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GABRIELE D´ANNUNZIO (1863-1938) | |
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Italian poet, novelist and dramatist, military hero, and supporter fascist political ideas. D'Annunzio combined in his work naturalism, symbolism, and erotic images, becoming the best interpreter of European Decadence in post-Risorgimento Italy. His love affairs, relationship with the world-famous actress Eleanora Duse, heroic adventures during World War I, and his occupation of Fiume in 1919 made him a legend in his own time. "O nere e bianche rondini, tra notte Gabriele D`Annunzio was born in Pescara (Abruzzi), in Central Italy on the Adriatic coast. This environment provided him with inspiration for many his books. "On the soles of my shoes, the heels of my boots I carry the earth of Abruzzi, the mud of my estuary," D'Annunzion later said. His father was a wealthy landowner, dealer in wine and agricultural products, and later mayor of the town - originally his name was Francesco Paolo Rapagnetta. At the age of 13 he had been adopted by his uncle, Antionio D'Annunzio, and he legally added the 'D'Annunzio' to his name. In 1858 he married Luisa De Benedictis; they had three daughters and two sons. D'Annunzio studied at the Liceo Cicognini in Prato - the school was one of the best in Italy at that time. As a poet D'Annunzio made his debut at the age of sixteen with PRIMO VERE (1879). The poems were inspired by Giosuè Carducci's Odi barbare (1877). In 1881 he entered the University of Rome, where he fully participated in the capital's social and cultural life, and contributed to newspapers, particularly Fanfulla della Domenica, Capitan Francassa, and Cronaca Bizantina. After D'Annunzio's father was reluctant to give his blessing to his son's intention to marry his first love, Giselda Zucconi, D'Annunzio broke with him. It is also generally agreed that in The Triumph of Death D'Annunzio portrayed him as an incurable womanizer, as he was in real life. In 1883 D'Annunzio married Maria Hardouin di Gallese, a duke's daughter. They had three sons; the marriage ended in 1891. During these years D'Annunzio produced much hack work in order to support the expensive life style of his titled wife. D'Annunzio's works in the 1880s, CANTO NOVO (1882), TERRA VERGINE (1882), and INTERMEZZO DI RIME (1883), expressed the sensuous joys of life. His short stories showed the influence of the popular French writer Guy de Maupassant. D'Annunzio published his first full-length novel, The Child of Pleasure, in 1889. The story of a snobbish but weak-willed decadent was a parody of contemporary French 'decadent' fiction. "Elena was silent, wrapped in a cape of mink, with a veil covering her face, her hands in a muff. He breathed with delight the subtle odor of heliotrope emanating from the precious fur, while feeling her arm over his. They both felt far removed from the world, alone; but suddenly a black carriage of a prelate passed by or a herdsman or a group of clerics or beasts." D'Annunzio's next novel, The Victim (1891), was a story where husband, sexually depraved Tullio Hermil, forces his chaste wife into adultery. His best-known novel, IL TRIONFO DELLA MORTE (1894, The Triumph of Death), featured Nietzschean hero as his next major novel LE VERGINI DELLE ROCCE (1896). The drama The Daughter of Jorio (1904) gained much attention and was enthusiastically imitated. The visionary, excited imagination of the poet, led him to an exaggerated nationalism, and ultimately, in the 1920s and 1930s, to his support of Mussolini: he saw the dictator in the light of mythical heroes, who embodied the spirit of the nation. In the early 1890s D'Annunzio moved to Naples, where his novel, The Intruder (1898), was serialized in Il corriere di Napoli. After a long liaison with the Countess Gravina Auguissola, D´Annunzio began in 1894 an affair with the actress Eleonora Duse. Their relationship started after D'Annunzio's journey to the Aegean islands. Inspired by Duse, he wrote several dramas for her, including LA GIOCONDA (1899) and FRANCESCA DA RIMINI (1901). In La Gioconda Lucio Settàla, a sculptor, has attempted suicide. He is recovering in the home of his wife Silvia, whom he had abandoned. Lucio's realizes that he is still in love with his mistress and creative inspiration, La Gioconda. When the two woman confront, La Gioconda tries to destroy Lucio's masterpiece - Silvia saves it but her hands are smashed. Lucio returns to his art and