CARDUCCI, GIOSUÈ. - Poet, born at Val di Castello (Pietrasanta) on July 28, 1835, died in Bologna on Feb. 16, 1907. He spent his childhood in Versilia, and his adolescence in the Tuscan Maremma, between Bolgheri and Castagneto: and he always looked back upon both with nostalgia
He had been teaching for a few months in the liceo of Pistoia when, in August '60, the minister Terenzio Mamiani offered him the chair of Italian literature at the University of Bologna.
C. immersed himself more than ever in philological studies. The first work that gave him fame as an eminent scholar was his edition of the vernacular works of Poliziano (1863). But he did not restrict himself "within the funeral shroud of erudition." In '63, after reading Michelet, Proudhon, and Quinet, he sought to praise Progress, in opposition to "Catholic obscurantism," in that Inno a Satana, which he himself later defined as a "strummed ballad."
Having plunged into the "democratic whirlwind," he impetuously expressed in the Giambi ed epodi the anxieties, intolerances, and wraths of the so-called "action party." The volume Levia gravia (Pistoia 1868) passed almost unnoticed; nor did the volume of all his Poesie, published by Barbèra in '71, meet with much fortune. In the two following years, C. composed new iambs and new poems, of those that would later enter the collection of Rime nuove, as well as some translations from Goethe, Platen, and Heine, making amends for his former disdain for foreign literatures. Following the publication of Nuove poesie (Imola 1873), C. Hillebrand wrote that "Europe, since the death of Heine, had not seen a poet arise equal to C." To his Italian critics he replied with the prose piece Critica e arte, which later became part of the Bozzetti critici e letterari (Livorno 1876), his first volume of militant criticism. The 2nd edition of Nuove poesie was published in Bologna in '75 by Nicola Zanichelli, who from then on became his publisher. The Odi barbare (1877) stirred up a great storm. But greater attention was paid to the novelty of the metric forms than to the novelty of the inspiration. Here too a German critic, C. Thaler, saw correctly: "... classical serenity breathes from every stanza that C. writes."
Having gone to Perugia for official business, in July and Oct. of that year, moved by the Franciscan landscape, he wrote the sonnet S. Maria degli Angeli and the Canto dell'amore, in which he yearns for a curious and Jacobin reconciliation with the papacy. More significant is the invocation of peace and the prayer to St. Francis, which springs forth suddenly in a letter to Lidia (Perugia, July 23, 1877): cf. Lettere, XI, Bologna 1947, pp. 153-55.
Ever since the visit of the new sovereigns to Bologna in Nov. '78 inspired him to write the ode Alla Regina d'Italia, C. gradually drew closer to the monarchy. Noteworthy was his participation in Roman literary and journalistic life, especially his collaboration with A. Sommaruga's Cronaca bizantina (1881-84), who became the publisher of several of his works, beginning with the three series of Confessioni e battaglie. The Zanichelli publishing house, which in '82 had published the Giambi ed epodi, published the Rime nuove in '87, and in '89 the 1st vol. of the Opere, which C. was fortunate enough to be able to edit himself for the most part (up to vol. XVI). In 1890 he was elected senator. His last collection of poetry, Rime e ritmi, dates from 1899: but he continued to write in prose at least until 1904, when he published his study on Dante's canzone Tre donne. In 1904, an infirmity forced C. to ask to be placed on the retired list. Minister V. E. Orlando had Parliament approve a law by which the State paid tribute to C.'s old age (as it had done in '59 to that of Manzoni) with an annual pension of 12,000 lire. European recognition of his poetry came with the Nobel Prize in 1906: but it was a titulus tumuli. The Queen Mother, who in 1902 had purchased his library while leaving him the use of it, also purchased C.'s modest house in 1906, donating it along with the library to the city of Bologna, which would take possession of it, transforming it into a museum, upon his death. And in front of C.'s house, today the Museo Carducciano, a monument created by Leonardo Bistolfi was unveiled in 1928.
C. collected all his Poesie into a single volume in 1901 (namely: Juvenilia, 1850-60; Levia gravia, 1861-71; Giambi ed epodi, 1867-79; Rime nuove, 1871-1887; Odi barbare, 1871-81; Rime e ritmi, 1887-95, and the Canzone di Legnano, 1876); and in 1905 he collected his selected Prose into a single volume.
The poetry of Juvenilia is school poetry: the young poet, classicist in form but already classic in spirit, resumed the thread of the national literary tradition which the second romanticism had broken. The Levia gravia, although not lacking in noteworthy poems, do not seem an essential moment in Carducci's lyrical development. In Giambi ed epodi C. returns to the lyrical satire exemplified by Archilochus' iambs and Horace's epodes, but he also keeps foreign examples in mind (A. Barbier, V. BALL, HUGO, E. Heine). It is true that political passion frequently erupts into violent sarcasms and invectives, and that some of these iambs, action rather than art, possess primarily documentary value, such as those against papal Rome and Pius IX; [those] for Eduardo Corazzini; for Giuseppe Monti and Gaetano Tognetti.
