzallo; a place Capuana knew very well because he visited it several times in his youth. 18 The story is about a young newly wed couple, Patrizio and Eugenia Moro-Lanza, whose happiness is threatened by the possessive love of Patrizio's mother, Geltrude, a sharp and firm person. She has conceived a true hatred for her daughter-in-law and Patrizio, partly because of his weakness and partly to protect his beloved wife from the excesses of his mother's uncontrollable enmity, tries his best to side with her and gives support to her in the family quarrels. The tension that is created among the three persons as well as their life in common, which unites them in an ancient and isolated monastery surrounded by a marvellous garden, become more and more unbearable. This situation, far from improving, becomes even worse on the occasion of the mother's illness that in a short time appears to be a 13

Cf., C. Di Blasi, op. cit., p. 368.

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fatal one. The last glance of the implacable old lady, who is paralyzed on her death bed, is directed to her son: but it is not a calm glance; it is, instead, so full of love and hatred that her son feels it go down into his soul. Upon his mother's death, Patrizio, his heart broken with grief, withdraws in a spiritual isolation which causes a serious nervous crisis in Eugenia. Since her childhood, she had been suffering from nervous troubles but now the illness is characterized by a strange phenomenon: during the most severe nervous attacks an acute smell of orange blossom emanates from her body. Patrizio, alarmed by this fact, refers himself to Doctor Mola for advice and thinking that his wife should avoid any strong emotion, he deprives her of his affection which is the only thing that could give her peace. T h e events, however, contribute in widening the spiritual gap between the two young people; Patrizio, overcome by his remorse, tries to appease his mother's memory by visiting her grave every day, begging her foregiveness by sacrificing his love for his wife; Eugenia, instead, considering herself neglected and deceived in the sweet expectations she had when she became a bride, is about to give in to the passionate insistence of a young man, Ruggero, the mayor's son. But Doctor Mola's convincing and opportune words come at the right time to reveal the truth to Patrizio who, getting free from his mother's oppressive memory, can give all his affection to Eugenia. The plot of this novel is much less expanded than the plot of Giacinta, and immorality as well as morbidity, with respect to the first novel, are reduced or at least contained within the scope of a well limited family event. Furthermore one may immediately notice that the author did not want to accentuate the pathological case to the point of absurdity, but, instead, he planned, through the scientific analysis of the characters, the final redemption of the character. Profumo, therefore, can be defined as a novel with a happy ending, without forgetting, however, that the happy ending does not exclude the exceptional moral situation in which the narration is developed. Capuana cannot conceive a novel with a content that is unacceptable for the analytical tendencies and the positivistic ideals which he firmly

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supports. His originality as a writer must be considered by keeping in mind this theoretical condition of his art, even if he, because of his eclectic nature, stresses his independence from every school or literary trend, in the attempt to disprove those who considered him the supporter of the naturalist and the verista writers. What the novel had to reveal was the writer's progressive spiritual raising from the matter, the detachment of the characters' behavior from the mire of brute reality, the presence "of good together with the evil, of the spiritual together with the material and of human conscience ennoblement together with instinct".14 Thus Capuana tries to get free from the bonds imposed by the plot in order to show to those who accused him of being immoral how it was possible to discuss pure feelings in a naturalistic work because, as he says: the true ideal is reality that materializes and transforms itself; which, after all, is not so despicable, as I and several others have naively believed.15 But setting aside the writer's declarations concerning his artistic freedom, we will notice that in this work, as well as in the preceding one, there is an evident search for the minute details of life which is accompanied by the inborn tendency toward the analysis of the exceptional case. W e will notice, moreover, that the scientific part of the novel is combined with the development of other motives having a regional nature and resembling very closely the ones contained in the most characteristic verista works of Capuana. One should remark, above all, the precise localization of the environment within which the narration is developed. A Sicilian little town, Marzallo, which is not imaginary, is presented in its characteristic aspects: its nature, its inhabitants and their mentality. Nature assumes an unusual importance in this novel. Since the beginning we are already conscious of a certain relationship between the characters and the environment in which they live. 14

15

C f L . Capuana, Profumo (Roma, Enrico Voghera Editore, 1908), p. vii.

Ibid., p. viii.

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The house of the protagonists, an ancient expropriated monastery, with its long, columned cloisters and its empty cells where darkness and silence prevail are the external image of the spiritual limitation in which Geltrude, Patrizio and Eugenia will struggle and suffer. Also the luxuriant gardens that surround the building, in spite of the magnificent flowers and the century old trees inspire a certain fear, filled as it is with the memories of the past and suspended, so to say, between the sky and the sea as a floating peninsula. But even before reaching this place, during the trip toward Marzallo, the country is foggy and rainy "to the point that even the marvellous country side looked ugly". The cold is unusually bitter and it overwhelms Geltrude, the old mother, in the long, endless trip during which the travelers utter only a few words, in a whisper, "as if all that sadness of the sky and of the land prevented them from talking". But the nature of the place, the Sicilian sun, the blue of the sky and of the sea will show all their splendor and will inspire a deeper anguish in Eugenia who, surrounded by so much beauty will feel even more her mother-in-law's harshness and enmity as well as her husband's lack of affection. On other occasions it is the country itself that soothes Eugenia's sad thoughts. The evening red light penetrates at a certain moment in the sitting-room and it is as if that light invited Eugenia to brighten and get free from her oppressive nightmare. Leaning out of the window, with a sense of relief, she sees high, on the hill, a large section of Marzallo that . . . stretched in the sun light; and all those humble houses with their windows open, their roofs covered with moss; the terraces lined with pots of carnations and basil, the clothes hanging out here and there, waving in the air like flags with tightened ropes, seemed to enjoy the light and were swarming with life. The slender bell towers of the Church of Annunziata and Mercede, one in the center, the other to the left, their windows standing out against the blue sky, seemed to be watching over the little houses around. The convent of Sant'Anna, on the top of the hill, its walls darkened by the time, the cupola of the church covered with blue and white enameled tiles shining in the light, and near it the pointed bell tower, surmounted by a ball ana a large iron

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cross, stood out like austere limits of the horizon, in the triumph of the light.16 These are the episodes, in Capuana's narrative art, in which one can notice, more than ever, Verga's influence from whom Capuana derives not only the purity of the language but, above all, the close relationship that is often established between the character's state of mind and the environment around him. But differently from Verga, for whom nature seems to have the role of a "subdued musical comment" that accompanies the drama of the characters, Capuana gives nature, especially in the last episode of the novel, a determining power, by virtue of which it becomes an integrating element in the confession and change of Patrizio who only in that thundering noise seems to find the strength to break the bonds of his heart while Eugenia, driven by terror, falls into his arms. Capuana is also particularly careful in creating a social environment that fits the whole picture of the novel. Thus he portrays convincing secondary figures, with their typically local color like those of the mayor of Marzallo and of his family. The major is described as a "big, tall and strong man, his graying sideburns covering the reddish face". Already on the occasion of his first meeting with the new tax collector, he discloses the chaotic condition of the administration of his township. The little town is indescribably dirty because of the fault of its inhabitants who do not want to observe the rules of hygiene. "They want the garbage in the streets, in front of the doorsteps. Let them have it!" concludes the mayor who cannot fine the transgressors for fear of a revolution. Then it is the turn for his complaints against the collector's offices: It seemed that, with the institution of the new collector's offices, everything would have been magically improved, but we are entangled worse than before; you know better than I. How can they, I ask, conceive such laws?17 and of the criticism against the government: 18 17

Ibid., p. 145. Ibid., p. J 3 .

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One hundred people, one hundred different ideas. It seems to me Parliament is like our town council, where people talk, talk and argue for the rivalry of the parties, and they do not conclude anything.18 However he happens to have his position "by chance, because they wanted it that way", and he is not free to make any decision, as one might think, because if he does not follow exactly the orders of the subprefect, inspections "would come to my great pleasure". The ailing political condition of Marzallo is thus gradually revealed, with its envy, its enmities and the trifles of a little provincial town which is in turn the victim of a larger political disorder. From the endless flood of words of the mayor the character of his wife takes shape ( . . . she is slightly ill, a little unsociable; I'd better tell you right n o w . . . ) , as well as that of his son Ruggero (A good-looking young man, almost taller than I am, strong, you should see! . . . But as for studying, he is my worst trouble . . . ) . The three daughters of the mayor Angelica, Benedetta and Giulia are perhaps the only characters that bring a little gaiety and liveliness into the novel. The most interesting is Giulia, with her enthusiasm and expectations for the life that will follow her marriage, with her sudden changes from gaiety to sadness when it comes to her mind that her dreams for love may be prevented from becoming a reality. But the outcome confirms her fears. Her father does not consent to her marriage with young Flavi so she elopes with him, thus arousing the wrath of her brother Ruggero, whose threats promise a catastrophe but suddenly cool off. The atmosphere of some successful short stories based on the regional themes revives in the odd figure of Padreterno, who remained to work in the monastery where he had formerly been a sexton. His lean and pale body, his long face covered with an eight days old white beard seem to reflect the decay of the old building that takes all his energy while his mind goes back to the days when there still were Father Tommaso da Lipari and Father Inghirami, "the famous preacher who had people shake 18

Ibid.

