The Italians by Luigi Barzini

Author:Luigi Barzini
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141933221
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2009-03-26T04:00:00+00:00

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This attachment to the solid, the substantial, and the real is particularly evident in the old novelle, the most typical product of Italian literature, the tales which Shakespeare and other northern poets ransacked for their plots. There are thousands of them. The very word novella is concrete. It does not mean story, a fiction of the imagination, a poetic invention, but news, actual news, reports of events which really took place, anecdotes in the life of rich, powerful and famous persons, information received from distant places. Foreign writers were as justified in borrowing ideas for their plays and poems from them as contemporary authors are in borrowing plots from the newspapers. The events in the old novelle do not take place in a misty and legendary atmosphere, among vaguely defined and shadowy characters, virtuous knights and noble maidens, driven by honorable motives, as in the stories which were written at about the same time, the late Middle Ages, in other parts of feudal Europe. There are real people in the Italian stories, merchants, monks, artisans, shopkeepers, and princes, human beings of solid flesh and sound appetites, who speak the quick and colourful dialects of the market place and the wine shop.

The lesson the reader drew was not meant to edify him. He did not learn to shun sin, to combat evil, to protect the weak, to control his base instincts, to respect the virtues of others, to reform the world, and prepare himself for salvation in after life; he learned mainly to protect himself from deceit, treachery, the arrogance and the cunning of others; to profit by their weakness, to see through their hypocrisy, and to enjoy the good things in life: the lusty wenches, the blushing maids, the good food, the good wine, the gay companions, and the victorious battles against feebler enemies. The cruel and ruthless ways of the world are accepted as unchangeable. They are seldom judged. The poor in spirit, the gullible, the naïve, the betrayed husband, in other words the fessi, are derided. Their sorry fate is considered not only inevitable but just and proper. The rich in spirit, the clever and strong men who use their gifts without scruples or charity, always come out on top, the object of the author's and the reader's admiration and approval. Only a few princes are allowed to be magnanimous and generous. All others live, win, or lose, strictly according to the rules of the game as the Italians understood them at the time and understand them, more or less unchanged, today.

Practically without interruption, through the years, Italians have continued to create works of art dedicated mainly to the praise of the strong and the powerful and the derision of the weak and defeated, or dedicated to the glory of the flesh, and the harmonious and perlaceous beauties of the naked female body; some of these works were coarse, ribald, bawdy, others delicate, thinly veiled, and allusive. Even when these artists tried their hands at more elevated subjects, their real tendencies ineluctably cropped up.

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