his mistress. The play was a fiasco. However, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa - or La Gioconda as it was called in Italy - remained D'Annunzio's obsession. He had already in 1889 composed a poem on mysteriously smiling dame, and republished its shortened version in Il Giornale d'Iltalia after the painting was stolen in 1911. "Ne la bocca era il sorriso / fulgidissimo e crudele / che il divino Leonardo / perseguì / ne le sue tele." Later D'Annunzio claimed that he had seen the painting before it was smuggled to Italy and wrote a treatment for a film, 'The Man who stole the Gioconda'. In 1897 D'Annunzio was elected to parliament for a three-year term, aligning himself in the beginning with the extreme right but moving then to the left. In 1899 D'Annunzio settled in a luxurious Tuscan villa, La Capponcina. He was defeated in the elections next year, but continued to live over his income. Accumulating debts forced D´Annunzio eventually to flee in 1910 to France, in Arcachon near Cap Ferret. There he began a new career as a writer. LE MARTYR DE SAINT SÉBASTIEN (1911), a play-with-music, was made with the French composer Claude Debussy. In its premiere, starring Ida Rubinstein, the writer Marcel Proust considered Ida's legs were the most interesting thing about the event. The work is still performed because of the celebrated music. When World War I broke out, D'Annunzio returned to Italy and started successful career as a military leader. D'Annunzio had yearned years for war which would change Italy's position as a second-rate power. He made speeches, wrote articles exhorting his countrymen to assist the Allied cause, and joined the air force, becoming one of Italy's most celebrated heroes. In a wartime flying accident, D'Annunzio lost an eye. His prose pieces in NOTTURNO (1921) were composed when he was recovering from the injury. In 1919, annoyed that Italy had lost the town of Fiume, D´Annunzio's troops occupied the town, where he ruled it as a dictator for eighteen months until 1920. At one point he declared war against Italy but was finally forced to retreat. Although Mussolini was much influenced by the tactics of D'Annunzio, the writer never held an important post in the Fascist government. D'Annunzio retired to his home on Lake Garda and spent his last years writing. In 1924 he was created Prince of Monte Nevoso and in 1937, following the death of Marconi, he was made president of the Italian Royal Academy. D'Annunzio died of a stroke at his desk on March 1, 1938. He was given a state funeral by Mussolini. D´Annunzio´s collected works were published in the 1950s. His correspondence with Mussolini appeared in 1971. Stern: Joyce said that the three great talents of the nineteenth century were Tolstoy, Kipling and - can you guess? D'Annunzio's fin-de-siècle works are now mostly forgotten and his plays are rarely performed. After World War II his reputation declined in the new literary atmosphere. However, his life has fascinated several biographers. Among D'Annunzio's more enduring works is The Flame of Life (1900), where the writer portrays himself as Stelio Effrena, a young writer infatuated with a famous actress. The novel is a fictionalized account of his love affair with Duse, and created a onsiderable scandal at the time of its publication. D'Annunzio's and Duse's relationship ended in 1910, when the Marchioness Alessandra di Rudini-Carolotti found an admirer from the author. For further reading: Wingless Victory: A Dual Biography of Gabrie D'Annunzio and Eleanora Duse by F. Winwar (1956); D'Annunzio: The Poet as Superman by A. Rhodes (1960); Gabriele D'Annunzio in France by G. Gullace (1966); D'Annunzio by P. Jullian (1972); The First Duce by M.A. Ledeen (1977); The Italian Stage from Goldoni to D'Annunzio by M. Carlson (1981);Gabriele D'Annunzio by C. Klopp (1988); Gabriele D'Annunzio by Charles Klopp (1988); Decadent Genealogies: The Rhetoric of Sickness from Baudelaire to D'Annunzio by Barbara Spackman (1989); Gabriele D'Annunzio: The Dark Flame by Paolo Valesio, et al (1992); D'Annunzio and the Great War by Alfredo Bonadeo (1995); Nationalism and Culture: Gabriele D'Annunzio and Italy After the Risorgimento by Jared M. Becker (1995); Gabriele D'Annunzio: Defiant Archangel by John Woodhouse (1998) - Other writers with nazi or fascist sympathies: Ezra Pound, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Curzio Malaparte , Knut Hamsun. Selected works:
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