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with fear with his sermon on the torments of hell". When Eugenia walks all alone in the silent church, it is he, Padreterno, the only one to appear in front of her. HP watches and dusts the shelves holding the canonical dresses with an almost fanatic affection. The chalices, the patens and the ciborium ("the few things left in the church; the others disappeared at the time of the abolition [of the monasteries]; please don't try to find any malice in my words") represent for him, more than sacred objects, the memories of a better time for which he feels a strong yearning. Although his almost childist admiration for the heads, the hands and the feet of the little statues representing the personages of the holy sepulchre during Easter week inspires a certain repugnance, it becomes even comical when Padreterno trying to reassure Eugenia who is horrified by that "slaughter", says: Do not be afraid; they are made of wax Here is Pilate! A n d . . . he was tossing from one hand to the other a big head, with dark, dishevelled hair, surmounted by a crumpled crown of gilt paper.19 But on other occasions Padreterno ceases to be a caricature to become more human. This happens when the writer portrays him in his most hidden instincts, when he reveals his love for goldfinches and flowers or when he confesses to Patrizio the drama of his life. Fifty-two years before he had married a young, beautiful woman, but she was not sincere and she had betrayed him. Everything had finished, like that, without violence; they had separated but it was as if they had taken part of his flesh away from him because "those wounds never heal! Fifty-two years ago! It seems as if it had happened yesterday" says Padreterno and in his words there is also a warning for Patrizio to love his wife and keep evil-minded people away from her. And it is not by a mere chance that the words of the good sexton correspond to some words of Doctor Mola, to some obscure premonitions, doubts and suspicions that had already come to Patrizio's mind. The lanky old man, although he is ignorant, has "

Ibid., p. 85.

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the wisdom that comes from experience, an element that Capuana takes into great account when he creates some of his characters. The verista style clearly appears in the description of the ceremony of Passion. Once again Capuana's skill is at its best in analyzing the people's soul which is under the direct influence of nature. The description begins in a cheerful sense of expectation: the protagonists of the novel, Patrizio, Eugenia and her mother-in-law seem to attract the attention of the people of the town while they are looking down from the balcony of the town hall to the street below, bustling with a big crowd. From a distance, the muffled roll of the drums can be heard, at intervals, like the passing of a funeral procession. At a certain point the first musicians appear. Nino the butcher, Beppe the Blind, a porter and master Mario "Patruzzu", dressed up in their beautiful robes of grey silk, their small hats made of the same material hanging behind their shoulders, their leather belts decorated with copper plates across their chests and their drums on the left hip... ,20 Then it is the turn of the brotherhoods which attract Eugenia's attention with their colorful costumes. As the slow and endless procession passes along, an awe inspiring silence gets hold of the people. The guilds of the farmers and of the laborers of every trade, dressed in dark clothes, "with a solemn look, crowned with thorns and holding torches with paper lamps" precede the various flags and then comes the canopy below which the priest carries the relic of the cross. But one can see that all the expectation of those people is not caused by this ordinary part of the procession but by the passing of the golden cart carrying the statue of the dead Christ and even more by the group of the flagellants. Capuana must have been inspired, above all, by D'Annunzio's Terra Vergine when he combined in this description the violent faith, almost brutal, of the flagellants and the emotion of the people. The Holy Sepulchre, extremely heavy in its gilt wooden scaffolding, slowly proceeds among two walls of people who are pressing around the bearers. The flagellants immediately follow them: Ibid., p. 119.

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two by two, naked, their sides wrapped around by a wide linen band. T h e y whip their backs with lacerating scourges, shouting: — Mercy upon us, Lord, mercy upon us! 21 The scourges, flying in the air, fall unceasingly on the sunburnt shoulders and on the arms of the flagellants where the blood is dripping, while other wounds that had dried during the procession, open again to punish even more those tortured bodies. While this scene is going on, Capuana pauses in order to make some comments on the ways of the fanatic group: With their hair all dishevelled, their faces stained with blood because of the lacerations caused on their heads and foreheads by the crowns of sharp thorns penetrating in the skin, shaking all over and almost bending on themselves, they no longer had the appearance of human, civilized beings but they seemed savages who had come from an unknown land, deranged by their sacred furor for their execrable rites... PBut that horrible sight inspires a religious zeal in the crowd that, together with the flagellants, raises a cry invoking the divine mercy while bumping into each other, pushing and swearing, it tries to follow the musicians of the band which can be hardly heard in the din caused by the cries and by the blows of the iron scourges. From a description like this, as well as from other ones which can be found in the short stories of regional color, the spirit of the Sicilian people becomes a reality and Capuana evokes it without laying undue stress upon any of the elements, with the delicate touch of an accomplished artist, for whom the reality of those feelings and of those traditions, that are at times permeated by a primitive instinct of life, always keeps its character of true poetry. W e remain very far from the unheard of and from the sensational when Capuana writes about his island; the daily drama of the people that is so dear to him is described without any exaggeration and the picturesque agitation of the provincial crowd dominates the scene and mitigates in many ways the brutality of the world in which it is destined to live. " 22

Ibid., p. 123. Ibid., p. 124.

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The main plot of the novel originates, as we have seen, from a "special" case, the emanations of a strong scent of orange blossoms from Eugenia's body during her nervous crises. But this phenomenon, to which Capuana does not seem to attach great importance, is the consequence of other abnormal elements such as the excessive jealousy of Patrizio's mother and his unusual spiritual weakness. Geltrude's character, besides impressing us with its hatred for Eugenia and for the almost deadly grief it inflicts upon Patrizio, creates an atmosphere of superstitious fear after death. Geltrude, in short, more than exerting her mysterious influence while she is alive and near the young couple, effectively influences their minds after her death as if her will could find a way to materialize and interfere in the actions of the living people, This force is acknowledged, although in an uncertain way, by Eugenia but much more deeply by Patrizio who ends by planning his daily life on a series of ideal relationships with his deceased mother. The mother's room, left intact, irresistibly attracts him; his day begins by going into a place which inspires nothing but remorse and depression. The other activities of the young man can only mitigate the anxiety for the coming of the evening hours when he can go back to his mother's grave where he is attracted by a necessity that overcomes his will power. The presence of Geltrude's memories becomes a nightmare for Eugenia who thinking of her: felt as if she had been near her everywhere. At every creaking of the furniture, at every noise she could not explain immediately, she started, she remained waiting, holding her breath, listening, staring toward the place from which the noise had come;.. .2S Patrizio's weakness, however, must be explained by taking into account his early life which he spent with his mother, a woman deceived in her love and left alone and disheartened with her child, the only purpose of her life. In this novel, Capuana develops, more than anything else, the drama of the people deprived of affection. All or almost all the characters suffer 23

Ibid., p. 142.

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because they do not have that love they long for. Such is the case of Geltrude, of Patrizio, who is afraid of losing his mother's love, of Eugenia, of Giulia and also of Padreterno whose secret is revealed only at the end of the novel and operates like a clarifying warning on Patrizio's behalf. Also in this novel we find a "functional" character such as Doctor Mola; but he who goes back to Doctor Follini's character will immediately notice some differences. Since one of his first visits to Patrizio's house, Doctor Mola reveals himself b y saying: . . . although I am a doctor, I believe so little in m y profession, that I should almost give it up. But I do not have any remorses. I do m y best. There used to be only one great doctor: G o d . Science has abolished him. But I who still believe in H i m . . . pray to Him in the difficult cases, I recommended the patient to Him, that is. And if the latter recovers, I thank the Great Doctor on his belief. 24 T h e difference between Doctor Mola and Doctor Follini reflects the different environment in which they are placed and, at the same time, they point out how the attention of the writer has moved from a strictly scientific subject, as Giacinta's psychological analysis, to a subject in which the study of the "case" is combined with the observation of the regional world. Doctor Mola, in fact, says things which could never be accepted or conceived by Follini: Peasants . . . take their wax or silver ex-votos to the H o l y Christ of Colonna, or to Our L a d y of the Graces. Poor people, a chicken, a bunch of asparagus are even too much for me. T h e rich people, however, must pay me for m y visits and f o r the trouble of writing the prescriptions. 25 Even though, in this novel, Capuana does not create powerful characters, like Giacinta, w e cannot say that it lacks the usual effort of portraying in their origin and development interesting aspects of human nature. Giacinta perhaps represents the effort of the writer to try his ability in analyzing exasperated feelings, seen in themselves and discussed almost like scientific problems. 24 25

Ibid., p. 45. Ibid.

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In Profwno, instead, we notice a broadening trend in Capuana's narration, a more mature style and, at the same time, a greater spontaneity in a more effective union of the fictional story with the positivistic trend of observing and experimenting life.

