Italian Literature

Abstract

Giuseppe Prezzolini, one of the most distinguished Italian critics of his generation — he lived for one hundred years, and was active until the end, which came in 1982 — believed that the Italians, in unifying their country (1861), ‘deprived cultured Europeans of their second fatherland; Italy became a little competitor among other nations, and no longer the dream nation of those who already had their own country’. It must be added that Italy has had barely a century to build up a truly native literature. Carducci, greatly superior to D’Annunzio (qq.v.), did not acquire a European reputation. D’Annunzio did — but because of his decadent, fin de siècle (q.v.) Europeanness, not his Italianness. One of the more important thinkers of this century, Benedetto Croce (1866–1952), never succeeded in reaching a cosmopolitan audience: only his aesthetics are widely known outside Italy — but he treated almost every other subject under the sun. Furthermore, what D’Annunzio stands for is opposed to what Carducci stands for; it is more immediately impressive, but of less value.