A new C. is found in the Rime nuove: "ancient ardor" has been succeeded by a "new peace"; and not only peace in C.'s heart, but aesthetic peace—an art that masters the tumult of passion. Admirably varied is this collection: the sonnets of Book I and the ballate and rispetti of Book II are a return to the fresh lyrical expressions of the first centuries of our literature; Book III, with the Primavere elleniche, is a classical interlude in neoclassical forms, prefiguring the Odi barbare; Book IV contains masterpieces of intimate poetry, such as Idillio maremmano and Davanti a San Guido; Books V and VI, masterpieces of historical poetry, such as Faida di comune and Ça ira; Book VII, translations—as fine as original poems—of German poets and ancient Spanish and French ballads. In the Rime nuove two aspirations prevail: the poetry of history and the poetry of affections that are both strong and tender.
The same duality of inspiration is found in the three series of Odi barbare, even if on rare occasions C. indulges in art for art's sake and takes refuge in "chiseled works" (hence the legend of an Alexandrian and Parnassian C.). On the one hand, heroic odes, such as the Roman ones, those of historical Nemesis, and those of the Risorgimento; on the other hand, intimate odes, which sing of visions of Italian landscapes, love, family affections, friendship, memories, death, and mystery. The odes are called barbare out of a classicist's scruple ("because such they would sound to the ears and judgment of Greeks and Romans, although intended to be composed in the metric forms of their lyric poetry, and because such they will unfortunately sound to very many Italians, although composed and harmonized with Italian verses and accents"), but they are the most classical thing modern lyric poetry has to offer. Finally, Rime e ritmi reconnects, through its rhymes, with the Rime nuove and, through its meters, with the Odi barbare. Contained in this collection is the ode La chiesa di Polenta (1897), a historical recollection (cf. Alle fonti del Clitunno) regarding the civil and religious mission of the Church in the Middle Ages.
Carducci was no less great a prose writer than a poet. Somewhat ornate in his early writings, comparable to the classicizing poetry of the Iuvenilia, he later knew how to combine and balance living usage with literary tradition. His autobiographical and epistolary prose brings to mind that notable part of his poetic production which may be called "the poetry of confessions." The author of the Giambi ed epodi lives again in his political and literary polemics. One feels the breath of Carducci's great civic odes in his major orations, among which is the one for "La libertà perpetua di S. Marino" from 1894, which also alludes to the presence of God in history.
In civil historiography he left sure marks; deeper ones in Italian philology, history, and literary criticism. There is no period, genre, or notable writer of our literature that he did not scrutinize and evaluate. Carducci's criticism consists of historical-etiological reconstructions, for which he can be considered the Italian Sainte-Beuve, and of truly incomparable analyses of literary works, especially stylistic ones.
In a letter dated Dec. 23, 1905, two years before his death, to Countess Silvia Pasolini, Carducci defined his thoughts on religion as follows: "I want to make my confessions: that is, I want to say things that, after my death, will remove any doubt as to how I thought and believed. Let us begin from the beginning: from God, or whoever is held to be God. Little more than a boy, I began a hymn to Christ thus: 'I know not who thou art, nor by what manner - Thou hast come down here...', applying to Christ the verses that Dante put into the mouth of Ugolino. Grown to manhood, I reinforced with my own words what I had hinted at sideways, notably in the Chiesa gotica: 'O inaccessible king of spirits, - your temples exclude the sun; - tortured martyr, you torture men, - you pollute the air with sadness...', and in the Fonti del Clitunno: ... 'a Galilean - with red hair ascended the Capitol, - threw a cross of his into its arms, and said: - Carry it, and serve'. - And certainly these are strong and unforgettable things. I confess that I let myself be carried away by the Roman principle, which was most ardent in me; and it was too much. But almost at the same time I thought and wrote sweet things about Christ: 'Oh, then when to the fresh banks of the Jordan - a gentle virtue draws the crowds...'. The fact remains that every time I was led to declaim against Christ, it was out of hatred against the priests; every time I thought of Christ free and untrammeled, it was my intimate feeling. This does not mean that I disown what I have done: what I wrote, I wrote: and I do not admit the divinity of Christ. But certainly some expressions are too much; and I, without adoring the divinity of Christ, bow to the Great Human Martyr. This I want to be known, and I write it to you, because you are capable of stating it openly. Giosuè Carducci." And postscriptum: "Thoughts of Christmas Eve, which I have always had, and to be taken into account. G. C." (A. Messeri, Da un carteggio inedito di G. C., Bologna 1907).