VII IL MARCHESE

DI ROCCA

VERDINA

The character of the protagonist, the Marquis, powerfully stands out, fascinating in its nature, and it brings us not so much into a regional environment as into a mythical medieval world. The image of the dichotomy lord-subject appears in all its entirety when, together with the marquis appears Agrippina Solmo, the woman who completes and concludes the life of her master-lover, the faithful and humble woman of the people for whom Roccaverdina, conscious as he is of his rank and of his family tradition, forgets all social differences and almost a prey of an eternal charm, he kills and loses his mind. For various reasons II Marchese di Roccaverdina reminds us of Mastro Don Gesualdo by Verga: for the scope of the narration, for example, in which we find, besides the protagonists, the people itself, with its traditions and superstitions, as well as for the impressive figure of the devout servant, whose character, however, in Capuana's novel, is much more complicated and far less marginal, because she does not only belong to a phase of the protagonist's life, but she completely fills it, thus becoming its obsession. Diodata is a part of Don Gesualdo's life because he is a simple man and the woman belongs to his same social class; while Agrippina, although provided with external qualities of humbleness and devotion, has a more aggressive human power, a constant presence in the novel. For this reason the Marquis, by loving her, damages his social position and trying to possess her completely, in an insane desire for self-destruction he prepares his destruction. In Mastro Don Gesualdo, instead, the end of the protagonist begins exactly when he abandons his faithful com-

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panion. The character of Diodata, as Momigliano carefully pointed out, is mainly the result of sorrow, and it originates from a lyrical indulging of the writer in a saddened, sympathizing vision of life. The character of Agrippina, instead, dramatically lives in the exasperating consciousness of a social difference between the protagonists which reminds us, perhaps too vividly, Capuana's love affair with a countrywoman from Mineo. Without denying the autonomy of the character of Agrippina, it is a fact that the countrywoman lives, as a fictional character, as a complement of her master and she exasperates his conflicts and idiosyncrasies. 11 Marchese di Roccaverdina thus can be defined as a drama of passion and of offended pride; the love for the woman remains an unrestrained love of oneself, remorse is the affirmation of an inimitable, lonely and heroic personality in its destruction and evil. More than thinking of Verga, we should once again go back with our mind to certain aspects of D'Annunzio's writings, still precariously connected, toward the end of the century, to visions of innocence and goodness, but already prepared to support the affirmation of the superman in the voluptuous pages of Piacere. But what saves II Marchese from the aesthetic individualism of D'Annunzio's style is the gloomy, savage color of the setting where the drama takes place and the deranged, devastating passion that literally destroys the protagonist. The natural environment and the protagonist constitute an a priori synthesis: the parched land, the sky crossed by threatening lightning bolts and the lonely, upset mind really become a poetic symbol of that Sicilian land the writer had never forgotten and had never been able to express in its authentic voice. In front of the richness of such an artistic individualization of the protagonist's drama, also the structural difficulties which are common to all of Capuana's novels seem to be, at least partially, overcome. There are, it is true, some episodes of a pure folkloristic nature, which are a majestic memory of Verga's art, as, for example, the meeting of the Marquis and the notable persons of the town which is lengthily described in a weary way at the beginning of the book,

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but, most of the time Capuana succeeds in inspiring a dynamic life into some figures which are too close to the typical character and occasionally rigid and mechanically humorous. Spiritism, for example, which is constantly present in Capuana's novels and in other writings of the time until Pirandello, in his Fu Mattia Pascal, offers to us its exasperated caricature, is introduced through the character of Acquilante Guzzardi, a lawyer; but Capuana's device works very effectively in this case because the lawyer speaks, as it were, for the dead people and delivers their message to the frightened and confused world of the protagonist who is overwhelmed by remorse. T h e narration begins precisely with the arrival of the lawyer — the bearer of the living people's voice and of the dead's message — at the lonely home of the Marquis who lives in a tense atmosphere upset by remorse. T h e lawyer, who visits frequently with the Marquis, besides defending his cases in the law court, informs him day by day on his spiritualist experiences regarding the case of Rocco Criscione, the Marquis' steward, who has been treacherously killed with a bullet shot from a hedge. Thus the reader, from the beginning of the novel, is introduced into an atmosphere of violence and of terror; he is invited, so to speak, to take part in the circumstantial proceedings whose moves are skillfully planned by the writer. Who killed Rocco Criscione? A jealous husband — a Neli Casaccio — as the police suspect and the judges believe, or an old farmer whose land was going to be confiscated by Rocco, in the name of the Marquis? Or wasn't it the sullen and voluptuous Agrippina Solmo, the wife of the murdered man, who had been for ten years the unrivaled mistress of Roccaverdina? Capuana does not reveal immediately the name of the culprit, but he makes us see the various reactions of the Marquis when the numerous evidences are exposed to him both by Aquilante and by an aunt of the family who firmly suspects the murdered man's widow. T h e lawyer and the Marquis' aunt follow different ways to come to the solution of the crime: the former, convinced of Neli Casaccio's guilt, in the capacity of the plaintiff's attorney during the trial, because of his conviction in the spiritualist practices tries

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to find the truth of his suspicion by evoking the dead man's spirit. The latter, instead, thinks of the crafty charm of Agrippina and foresees the day of infamy of her noble family should the Marquis ever decide to marry his peasant mistress. The words of the people, completely unrelated to the real drama which is upsetting the Marquis' mind, exasperate him in a continuous, allusive torture. The more unintentional the allusions seem, the more disturbed becomes the protagonist's state of mind. Thus, an innocent word uttered by the lawyer who is talking about Rocco Criscione's last days of life, when, contrary to his habit, he seemed to spurn the favors of the women he had always admired, has a tragic repercussion in the Marquis' mind: — He had calmed down! — muttered the Marquis. He winked, leaving his chair. He was breathing with an effort, as if the room did not have enough air. Having opened first the shutters and then the glass window, he leaned from the b a l c o n y . . . . Behind the thin, wind blown clouds, the moon seemed to speed in the sky. 1 The expression " H e had calmed down" which had been uttered first by the lawyer, with the good intention of exculpating the murdered man from the bad fame of being always after married women, causes an unexpected reaction in the Marquis' mind, that of jealousy. If Rocco "had calmed down", had he not broken the promise he had made to his master of leaving Agrippina alone? Rocco, although he was her husband in the eyes of the people, in effect he had to be only her guardian on his master's behalf. The author, who knows every facet of his characters' minds, assembles for the reader the secret evidences of the protagonist's guilt, thus preparing that decisive scene, which takes place in the ninth chapter of the novel, in which the Marquis of Roccaverdina confesses aloud his guilt to a priest. From this point on the story is evident: the novel does not proceed by means of riddles, the protagonist will have to act openly in life, while lineliness and insanity slowly get hold of him and destroy him. Having reached this point, it is easy for Cf., Luigi Capuana, II Marchese Editore, I960), p. 13.

1

di Roccaverdina

(Milano, Garzanti

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the reader to proceed in a retrospective way and reconstruct the meaning of the landscape which is described at the beginning of the first chapter. It is a landscape which is represented at times with light and shade effects, in the sudden flash of the lightnings, at other times in the peaceful light of the moon, shining through the clouds or obscure and awesome in the menacing silence. It is a world made of the small houses of the peasants, sunk in the darkness which seems to spread from the mansion of the rich Marquis, towering above everything: a world of serfs overwhelmed by the stubbornness of their insane lord. Yet the first part of the novel, although so rich in dramatic elements, is under the remarkable stylistic control of the author, and is expressed in a moderate language which excludes every excess, and every showy denouncing gesture. Things change, in a certain way, when Capuana comes to the description of the great scene, which is the central one, of the Marquis' confession. Here he uses an art rich in romantic tones, full of horror and suspense. The scene is prepared with a skillful choice of dramatic details, planned so as to introduce all of a sudden the protagonist, desperately seeking a moral balance resulting from the elimination of the loneliness which surrounds him. Capuana places the character in an atmosphere of dark and imponderable hallucinations, he forces him to trace back his sinful life by recalling into his memory his guilty love, his jealousy and his murderous action. When the Marquis tries to rid himself of these oppressing bonds by rebellion he is inexorably driven back and made to face the crude reality of his guilt. This condition continues until the murderer can no longer react by himself. The last hope for salvation is faith and grace which derives from it. But in order to obtain it, it is necessary to return to that religion he had been neglecting for such a long time, he has to go back to the ideas and the prayers he had learned in his childhood. The way toward this return to faith is not easy to find and even less easy to follow to its end, because in the Marquis' mind superstition prevails. In the scene of the confession which takes place at night,

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Capuana brings us back to the same atmosphere of the beginning of the book. The fury of nature seems to be unleashed against men, closed in their houses, afraid like Don Silvio, the priest who has a reputation for sanctity. At nightfall it is as if the east and the north winds had chosen Rabbato to fight each other. Their howling surpasses any other voice. They blow, they howl and shriek creeping along the walls of the houses, shaking the shutters, overturning the tiles on the roofs, scuffling at the corners of the streets, along the lanes, in the squares, with angry whistlings, near and far.2 Don Silvio is alone in his room when, confused by the slamming of the shutters, some knocks are heard, coming from the door. In that frightening night only a man in despair can be wandering in the deserted streets of the town. It is the Marquis, in fact. He enters the little house, followed by a gust of wind which leaves the whole house in the dark. After a while his strong body emerges from the darkness in contrast with the thin, ascetic figure of the priest. The Marquis, tall, powerful with the hood of his dark coat hiding half of his face, looks like a giant in the little, whitewashed room. He remains standing and the shadow of his body, projected by the lantern, is outlined in magnified proportions against the white wall, covering it all with the broadness of the shoulders and the chest, reaching the ceiling with the head around which the hair ruffled by a quick motion of a restless hand look like enormous tentacles.® His presence does not contrast simply with that of the priest, but with the entire place, which inspires a sense of chastity and humility from its furniture, its crucifix and the books of prayers. The contrast between the Marquis' anguished personality and the pure and controlled priest already gives evidence to the noble man's arrogance and determination. One has the impression that this man does not want to go to the priest to make his confession and humiliate himself with him in penitence, but that he tries somehow to obtain something he believes is due to him because of his title and of the origin of his family. The normal 2 3

Ibid., Ibid.,

p. 77. p. 80.

