[CHAPTER VII
IMPROVISIONAL ITALIAN LITERATURE OF TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY]
I never fully appreciated how hazardous it is to speak of the literature of a foreign country until I read an article in the Tribuna of Rome, signed Mario Vinciguerra, on Michaud's "Mystiques et Realistes Anglo-Saxons," which seeks to disparage the originality of some of our Transcendentalists, particularly Emerson, and to trace tendencies in our literature. I hope that I may be more successful in reviewing some of Italy's recent literature and in making an estimate of the merit of those who are responsible for it than Signor Vinciguerra, who says the two most potent romancers of living American writers are Jack London and Upton Sinclair. At least I shall not say that Guido da Verona and Salvator Gotta are the most potent romancers of Italy, and even I shall not go so far as to say that Luciano Zuccoli is. Any writer who would maintain that "Before the breaking out of the war the books that made the greatest stir in the United States were Upton Sinclair's 'A Captain of Industry,' 'The Jungle,' 'The Metropolis,' and Jack London's 'The Iron Heel,'" would not write himself so hopelessly ignorant of American literature as he would were he to claim that Harold Bell Wright and Rex Beach were our leading novelists. Such contention would show either unfamiliarity with our literature or dearth of understanding.
Previous to the war there was no such pouring out of literature in Italy as there was in England, and there were few writers of fiction whose output or content could be compared with that of Mr. H. G. Wells, Mr. Arnold Bennett, Mr. Hugh Walpole, Mr. Gilbert Cannan, Mr. Compton Mackenzie, Mr. D. H. Lawrence, and others. D'Annunzio had long since ceased to write romances. Matilda Serao was in the twilight of her years and literary career. Grazia Deledda was displaying stereotypy and Zuccoli reploughed the familiar acre. French fiction was the favorite pabulum of the Italian who would kill time, dispel ennui, and combat dearth. Since then, however, there has been a great change and there is every indication that Italians will provide literature for their countrymen which will at least obviate the necessity of importation.
That it has not yet been accomplished, however, must be admitted in the beginning. The young writers are like birds trying their wings, aerial pilots striving for altitude tests. From their performances one is justified in hoping, indeed believing, that they will go far and soar high, but up to date Verga dominates the field of Italian fiction just as Hardy dominates the field of English fiction.
No reference to the literature of to-day should fail to take note of the fact that much of the most important and suggestive fiction does not appear in book form, or at least not for a long time, but in periodicals such as the monthlies and quarterlies, and also in such publications as Novella and Comoedia. No one can gain a familiarity with the hundred or more active writers of fiction in Italy who does not see and read such publications. They lend themselves readily to brevity and to that speeding up which the Futurists urge, and they tend to do away with the long-drawn-out descriptions which are the despair of the average reader.
Another feature of the newer literature which augurs well for it is that its theme is not wholly portrayal of the genesic instinct and the multiform perversions to which it has been subject by culture and which Christianity has been unable materially to influence. We realize how large the subject has bulked in the literature of every nation, but it is probably not beyond the truth to say that it has bulked larger in the modern literature of Italy even than of France.
It is natural that recent literature has begun to occupy itself with the conditions of the people and to display awareness of the new significance that they are giving to the words liberty and equality, and an attempt is being made to reconcile preaching and practising in their bearings on life here and hereafter.
The acceptable fiction of to-day will reflect in some measure the world thought, or it will soothe man's cravings for assurance of future life and strengthen his belief in it. It is idle to deny that the pitch of man's thought to-day is materialistic, though his unconscious mind is steeped in the mystic. Could we but teach future generations the pleasure-potency of the imagination, we should give them an asset that would enhance the usefulness and efficiency of their lives comparable to health. But for some years at least there has been a mistaken notion that the chief sources of pleasure are responding to the call of the instincts, the fortuitous offerings of chance, and awaiting the day when the vital sap will return from the branches of that universal tree upon which we are the leaves to the trunk, that the spirit may be restored to the Infinite. "Poor vaunt of life, indeed, were man but formed to feed on joy, to solely seek and find and feast."
Pedagogy has never concerned itself with our imaginative life. That is left to endowment and to chance, which sometimes shows itself in the shape of a literary critic. Fortunate, indeed, is the people or nation that breeds competent critics, it matters not what field of activity they cultivate, letters, science, or theology. Italy has had many such, but there is a greater dearth of them now than ever before. With the exception of Benedetto Croce there is perhaps no one of more than national reputation.
It is, perhaps, unwise to select from the considerable number of present-day literary critics the names of a few, but I hazard it. Emilio Cecchi, of the Rome Tribuna, is a versatile, scholarly writer, a thoughtful, judicious estimator of his fellow writers' works, and a critic who is not obsessed with the impulse that is supposed to dominate a certain type of Irishman, namely, to hit a head whenever he sees it. Giuseppe Prezzolini, who has been very intimate with the Florentine group headed by Papini and who has written a critical estimate of his writings and made a glowing statement of his personal charms, has a sympathy and admiration for the writers of what may be called the new school. That does not prevent him from being a keen observer, a logical thinker with a judicious capacity to weigh the evidence presented by his fellow writers in their claim for popularity and fame. He is a type of literary man new to Italy, a keen critic, a clear thinker, a master of literary expression who devotes much of his energy to his publishing-house and to La Voce. His writings are chiefly political and critical, "Il Sarto Spirituale" ("The Spiritual Tailor"), "L'Arte di Persuadere" ("The Art of Persuading"), "Cos' è il Modernismo?" ("What is Modernism?"). He has done more to introduce and bring forward the potent group of young writers than any one in Italy.