Intellectual Communities and Partnerships in Italy and Europe

Transcription

1 Intellectual Communities and Partnerships in Italy and Europe Studies in Honour of Mark Davie Bearbeitet von Danielle Hipkins 1. Auflage Taschenbuch. XXIII, 182 S. Paperback ISBN Format (B x L): 15 x 22,5 cm Gewicht: 300 g Weitere Fachgebiete > Geschichte > Kultur- und Ideengeschichte schnell und portofrei erhältlich bei Die Online-Fachbuchhandlung beck-shop.de ist spezialisiert auf Fachbücher, insbesondere Recht, Steuern und Wirtschaft. Im Sortiment finden Sie alle Medien (Bücher, Zeitschriften, CDs, ebooks, etc.) aller Verlage. Ergänzt wird das Programm durch Services wie Neuerscheinungsdienst oder Zusammenstellungen von Büchern zu Sonderpreisen. Der Shop führt mehr als 8 Millionen Produkte.

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3 Preface Intellectual dialogue is at the centre of Mark Davie s book Half-Serious Rhymes. Firstly, Mark shows how Luigi Pulci s poem Morgante is the result of his interaction with an anonymous text (Orlando), re-discovered by Pio Rajna in 1869, which at times Pulci followed word for word. His was a creative dialogue with an earlier text (p. 18), a fruitful relationship highlighting Pulci s characteristic ability to derive the verbal stimuli he needs from a pre-existing text which works even with the most unpromising text (p. 96). Secondly, Pulci created an original formula, with a mixture of styles and traditions, a new genre of narrative poetry, characterised by the presence in the text of a self-aware narrator able to exploit his relationship with his material and with his audience, resulting in a high level of topicality, verbal humour and parody (p. 27). As Mark says, both Boiardo s Orlando innamorato and Ariosto s Orlando furioso, to name only the outstanding examples of a hugely successful genre, owe a large and conspicuous debt to the Morgante (p. 7). Pulci expected to be surpassed by those coming after him. His poem was also meant to be a contribution to a collective enterprise: Altri verrà con altro stile e canto, con miglior cetra, e più sovrano artista; io mi starò tra faggi e tra bifulci che non disprezzino le muse de Pulci.1 We have used the word dialogue to indicate so far a marked form of intertextuality or the mixture of continuity and innovation that characterises a genre. In Half-Serious Rhymes, however, Mark highlights also 1 Luigi Pulci, Morgante ed. by F. Ageno (Milan and Naples: Ricciardi, 1955), p. 1108; Davie p. 164.

4 xiv Preface direct forms of dialogue. A third way in which he stresses it is by analyzing Pulci s relationship with his audience, which, Mark notes, was one of mutual inf luence. In continuing the composition of his major poem, Pulci took account of the early reception of the first published version of the poem 2 whereas, by the later stages, his readers expectations were moulded by what they already knew of the work.3 Finally, Mark devotes a considerable amount of attention to the friendship that developed between Pulci and Angelo Poliziano. The two poets might have easily been rivals: they lived in quarrelsome circles, belonged to dif ferent generations, wrote on similar topics with dif ferent styles (Pulci s La giostra di Lorenzo de Medici, devoted to a joust taking place in Florence in 1469, was soon overshadowed by Poliziano s Stanze per la giostra celebrating another joust which took place in the same city in 1475) and yet were close friends. After completing canto XXIII of the Morgante, Pulci was unable to find a new way forward, obtaining rather poor results with both the composition of Cirif fo Calvaneo and a new canto of the Morgante. Having embarked on the canonical story of Roncevaux, Pulci meant to follow it through to its conclusions without further embellishments or digressions. It was an approach that frustrated his natural source of inspiration (p. 146). Poliziano s intervention restored Pulci s confidence in his own brand of poetry ( his personal accademia, p. 146). As Mark says, his friend s advice had not only strengthened his resolve to continue the narrative in its own way; it had also encouraged him to maintain the element of variety which he could now see as one of the poem s strengths (p. 147). The stress on the cooperative nature of intellectual enquiry appears repeatedly in Mark s publications. More than any other scholar, for example, he highlights how Alessandro Manzoni s literary activities and political ideas were inf luenced by events, the necessity of reacting to, and interpreting, them, and the discussions and interactions that that necessity entailed. Manzoni, Mark notes, wrote poetry supporting unification 2 Mark Davie, Half-Serious Rhymes: The Narrative Poetry of Luigi Pulci (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1998), p Ibid., p. 27.