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relationship between the priest and the believer does not exist in this case because while the former is fully aware of his duty as a minister of faith, the latter not only lacks respect for the person of the priest and the authority he represents, but he refuses to consider his moral condition which should inspire him with the fear of God and earnest contrition. The Marquis, in fact, reveals the reason for his visit by saying brusquely "I want to confess!", a phrase which sounds like an order and that is followed by an equally firm "I am also in a hurry". But the initial pride of the Marquis seems to be overpowered, for a while, by the solemn expression of the priest who is saying the Confiteor. The nobleman kneeling in front of the confessor is shocked by that stern dignity intensified by the penitence and the fasting. It is as if the Marquis were overwhelmed by the sound of his own voice and by the silence which every now and then prevails in the room: He is unable to utter a word when the howling of the wind subsides; and when the noise becomes almost a human cry, when it seems that the storm is going to sweep away all the houses of the lane, he finally succeeds in confessing his guilt which he immediately justifies, however, with a specious reason. The sad words of Don Silvio, who tries to explain to him the enormity of his crime, will be useless; they will not bring the light of truth to the Marquis' mind. How had he decided to confess? Withdrawn into his obstinacy and driven by the fear of divine justice at first he had been persecuted by the appearance of the crucified image of Christ which used to be in his father's house. The livid lips of the sacred image seemed to pronounce one by one the words of his condemnation. It had been completely of no avail to repeat to himself that those impressions were deceitful creations of his sick mind. The religious sentiment, which had been inactive in his soul in so many years spent in sin, suddenly was awaking and disturbing him; it made him lose his customary courage and his natural pride. Driven by an irresistible force, he had secretly left his house, hoping nobody would see him go to the priest's house at such an unusual time. But now that he was facing the confessor he was upset not

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only by remorse but also and mainly by the fear of losing his moral strength. He was convinced that by confessing his crime he would have found a spiritual relief, a remedy for the deep anguish which was tormenting him. It would have been as if the heavy burden of his fault had been unloaded on the good priest. It is with the nobleman's haughtiness that the Marquis relates his affair with Agrippina and the unrighteous agreement he had forced upon her and Rocco Criscione, in order to protect, above all, the honor of the Roccaverdinas. Consequently one evening he had called Rocco and had told him: "You must marry Agrippina Solmo " "At your service," had been the only reply of Rocco. N o t different had been Agrippina's reaction. And how could it have been different? For almost ten years she had behaved humbly and obediently, like a slave, without any ambitions. The strength of that woman, her influence on the Marquis' heart consisted of this submissive attitude which originated from a great love and veneration. But if the Marquis, on the one hand, accepted to submit to the family tradition, on the other he was unable to suppress his love which bound him to that woman. Since she should have remained for him, at any cost, he had contrived a plan of pretending to give her as wife to Rocco Criscione. The source of such an absurd idea resides in the Marquis' inhuman stubbornness, a stubbornness which does not even allow him to admit to himself the mere truth, the fact, that is, that he had fallen in love with a countrywoman, a person of "lowly blood", with whom a nobleman cannot be bound in marriage. During the scene of the confession we do not find in the Marquis' soul the least feeling of repentance. In Roccaverdina's order of values, first of all, comes the honor of the family and the rights he has in his society. When it is necessary to defend these rights, which for him are sacred, he cannot hesitate; he must not feel any scruple because the action which is taken to protect those privileges is a real duty which has to be accomplished even to the prejudice of his affection. It seems to us that the real problem of the protagonist resides in the fact that he realizes he had transgressed an atavic law by becoming

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sentimentally bound to a woman of a lower social condition, of whom he is unable to rid himself. Roccaverdina is forever bound to Agrippina's fate, the only person who can exert a mysterious and unlimited influence on him and who, at the end, will cause his destruction. The homicide that the Marquis commits is caused by deceitful feelings such as the fear of having been offended and his jealousy. It will be remembered that he confesses to Don Silvio, the good priest who receives him on that eventful evening, the reason of his actions and connects it with the suspicion he had of an imminent change of attitude on the part of Agrippina. It should be noticed, furthermore, that the Marquis' suspicions coincide with the real weakness of Agrippina who was going to submit to Rocco's entreaties. Contrite and full of remorse for having even thought of breaking her word to her masters' detriment, she cannot hide anything from his eyes which penetrate her like a cold blade, which observe her in the innermost part of her conscience where she herself has not the courage of looking. It seems to her that Roccaverdina's eyes discover in her the act of infidelity she was going to commit almost certainly if the gunshot had not killed her husband she was waiting at the window, in the dark, like a lover.4 The Marquis' upset mind sees in these sinister events the foreboding of an inevitable catastrophe which is somehow connected with Agrippina's devilish craft. In his excited mind such a suspicion is confirmed when, after having killed Rocco, he thinks he has destroyed also the attraction for the woman for whom he feels only an apparent and strong hatred although she is free, now, and ready to go back to him. By this time, however, it is not so much the desire to have Agrippina back which destroys his peace, but his conscience which is constantly reproving him. Having failed in the attempt of reaching a compromise with Don Silvio from whom he does not receive absolution; unable to conceive that repentance which perhaps would give him strength to fight against remorse, he becomes the prey of other fears. Will the priest not reveal his confession to some4

Ibid., p. 41.

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one? How could he withstand the shame of having his name mixed with those of the lowest criminals? And he is going to put an end to his own life when Agrippina, unconsciously, prevents him from carrying out that attempt. Subsequently he hopes to find some relief in working and he thinks of building a winery, so advanced in its systems to compete with the most renowned European businesses. T h e Sicilian land is badly cultivated and the farmers use implements and methods of work which have been outmoded by progress. Thinking of having his workmen trained in the most progressive techniques, he orders some mechanical implements from the North to increase the production and obtain good results. Thus he becomes the most important person in the politics of the country and the interest of the public opinion is constantly focused on him, since everybody used to consider the Marquis a real monarch, detached from his subjects and completely uninterested in their welfare. While the Marquis is all absorbed in this feverish activity, Don Silvio dies to the universal regret of Rabbato. The funeral procession slowly goes through the streets: brotherhoods with their flags wrapped around the staffs; Capuchin friars, Saint Anthony friars, Minor Franciscan friars, priests in their black surplices, Canons in mourning clothes, all holding burning candles while reciting the psalms. Following them, on the bier, is Don Silvio's body, uncovered, his arms crossed, wearing his surplice and the three cornered hat. His head stands out against the black brocade shroud, his body is short, thin, his face is white with half closed eyes and lean nose.5 T h e sight of that dead face, of those lips closed forever encourages the Marquis. Finally there is no longer anybody in the world who knows of his crime. Then together with this sense of security, comes something that looks like peace. T h e Baroness of Lagomorto had never ceased of speaking to him on behalf of good Zosima Mugnos, who belonged to a noble family in misfortune and who lived in dignified poverty with her mother, doing humble work to support herself. Zosima had formerly been a flame of the Marquis 5

Ibid., p. 1SS.

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but he had never disclosed to the young woman his feelings. Years had passed; Agrippina had come and apparently gone from his life. Now, perhaps, he would have been able to have a family, with a woman of noble birth, without saying, also, that by marrying Zosima and relieving her and her mother from poverty he would have done an act of mercy. But the Marquis' hope is built on sand. He does not love Zosima and he even feels some scruples in uniting her to his sad life. He does not want her to become the unconscious victim of a tragic destiny. Yet, although Zosima is unable to win the Marquis' heart, she knows how to bring back serenity to him by "keeping him busy". With the return of his undefined fears and of his obsessions the unhappy man seeks safety in the reading of atheistic books which are lent him by Cavalier Pergola. That religion to which he had superstitiously applied in the belief he could compromise with his conscience, required an act of justice which he could not conceive. T o admit publicly his guilt, to accept the verdict of the law of man and disappear, so to say, from that world which had been all for himself was just the same as death. Thus his soul, which is always trying in vain attempts to transform into good actions that which is only evil, attempts to repel the remorses which torment him together with the religious morals. At this point the theories of evolution which interested Capuana so much make their appearance again. The Darwinian theories on the single origin of all the vegetable and animal species, the principle of natural selection and of the survival of the fittest and strongest element in the fight for existence could offer the Marquis, perhaps, a different view of life and of the social relationships. But he approaches those new concepts with a certain skepticism and an insufficient preparation. The Marquis, as we know, is a man whose main activity is agricultural life; he is made more for action than for meditation and by observing his habits we realize that he is not an intellectual, a man, that is, for whom knowledge may become a redeeming element. He already amazes us when he sinks deeply into the reading of books that require a preparation totally different from his. This new

