There is none of this quality in his next production—the "Hymn on the Death of Sergio." "Neve" ("The Snow") appeared in 1914; "Rarefazione" ("Rarefactions") in 1915. The latter is a weird collection of childish figures designed by the poet and commented upon by him to such effect as to demonstrate a state of latent infantilism. In the same year he published a volume entitled "The Inauguration of the Spring" ("L'Inaugurazione della Primavera"), which contains most of Govoni's best work in poems. His last book, a series of short stories, "La Santa Verde" ("The Ardent Saint"), adds nothing to his fame. Most of them are insignificant, colorless, reliefless, purposeless.
An attempt has been made by champions of Corrado Govoni to show that "Base rivals, who true wit and merit hate" are forming a cabal to prevent his getting his deserts. Fiumi, his last champion, does not materially advance his claim.
Such, in all their diversity, are the Futurists. There is no common formula which describes them. They have a programme which, like that of the Socialists, must from its very nature lack specificity. They are not very definitely organized and many who enrolled under their banner in the enthusiasm of youth soon deserted the cause. But meanwhile they got sufficient inspiration and impetus to throw off the shackles of tradition and to taste the pleasure of exploration. More often they get purged of a kind of literary preciosity which makes for their well-being and usefulness. The programme of the Futurist is of little importance in itself, but it is of great importance as a symptom of tendencies now agitating the minds of the younger generation in Italy. It may be that their efforts will constitute the small end of the wedge by which Romanticism and Verism shall be burst asunder like the Dragon of Bel's Temple.
[CHAPTER V
GIOVANNI PAPINI AND THE FUTURISTIC LITERARY MOVEMENT IN ITALY]
In one of his "Appreciations"—depreciations would be the more fitting word—Signor Papini says he seems to have read or to have said that in every man there are at least four men: the real man, the man he would like to be, the man he thinks he is, and the man others think he is. He is sure to have read it, for he has read widely. Undoubtedly he has also said it, for he has made a specialty of saying things that have been said before—even that he has said before.
As for the man he thinks he is, he has written a long autobiography with plentiful data, from which it may be deduced that he is a man with great possibilities and a great mission, to wit, to precipitate in Italy a spiritual revolution, to bring to his countrymen the gospel that it is time to be up and doing and that intoxication with past successes will not condone present inertness. He has been chosen to teach men that the best of life is to be found in purposeful action regardless of inconsistencies, contradictions, and imperfections; that the ego should be guided peripherally not centrically; that introspection is the stepping-stone to mental involution. In reality, he is but one of many who are proclaiming those tidings in Italy.
The distinction between what he would like to be and what he thinks he is, is not so marked as in more timid and less articulate souls. Substantially, it is this same calling of prophecy which is his aim. As for the man he is, time and his own accomplishments alone will show. Now, at the zenith of his creative power, he is still a man of promise, a carrier-pigeon freighted with an important message who, instead of delivering it, exhausts himself beating his wings in a luminous void.
In Giovanni Papini these four aspects stand out very distinctly. Let us take them up in inverse order, since what others think of a man is soon stated and what he really is is a vague goal, to be approached only distantly, even at the end of this paper. Mr. Reginald Turner says: "Papini is by far the most interesting and most important living writer of Italy. 'L'Uomo Finito' has become a classic in Italy; it is written in the most distinguished Italian; it can be read again and again with increasing profit and interest ... its Italian is impeccable and clear. Mr. J. S. Barnes calls him the most notable personality on the stage of Italian letters to-day," and Signor G. Prezzolini writes: "His mind is so vast, so human, that it will win its way into the intellectual patrimony of Europe." I cannot go all the way with these adherents of Signor Papini. I have talked with scores of cultured Italians about his writings and I have heard it said, "He has acquired an enviable mastery of the Italian language," but I have never once heard praise of his "impeccable and clear Italian"; nor do I hold with Mr. Barnes that he is unquestionably the most notable personality save D'Annunzio on the stage of Italian letters to-day. We would scarcely call Mr. Shaw the most notable personality on the stage of English letters to-day. Surely it would be an injustice to Mr. Kipling, Mr. Wells, and Mr. Conrad. It might be unjust to Mr. Swinnerton.
Signor Papini is an interesting literary figure, particularly as a sign of the times. During the past generation there has been in Italy a profound revolt against what may be called satisfaction with and reverence for past performances and against slavish subscription to French, German, and Russian realism. It is to a group of writers who call themselves Futurists and who see in the designation praise rather than opprobrium that this salutary, beneficial, and praiseworthy movement is due.