5 Preface xv and published these poems in 1848, after a crowd gathered outside his house acclaiming him as a national champion and asking him to write something supporting Italy s right to independence (p. 848).4 In the last months of his life, he responded enthusiastically to an invitation of the city of Turin by embarking on an account of the events of and the progress they represented towards Italian unification (p. 853). Mark pays much attention to Manzoni s letters and the way in which they record the development of his political choices in a close dialogue with friends such as Antonio Rosmini and Massimo D Azeglio and acquaintances such as Giorgio Briano. Rosmini, a devout man inspired by a desire to renew the church, still believed that il Sommo Pontefice dee adempire i doveri ad un tempo di Principe temporale e Capo della Chiesa.5 Manzoni kindly objected to that, reminding his friend and favourite contemporary philosopher that other Catholics might believe che la soluzione definitiva, e probabilmente lontana, possa portare la separazione del poter temporale, per vie e con compensi preparati dalla Provvidenza, e con l assentimento dello stesso Pontefice.6 Both Pulci and Manzoni lived in major cultural centres (Renaissance Florence, Milan when it was the capital of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy); they interacted with the major cultural circles of their times. And yet the stress on so many forms of intellectual collaboration does not only 4 Mark Davie, Manzoni after 1848: An Irresolute Utopian?, The Modern Language Review 87 (1992), n. 4, pp (848). 5 Carteggio fra Alessandro Manzoni e Antonio Rosmini, ed. by G. Bonola (Milan: Cogliati, 1901), p. 96; Davie, p Alessandro Manzoni, Lettere, 3 vols, ed. by Cesare Arieti (Milan: Mondadori, 1970), II, p. 462; Davie, p In one of these letters Manzoni writes a beautiful political self-description, from which Mark draws the title of his work: un utopista e un irresoluto sono due soggetti inutili per lo meno in una riunione dove si parli per concludere; io sarei l uno e l altro nello stesso tempo. Il fattibile le più volte non mi piace, e dirò anzi, mi ripugna; ciò che mi piace, non solo parrebbe fuor di proposito e fuor di tempo agli altri, ma sgomenterebbe me medesimo, quando si trattasse, non di vagheggiarlo o di lodarlo semplicemente, ma di promoverlo in ef fetto, e d aver poi sulla coscienza una parte qualunque delle conseguenze (Lettere, II, p. 462; Davie, p. 847).

6 xvi Preface come from them. It is also their interpreter s, and it is from this consistent emphasis on dialogue and collaboration in Mark s scholarship that our idea comes to celebrate Mark s retirement with this volume on intellectual partnerships and communities. The importance of combining collegiality (or friendship) and scholarship has been central to Mark s professional career. A senior colleague told us that in his entire career he has not worked with anyone more collegiate, more generous or more loyal to others than Mark. As an Italianist at Liverpool ( ), and Exeter ( ), Mark has been one of the stalwart (often behind-the-scenes) supporters of Italian (and Modern Language) studies in the UK and in his own institutions. From 1997 to 2003 he was the honorary treasurer of the Society for Italian Studies a role that is crucial to the survival of an Italianist community in the UK. In the sometimes thankless area of management roles, Mark took more than his fair share, initially as Director of Education and Deputy Head of the School of Modern Languages at Exeter, and later as Head of the same School during a dif ficult period of restructuring (from 2003 to 2006). Even in that period, despite his demanding role, he would always make time to listen to anybody. Mark was also Italian editor of Modern Languages Review, from vol. 99 (2004) to vol. 105 (2010). In this role, we are told, he provided a regular supply of good articles and reviews, encouraged potential (including younger) authors and nudged tardy reviewers where necessary (as it often was), was gently firm but also very polite, tactful and ever discreet in dealing with contributors and colleagues, showing a nice sense of humour. Helping younger colleagues has been a defining feature of Mark s career, as evidence from several contributors to this volume suggests. Younger colleagues speak of the care Mark, often together with his wife Grace, showed them, from reading their work, to of fering them accommodation in his own home, when they had had too much of the local B&B. In honour of Mark s support and collegiality towards colleagues at every stage in their career, we decided to include research contributions from scholars at an advanced stage of their career, and from younger scholars, and ref lections on their work from other professionals with academic connections.