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philosophy, therefore, does not penetrate in him, it does not cause a significant change in his mind and it finishes by disappointing him when Cavalier Pergola, believing to be near death, denies the theories he had so warmly supported and he asks the priest for the last rites. In the bitterness of the disappointment which overwhelms him even more, the Marquis goes back to his books and gets enraged for being unable to find in them that persuasive evidence he had so anxiously sought and believed he would find. But by now his instinct drives him back to the memories of the religion he had learned as a child, to the obscure foreboding that there is a divine justice from which there is no escape. He had been easily convinced because it was convenient for him to believe that things went that way. And he had never been completely convinced. No! No! How should he expiate? It was useless to believe in illusions; he had to expiate! It seemed impossible to him that that word had been uttered by him. But he felt crushed; he could not last any longer. His will power, his pride, his boldness had fallen down, all of a sudden, like sails struck down by a terrible gust of wind.6 Now the internal suffering increases and inexorably continues. In the narration we notice a concentrating movement of the external world toward the criminal who is already losing the right perception of the things which surround him. Every human action, every sound and every object remind him of his crime and take an unreal, grievous aspect. He sees the darkness of the evening come down on the town, silhouettes of people pass intermittently in the light of the lamps while, in the silence, the prayers echo from one house to the other. A few years earlier he too used to pray hoping that his words could reach God. That gave him peace. His nights were serene. But now? An unknown sadness depresses him when he thinks of the eternal question of the reason for living and for death. He himself is amazed of those unusual thoughts, of that sadness that constantly grips his mind. The secret emotion which persecutes him is certainly an omen of a terrible misfortune. He had laughed at « Ibid-, p. 228.

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the silly spiritualistic pretenses of Aquilante; and yet, he, the Marquis, starts at the slightest noise and with his heart throbbing violently, he stares at the darkest parts of the room, afraid of seeing somebody. Then he goes in search of company not to be left alone to face terror, not to be taken away by the phantoms which come in the silent hours. This state of mind scares him. In his mind the voice of the animals sounds like a human voice, at times like a baby who is crying, at other times like a man who is mortally wounded, and then it fades away like a sign of evil luck. After he married Zosima, it is evident that the new life in common will not bring any substantial improvement in the sequence of the events. It is a marriage which lacks cohesion. The Marquis deludes himself by believing he can love Zosima but in reality his is only a mild liking and the novelty constitutes merely a temporary distraction from his vexation. Poor Zosima, whose beauty had withered in the endless waiting of satisfying her childhood love, is almost completely resigned to accept a relationship in which she knows only too well that the ardent love of the past will never live again. When they are united, the two unhappy persons suffer more than before. Zosima, who in spite of her resignation still entertains in her heart the hope of starting even a slight affection in the Marquis' heart, is mortified by her husband's coldness which she attributes to the influence of Agrippina Solmo. She cannot help comparing herself with the woman who deprived her of her love for so many years and perhaps forever, and she thinks she can still see her sinful presence in that noble house where the countrywoman had acted and lived like a lady according to the Marquis' specific desire. In the meantime, the innocent bride becomes an involuntary cause of grief when, inspired by her generosity and by the understanding for other people's misery, she tries to help the miserable family of Neli Casaccio by hiring his son as a servant. One can feel that peace, so much desired by the married couple, will never bless that house where there is no more place for guests and where the arrival of a visitor is feared like the

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falling of a new misfortune. It is in this environment, which is narrowing more and more, that the Marquis' mind will be completely lost. This event will be preceded, however, by forewarning signs which will speed up its course. Old Santi, a farmer from whom the Marquis had taken his land in a hateful act of violence, hangs himself from a tree in the field that used to be his own. Santi's death has a terrible repercussion in the Marquis' mind and bewilders him even more. Now the protagonist falls many times in a sort of stupor during which his mind constantly goes back to the details of the crime. He raves, he tries to remove from his forehead an intense pain which never leaves him. He withdraws within himself, angry, staring and continuing aloud the monologue he began in his mind. One evening, seized with a frenzy, he goes to shoot once again in the same place where he had set an ambush for Rocco Criscione. The tragedy of jealousy thus comes to an end and truth deals Marchioness Zosima a heavy blow. She cannot forgive her husband for having killed a man for the love of a woman like Agrippina. She runs away from her house in the night, abandoning her insane husband and his house where she had always felt like a stranger. The end of the narration finds the Marquis in his insane condition assisted exclusively by Agrippina, the only person who feels sympathy for the man who had loved her to the point of derangement. But Agrippina's devotion has no hesitation, just as before it had not had any ending: in the development of the plot, along with the absurd jealousy of the Marquis, which is indeed the most evident measure of his love, we find the almost impassible and fatalistic nature of Agrippina, whose face never shows any sign of emotion. There are elements which make the tragic love of these two beings who are so different the one from the other rather peculiar, yet equally instinctive in their actions. The Marquis, for example, in spite of the strong affection he has for Agrippina, does not give up, even for an instant, his seeming coldness and his rancor. What is the reason for his attitude? One might think it is jealousy. But we could admit

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that a common form of jealousy would be directed, in one way or the other, against the person who provokes it. But the Marquis, instead, never reaches that point and he tortures himself in trying to reconstruct the suspected deception. If he could know for certain what happened between Agrippina and Rocco he could perhaps appease his indignation. But there is nothing but the woman's word, who, however cautious, does not know how to prevent the Marquis from suspecting that she could have loved Rocco if he had not been killed. One should remark, furthermore, that the Marquis, although in love, in his own way, with a woman who is his slave, does not appear to feel any fondness for her. More than a passion, we think we see in this attitude a case of the exclusive desire of physical possession not so different from that tenacious feeling for the land that Verga described in some of his short stories. We should notice, too, that the Marquis feels the same way for his land and his property. He feels he is the child of a generous land from which he derives both his economic welfare and his own vital strength; and he goes back to the land for help, as if it were a generous and understanding mother, when he feels his power going away. The aspects of nature move him. His eyes seem to fill with joy when he sees the rain pouring on the fields parched by the drought. He, who is never happy with the company of men, rejoices in the depth of his soul when he is alone, in front of the land which is coming back to life. Agrippina, a child of the same land, lives, instead, without a will of her own. Through generations and generations of servitude she learned to wait patiently the outcome of her destiny, a destiny which, in her case, corresponds with her master's will. Her waiting is so resigned that she does not entertain even any hope. She could be compared to a faithful animal if she did not redeem herself from such a humiliating condition with an act of love that changes her into the most tender woman. She passes through the narration without saying many words yet her figure appears to be superior to the ones of the aristocratic ladies because of her immense simplicity and she redeems herself from sin with the grief and the mercy she feels for her lover. She

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disappears from the scene in the same way she made her appearance for the first time, silently, controlled and yet majestic in her classic figure, clothed in the black mantle of the Sicilian women. Among the other important femal characters, Zosima is particularly important because she represents a different aspect of the same passion which destroys the Marquis: jealousy. W e have seen that Zosima accepted her new condition as a bride with a certain resignation, with a pessimism which is the consequence of innumerable youthful expectations frustrated by waiting and disappointment. This experience of hers rather than creating a contrast between the past and the joy of the present makes her hesitant. From the beginning of her life in the mansion of the Roccaverdinas she realizes that if it had really been destined that she should be the only woman in the Marquis' heart, she would have entered that house many years before, when she was still a young woman. Now, more than being an integral part of the family, she feels she represents an implement, another object at the disposal of the master. Furthermore her peculiarly feminine sensibility realizes that Agrippina had not been a common love affair for the Marquis. It will help our understanding to remember that we are always in an atmosphere in which the writer creates characters who are able to pass from material and real perceptions to unreal intuitions and forebodings. They seem to possess a certain introspective power for which the external attitudes and even the words are not interpreted according to their apparent meaning but in relation with hidden feelings. In this case also Zosima is part of the silent drama of Antonio and Agrippina and she finishes by feeling such a strong jealousy without understanding that the Marquis is trying, through her presence, to get free from the physical obsession for the other woman. And even if she visualizes the inner torment of her husband, she will not be able to find the way to lead him to a complete confession. It seems to us that this attitude derives from her constant comparing herself with her rival and from the fear, in short, of being hurt in her pride. From the moment in which she discovers her husband's crime there is no more pity in her

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heart, no understanding for the Marquis' tragedy; on the contrary, humiliated and deeply wounded in the most delicate of her feelings, "in that legitimate womanly pride which had made a cult of her first and only love", she will hate her criminal husband. As it can be seen, also Zosima becomes a victim of the same pride which devastates the life of Roccaverdina; she also becomes blind, almost inhuman because of her hatred, unable to stay away from the passions in which the other protagonists of the novel are struggling. The aristocratic pride that prevails in Zosima's mind reaches the highest limit in the character of the Marquis' aunt, Baroness of Lagomorto, who is so vividly described by Capuana. Tall, thin, her face all wrinkled but still strong, her white hair parted in the middle covers her ears and make her face appear smaller in the silk black scarf knotted under her chin, she is elegantly dressed in gray with linen gloves of the same color which cover her skinny, long hands. This austere lady is so conscious of the superiority of the aristocratic class to adapt its ideas even to religion. Angry at Agrippina, whom she suspects of tempting the Marquis in order to be married, she utters despicable words in a conversation with Don Silvio who, in his Christian kindness, submits the cases of human life to the will of God. "God's will has nothing to do in this matter," the Baroness replies, "God cannot permit some monstrosities." God "cannot possibly want the daughter of an olive picker to become the Marchioness of Roccarverdina". Capuana likes to portray her also in her fondness for the four dogs she considers her loved ones and upon which she lavishes her tenderness, becoming moved even when she sees them eat. "This also is charity, Don Silvio!", says that woman who a minute before had not hesitated to bring the worst accusations against a woman of the low people for fear she might want to contaminate her aristocratic blood. Capuana's art does not limit itself to obtain dramatic effects from the main events but it encompasses within its limits a multitude of elements that are interwoven and complement the actions of the protagonists.

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We will notice at first his interest for the mediumistic phenomena. Even though this particular tendency of the author appears in several other writings, in 11 Marchese di Roccaverdina it becomes a direct motive of the action. The talks of Guzzardi, his minute explanations of the phenomena involving the supposed ghost of Rocco Criscione, although made in an amateurish way which is very similar to the spirit of the fables rather than science, become real and positive elements that operate effectively in the Marquis' mind. The mediumistic phenomena were a novelty of great interest at the time Capuana was writing his novels, yet they enter into the structure of the book deprived of that characteristic of curiosity that generally accompanies them and create, instead, an atmosphere of mystery and of anguish that hovers over the protagonists. But besides the mediumistic experiments we find in the novel elements which are closely connected with the traditions and the human character of the farmers of Rabbato. Going to their daily work, the farmers often pass by the place where Rocco was killed. Every passer-by will carry a stone and will throw it on the others until they will make a heap, a sepulchral monument erected to an unfortunate victim of hatred who has died without being able to confess his own sins. Elsewhere, in the book, mention is made of the drought. Men and fields suffer from the dryness which seems to be endless. The eyes of the farmers look, beyond the fields and the hills, at the sky from which everybody hopes the clouds will come and bring relief and life. One day that expectation becomes spasmodic. At first one cloud, then another and finally many more seem to linger above the distant hills and at last start going toward Rabbato. Every activity is stopped, the houses are deserted. The inhabitants of the town rush to the esplanade of the Castello where people of every condition, their arms stretched toward the sky, call and pray aloud, as if the clouds massed at the horizon were living beings. The same joy that penetrates the hearts of the people seems to shake nature itself. The fields, the crops enjoy the coming of the water. The paths, the lanes and the cart-roads shine with rain, outlining the dark

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soil with silvery networks. The swollen river sparkles winding in the valley and its waters lap the foot of the hills. Also the brooks sparkle and rush toward the plain from the rocky sides of the hills which, unable to hold all that abundance of water, send it to the places that need it more.7 There are even some people who would like to take some of that blessing sent by the sky to keep it and enjoy it for a longer time. No one thinks of taking shelter from the rain; they want to feel it on their faces, on their hands raised toward the sky and cupped in order to have the tangible proof that famine is indeed close to an end. And in those places where previously desolation, despair and death prevailed, there is a new hope that makes people exultant and takes every person into its irresistible excitement while outside the land seems to rejoice in the caress of the rain. Other episodes revive characteristic types of the island's provincial towns. Besides the unforgettable character of Santi Dimaura who represents in its most dramatic form that desperate attachment to the land which we find in many characters of Verga and Capuana, we will not be able to forget the human aspects of Don Silvio, a rather unusual type in Capuana's works. He is an ascetic as well as a militant apostle of faith. His assisting and merciful activity directed to those who were afflicted by the famine gives him a saintly glory which reminds us of some characters of Manzoni. Don Silvio, weak and humble in front of the divine will, defends faith among men. In a world where everybody comes to a compromise with morals because of his bad faith, his fear and his superstitions, he tries with all his power to bring the light of truth to the afflicted and to the powerful in an inspired and generous attempt. The saintly priest disappears from his small world universally regretted, worn out by his own feverish mercy, the guardian of the secret of the only man he did not succeed in redeeming. II Marchese di Roccaverdina, more than any other of Capuana's novels, abandons the pattern of the psychological analysis to bring into life a work of unusual complexity. Capuana, to be sure, carries out a precise study of the aristocracy and of 7 Ibid., p. 181.

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the people of his native land, but he does not simply limit himself to this. He deeply penetrates into that human environment not so much to reveal its exceptional cases but to disclose its poetic humanity. This humanity is the consequence of a millennial history, of a profoundly felt suffering and delight. A mysterious world comes to life in those pages revealing its affections, its superstitions and states of mind which slowly and fatefully came into being like the rough aspects of the country itself. In this novel there lives again the everlasting struggle between the strong and the weak; between the uncontrolable passions and balance, between good and evil. In this contrast the writer does not put only the human protagonists but also the mysterious forces of nature, the companion of man in a universal destiny. Our attention is not exclusively attracted by the specific case observed in its reality, nor by a specific moralistic solution, because in this work Capuana does not intend to prove any thesis or to solve any problem. If this were the case, the book would not have that broadness of scope that it unquestionably possesses. It seems to us that the writer intended to portray those human aspects which were so dear to his affection hoping to inspire the reader with a deep, merciful understanding for every situation no matter how it manifests itself, a proper and necessary understanding for the sorrowful truth of human existence, of the anguish that comes from vain expectations.

VIII RASSEGNAZIONE:

T H E LAST N O V E L

Conclusion

In his last novel, Rassegnazione, which was published in 1907, Capuana detaches himself considerably from the regional themes in order to return to an introspective type of literature. This novel, which was planned at the end of a long and often grievous experience of life, in spite of the dejection which pervades its pages, shows a certain optimism and a message suggesting not to ask life more than it can give but to "love it even for the little it sometimes has to offer". The plot almost entirely consists of the autobiography of a central character, Dario, who is introduced when he is still a child, at the beginning of the novel. Thus we follow his gradual way to maturity but the narration is often slowed down by the usual digressions on positivistic phrenology. Persecuted by a complex of physical inferiority which has some repercussions on his mind causing a form of abulic and indecisive shyness, Dario is terribly afraid of the company of his friends whose ease and vigor do not attract him but, on the contrary, make him feel even more the weakness of his precociously old nature. Together with this anomaly the young man feels in himself an inexplicable lack of sentiment. Nature with its charm, the life of his family which is dominated by the strong, dynamic figure of his father do not stimulate in him any reaction; it seems to him that every sensation merely touches him and loses its value in his mind. The things he learns at school have the same fate; his mind stores them without being affected by them. As he says, they

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do not take hold of him, they do not become an integral part of his spirit. Having thus reached the end of his high school education, he should choose a career but he cannot discover in himself any vocation. Comparing himself, then, with his companions who are at times presumptuous and rude as well as generous and unselfish, he realizes he is no less intelligent than they and that he is, indeed, endowed with a keener artistic sense. But, evidently his qualities seem to him to be inadequate to his immense ambition f o r greatness, which originates in his spiritual abulia and velleity. Out of the envy and admiration he feels for his more active friends comes the ambition of trying his skill in writing but, having started to work, he realizes, in a lingering depression which drains from him every spirit of initiative, that his idea cannot find the right form of expression. N o t even his mother's revealing words are able to console him. T h e silent and idealistic lady who firmly believes in life advises him to accept his limitations with humbleness. But this adapting to mediocrity is unbearable for Dario who lets himself go into pessimism, without planning any future for his life, preferring indolent dreams of glory to an honorable, although limited, activity. H e examines his mind, he tries to understand himself, to discover why he lacks that energy that leads into the way of success people who are not as endowed as he is, but the result of his introspection is always the same: an inborn defect of his character, a natural inferiority that slowly erodes his power. T h u s we witness the carefully described process of disintegration of personality. This process has its good and bad moments, its hallucinations as well as its despair and in its moments of exaltation and its moments of depression, incredulity and faith succeed each other, according to a trend which had its followers from Oriani's La disfatta to Borgese's Rube and reached its heroic and hegemonic height in D'Annunzio's Andrea Sperelli in II piacere. Capuana portrays the complicated and interesting nature of a character who is potentially endowed with good intellectual qualities but who cannot reach his full physical and psycho-

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logical maturity, prevented as he is by a number of complexes that thwart every impulse for action. Thus we see that Dario is caught between two contrasting forces: his mother, who is also withdrawn within her own world, a meditative and resigned person, overshadowed by her dynamic and resolute husband who remains perhaps detached from his family because of his demanding activity. The strong contrast which exists between his parents causes in Dario a skepticism against the world, the desire to escape from reality in order to find relief in a vainly cherished world of illusions. And he cannot become the hero he would like to be because he lacks a decided and mature mind. Dario does not have the strength of being himself, to reveal himself to the world. Convinced that by himself he is unable to bring to reality the masterpiece of his aspiration he thinks of achieving it through a creature of his own who, inspired and brought up by him will be successful in the attempt which had defeated him. Thus he prepares himself for marriage in the most pure way looking for the woman who would be able to procreate the wonderful, beloved child. But even in this case Dario is undecided; he hesitates for a long time and finally he is convinced by his friend Lenzi to marry his own sister Fausta. And in order to be even more certain of the outcome he undergoes an accurate medical examination and he earnestly consults Fausta's doctor. This marriage, however, is not built on love which Dario considers as a dangerous element for the happy development of conjugal life, because in a woman a man should find primarily "a beautiful and well built procreating machine". In an atmosphere filled with unwholesome tension in which Capuana inserts frequent medical-scientific digressions on genetics, the narration describes Dario's anxious expectation. In his spasmodic desire for an heir he watches his wife in every motion, trying to guess her moods and wishes. He urges his wife, a normal, affectionate woman without complexes, to prefer a baby boy, the only possible heir for a man who is dreaming of a glorious future. Fausta's pregnancy is celebrated by Dario with the greatest exultation. This new human being who is already

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moving and giving signs of life will recompense him for all his sacrifices, it will represent the completion of a predetermined cycle at the end of which is glory. But Dario's despair seems to overwhelm him when he is told he is the father of a girl. The inhuman cry that follows the first news, the impact and the violence of the blow, shock him immensely. He raves in hatred against the innocent child as if it spelled "the destruction of his dream of so many months". That dream that Dario considered a miracle because "it was not going to be the result of the halting of some natural laws" but "of the intelligent coordination of the same laws for a particular end" of which he was the creator, became even less achievable when he learns that Fausta, because of a chronic difficulty, will no longer be able to bear any children. The brutal forces of nature seem to conjure against him: his life has no more purposes. He thinks of himself as another member of the multitude which crowds the world, condemned to that inhuman vulgarity from which he retracted in horror, reduced to be a husband like many others, a father like many others, a force lost in the intricate social mechanism.1 But in the light of these events Dario is persuaded that perhaps the sacrifice of Fausta's life would not be such a cruel holocaust, if he were certain to attain his own purpose. But what certainty can there be in the mysterious ways of nature? After his child dies he raves in endless reasonings which lead to no conclusion and his gloomy, disappointed attitude deeply saddens his wife Fausta. In the meantime the story reveals the noble and refined character of this woman whose virtues are in sharp contrast with Dario's prejudices. He considers women as inferior beings, to whom nature precludes the possibility of reaching the ideal perfection which has been achieved by men. Fausta, instead, understands how her husband, in his idealistic dream, has warped his mind in a proud effort, thus making it inhuman, and she feels a deep sympathy for his grief. She would help him to im1

Cf., Luigi Capuana, Rassegnazione 1920), p. 160 ff.

(Milano, Fratelli Treves Editori,

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prove his condition even with the sacrifice of her own life and when she learns the tragic truth about her physical condition she does not regret it at all, but, instead, she hopes to be able to obtain, with the sacrifice of her life, Dario's happiness. But Dario, coherent with his convictions, neglects his wife. Firmly convinced that the noblest purpose of a woman is procreation he is repelled by the idea that she may become a tool of pleasure. Since Fausta will no longer be able to bear any children, he prepares himself for a conjugal life inspired on reciprocal respect and understanding; a life in which there will not be a place for the impulses of love which he still believes an inferior instinct. But one day he fails in his resolutions. Fausta, decided to make the greatest sacrifice, imposes her will. She becomes pregnant once again but after a short time she serenely dies, happy to eliminate with her death every cause of grief. The loss of his wife almost drives Dario to commit suicide, but his mother's tenderness prevents him from doing it. Then he gives himself up to pleasure, and even in this attempt he tries to achieve the highest limit by following the "gospel of the mud". But after a while he withdraws in disgust, unable to proceed on the way to brutish dejection. Exhausted by his excesses, he goes back to his mother's house, and she helps him to overcome a new impulse toward suicide. Shortly after, during a sojourn in the country, Dario saves from the fire of a farm a little girl whom he will keep in his house and adopt under the name of Fausta. At the end of the novel, Dario is still convinced of being a failure in life. Having lost the energy to put into reality his dreams of greatness, unable even to take his own life, he has still before his eyes the proof of his only true good action, little Fausta, who, brought up by him to understand beauty and culture, is already giving signs of becoming an exceptional person. Thus resignation comes also for him together with the thought of having been successful in rescuing a human being from abjection and misery. If we consider the protagonist in his spiritual evolution we

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will notice that Capuana, in this case, was mainly concerned in giving life to an exceptional character: that of the perfect idealist. The achievement of a sublime goal determines every action of the protagonist. From his childhood Dario tries to surpass, in a scheme of future greatness, the limit of his own strength, and later, as a young man, intolerant of reality, he religiously prepares himself to the act of procreation with a pure and hopeful mind, totally free from the bond of the flesh. And also in the anguish of grief and despair as well as in the debasement of the senses, he never loses a certain nobleness which, at the end, puts him back on the right way. His is the story of an ideal persecuted by destiny; an ideal which forces upon him anguished sufferings that are in part real, in part the creation of an obsessed imagination. And the truth that he ceaselessly looks for comes to him at the end of a long experience of humiliations and delusions. It seems af if Capuana wanted to give his last novel a character completely different from the other ones, by directing his study to the very nature of our mind. And in this noble research there appear already the symptoms of a crisis which anticipates the coming of a new era.

*

·

*

Capuana's literary work reflects ideas and trends of the time in which it was created. Having entered into the literary life in the full development of the process of the political unification, the Sicilian writer offered to our culture new ideals and forms to make it more adequate to the spiritual demands of a country on its way to reorganization. Confronted by a literary tradition which was often characterized by an affected positivism which represented the "theoretical and practical negation of every imaginative freedom and dignity", he used with discretion and intelligently the new concept of art-science and of art-truth,

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even if he accepted and supported them with the enthusiasm and the impulse of a novice.2 Endowed with an intellect ready to accept every novelty in the world of letters but also in that of science and art as well, he never limited his research within a single trend. As far as verism is concerned, we will notice how firm he was in refusing the title of the founder or the head of the trend. It must be said, however, that he was the first to be well aware of the values of Verga's work and D'Annunzio's. In an ideal brotherhood of ideals and of purposes he joined his great fellow-countryman Giovanni Verga for whom he was not only a friend and an admirer but also the main supporter. On behalf of the great Sicilian, Capuana used his polemic dynamism, his convictions and his enthusiasm for new ideals, he helped and defended him on many occasions and admired him in all his virtues. The association of the two Sicilians was an unmatched example of reciprocal esteem and affection, from which both personalities could benefit. Among the most important principles of Capuana's criticism there is the greatly controversial one of the impersonality of art which he accepted as a theory and applied in practice as a writer in order to react against the excessive sentimentality which permeated part of the Italian literature of the end of the century. This principle represented not only an example for the other writers but a great victory of Capuana upon himself since, as Verga in his early works, he also had been influenced by a certain passionate type of literature. If he accepted the naturalistic theories, nevertheless he followed strong idealistic tendencies, because for Capuana the object of art was not only the physical matter and ugliness but also the sublime and the ideal. On account of the virtue of his mind, which was ready for every experience and never circumscribed within too limited programs and trends, Capuana's critical works can still be considered highly accurate, well balanced and show a power of intuition for artistic values. These good - Cf., Achille Pellizzari, II pensiero e Parte S . A . E . F r a n c e s c o Perrella, 1919), p. 35.

di Luigi

Capuana

(Napoli,

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qualities were never disassociated from an admirable professional balance and devotion which were directed, without special preferences, to the quest of the good and deserving works in literature. In several cases he encouraged and gave advice to young writers as well as to famous men of letters. As a writer he was attracted by several literary genres, such as poetry, fiction and the drama. His main contribution, however, is in the narrative field with his well known novels and with his abundant and noteworthy short stories. The latter, in particular, include a great number of subjects and are quite revealing for the understanding of Capuana's qualities. In his short stories, the writer passes from specific subjects, such as spiritualism, medicine or psychology to broader elements such as the figures, the ideas and the traditions of his land. From his short stories, and particularly from those entitled Le paesane, Nuove paesane and Ν el paese della zagara, some characters emerge, at times rude and primitive, at times deeply human and moving. It is the Sicilian world, particularly that of the province which revives in many excellent pages; and the characters that act in them, although presented in quick touches, possess a personality of their own which makes them quite distinct. In several of these short stories, the author reveals his elegant and sound sense of humor not deprived of that faith in life that was one of his natural traits. In his novels he intended to apply the rules of the verista school which he had repeatedly discussed in his critical writings. One can follow an evolution in the series of novels which begins with a strictly naturalistic work, Giacinta, to end, through Profumo and II Marchese di Roccaverdina, with the remarkable novel entitled Rassegnazione which, rich as it is in considerations and disconcerting doubts, reveals the uneasiness of the transition periods. This book, in our opinion, built on a compact structure as it is, seems to be a very successful psychological study almost as valuable as II Marchese di Roccaverdina. But besides the study of man and of his nature, Capuana seriously studied the society of his time, the bourgeoisie, the aristocracy and the people of the land. In 11 Marchese di Roc-

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caverdina, besides the clash of characters, there is a complete social picture in which the aristocratic class, rather than dwell upon its glory and its privileges, seems willing to become adequate to the necessities of the new time. One should observe, in this regard, the activity of Marquis Antonio, his dedication to the work and to the land, but even more his dynamic way of acting, his faith in new techniques and implements, his modern concept of agrarian organization conceived not only for the benefit of the owner but also of his farmers. And we do not think there is a real clash between the above noticed social classes, but, instead, a common attempt to get entirely free from prejudices that are already on their way out in order to start a better life. With these ideas which, after all, show a prudent optimism in the future and with the very form of his art, which brings on a universal plan the ideals and the problems of the Sicilian people, Capuana engages himself to break the bonds of literary isolation and he contributes to the cultural unification of the country, a unification for which he had enthusiastically worked from his youth.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CAPUANA'S WORKS: 11 benefattore (Milano, C. Aliprandi, 1901). Cera una volta... (Firenze, R. Bemporad e Figlio, 1902). Chi vuol fiabe, chi vuole? (Firenze, R. Bemporad, 1908). Come Vonda (Palermo, R. Sandron, 1921). Coscienze (Catania, Fratelli Battiato Editori, 1905). Cronache letterarie (Catania, Niccolo Giannotta, 1899). Dalla terra natale (Milano, R. Sandron, 1915). II Decameroncino (Catania, Niccolo Giannotta, 1901). Delitto ideale (Palermo, R. Sandron, 1902). Eh! La vita... (Milano, Societa Anonima Editoriale R. Quintieri, 1913). Fausto Bragia e altre novelle (Catania, Niccolo Giannotta, 1897). Fumando (Catania, Niccolo Giannotta, 1889). Giacinta (Catania, Niccolo Giannotta, 1889). Homo (Milano, Fratelli Treves, 1888). Gli "ismi" contemporanei

ed altri saggi di critica letteraria ed artistica

(Catania, Niccolo Giannotta, 1898). Libri e teatro (Catania, Niccolo Giannotta, 1892). 11 marchese di Roccaverdina (Milano, Garzanti, 1960). Net paese delta zagara (Firenze, Casa Editrice Marzocco, 1951). "L'ora presente", Incidenza, III, 1-3 (January-June 1961). Parodie. Giobbe, Lucifero (Catania, Niccolo Giannotta, 1884). Passa Γ amor e (Milano, Fratelli Treves, 1908). Per I'arte (Catania, Niccolo Giannotta, 1885). Perdutamente! (Ancona, Giovanni Puccini e Figli, 1911). Profumo (Milano, Fratelli Treves, 1922). Rassegnazione (Milano, Fratelli Treves, 1920). Riaverti... (Milano, Casa Editrice Vitagliano, 1920). La sfinge (Milano, Ditta Editrice Brigola, 1897). Studii sulla letteratura contemporanea, Series I (Milano, Casa Editrice Brigola, 1880). Studii sidla letteratura contemporanea, Series II (Catania, Niccolo Giannotta, 1882). Le ultime paesane (Milano, Fratelli Treves, 1923).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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O T H E R WORKS: Apollonio, Mario, Storia del Teatro Italiano (Firenze, G. C. Sansoni Editore, 1954). Borgese, Giuseppe Antonio, La vita e il libro, Series III (Torino, Fratelli Bocca Editori, 1919). Borlenghi, Aldo, La narrativa italiana nelFOttocento dai romanzi storici alia scapigliatura (Milano, La Goliardica, 1961). —, 11 romanzo italiano tra l'Ottocento e il Novecento (Milano, La Goliardica, 1962). Un cinquantenmo di studi sulla letteratura italiana. Essays collected by the Societa Filologica Romana and dedicated to Vittorio Rossi (Firenze, G. C. Sansoni Editore, 1937). I Classici Italiani nella Storia della Critica (Firenze, "La Nuova Italia" Editrice, 1961). Croce, Benedetto, La letteratura della Nuova Italia, Vol. III (Bari, Laterza, 1949). De Michelis, Eurialo, Uarte del Verga (Firenze, "La Nuova Italia" Editrice, 1941). Di Blasi, Corrado, Lmgi Capuana. Vita, amicizie, relazioni letterarie (Mineo, Biblioteca Capuana, 1954). Dornis, Jean, Le Roman Italien Contemporain (Paris, Societe D'feditions Litteraires et Artistiques, 1907). Flora, Francesco, Storia della Letteratura Italiana (Milano, Arnoldo Mondadori Editori, 1956). Fubini, Mario, e Bonora, Ettore, Antologia della Critica Letteraria (Torino, G. B. Petrini, 1960). II giornale letterario in Italia (Chiasso-Bellinzona, La Scuola, 1960). Gramsci, Antonio, Letteratura e vita nazionale (Torino, Giulio Einaudi, 1950). Hauvette, Henri, Lttterature italienne (Paris, Armand Colin, 1932). Lapp, John C., Zola before the Rougon-Macquart (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1964). Marzot, Giulio, Battaglie veristiche deWOttocento (Milano, Casa Editrice Principato, 1941). Momigliano, Attilio, Storia della Letteratura Italiana (Milano, Casa Editrice Principato, 1958). Nicastro, Luciano, ltinerari critici (Milano, Ulrico Hoepli Editore, 1936). Pellizzari, Achille, II pensiero e Parte di Luigi Capuana (Napoli, Soc. An. Ed. Francesco Perrella, 1919). Pellizzi, Camillo, "Romanticism and Regionalism", Proceedings of the British Academy (London, Humphrey Milford, 1929). Piccioni, Leone, La narrativa italiana tra romanzo e racconti (Milano, A. Mondadori, 1959). Pullini, Giorgio, Teatro Italiano fra due secoli (1850-1950) Firenze, Parenti Editore, 1958). Raya, Gino, La lingua del Verga (Firenze, Felice Le Monnier, 1962). —, Otto cento inedito. Coffa, Amari, Onufrio, Rapisardi, Dossi, Verga, Capuana, De Roberto, D'Amiunzio (Roma, Editrice M. Ciranna, 1960).

132

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—, Ottocento letterario (Palermo, F. Ciuni Libraio Editore, 1939). Rod, fedouard, Etudes sur le XIX Steele (Paris, Perrin et Cie, LibrairesEditeurs, 1894). Russo, Luigi, Giovanni Verga (Bari, Editori Laterza, 1959). —, I narratori (Roma, Fondazione Leonardo per la cultura italiana, 1923). —, Ritratti e disegni storici. Dal Manzoni al De Sanctis (Bari, Giuseppe Laterza e Figli, 1953). —, Verga romanziere e novelliere (Torino, Edizioni Radio Italiana, 1959). Salinari, Carlo, Miti e coscienza del decadentismo italiano (Milano, Feltrinelli Editore, 1962). Santangelo, Giorgio, Storia della critica verghiana (Firenze, "La Nuova Italia" Editrice, 1954). Scarfoglio, Edoardo, II libro di Don Chisciotte (Milano, A. Mondadori, 1925). Seroni, Adriano, Verga (Palermo, Palumbo, 1960). Spinazzola, Vittorio, Federico De Roberto e il verismo (Milano, Feltrinelli Editore, 1961). Toffanin, Giuseppe, Ultimi saggi (Bologna, Nicola Zanichelli Editore, 1960). Tonelli, Luigi, Alia ricerca della personalitä (Milano, Modernissima, 1923). —, Uevoluzione del teatro contemporaneo in Italia (Milano, Remo Sandron Editore, 1913). Torraca, Francesco, Saggi e rassegne (Livorno, Francesco Vigo Editore, 1885). Trombatore, Gaetano, Saggi critici (Firenze, "La Nuova Italia" Editrice, 1950). Vetro, Pietro, Lwgi Capuana (Catania, Studio Editoriale Moderno, 1922). Vossler, Carlo, Letteratura italiana contemporanea (Napoli, Riccardo Ricciardi Editore, 1916). Cambon, Glauco, "Verga's Mature Style", Comparative Literature, XIV, 2 (Spring I962). Lapp, John C., "On Zola's Habits of Revision", Modern Language Notes, LXIII (December 1958). Navarria, Aurelio," Vamante di Raja e Uamante di Gramigna", Belfagor, VI, 2 (March 31, 1951). —, "Lettere del Capuana e del Verga a Renato Fucini", Belfagor, XV, 4 (July 31, 1960). —, "Giovanni Verga, Lettere al suo traduttore", edited by Fredi Chiappelli, Belfagor, X, 1 (January 31, 1955). - , "Verga-De Roberto - Capuana", Belfagor, XI, 1 (January 31, 1956). Norman, Hilda L., "The Scientific and the Pseudo-Scientific in the Works of Luigi Capuana", Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, LIII, 3 (September, 1938). Russo, Luigi, "La letteratura contemporanea dai Malavoglia al Gattopardo", Belfagor, XIV, 3 (May 31, 1959). Tonelli, Luigi, "II carattere e l'opera di Luigi Capuana", Nuova Antologia, LXIII (May 1928). —, "La critica letteraria italiana negli ultimi cinquant'anni", Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, LXVI, 2 (2 Semester 1915).

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Trombatore, Gaetano, "Luigi Capuana critico", Belfagor, IV, 4 (July 1949). Verga, Giovanni, "Storia de / Malavoglia: Carteggio con l'Editore e con Luigi Capuana", with notes by L. and V. Perroni, Nuova Antologia, LXXV (March 1940).

STUDIES IN ITALIAN LITERATURE 1. Robert C. Melzi, Castelvetro's Annotations to the Inferno: A New Perspective in Sixteenth Century Criticism. 1966. 189 pp., facs. f 22.2. George E. Dorris, Paolo Rolli and the Italian Circle in London, Π15-1144.1967. 310 pp. f 32.3. William D. Horan, The Poems of Bonifacio Calvo: A Critical Edition. 1966. 94 pp. f 12.—

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