Letteratura e cultura nei periodici veronesi di fine Ottocento

Towards the end of the XIX century, Verona shows an unexpected cultural dynamism in literary and political press: in this period, the Italian town is no longer culturally isolated as it was during the first half of the century. The periodicals that are published after 1866 reveal that Verona looks especially at the Milanese journalism, and that it aims to take part in the national cultural debate. During the Seventies, some Veronese journalists (Gaetano Patuzzi, Vittorio Betteloni, Dario Papa, Francesco Giarelli, Ruggero Giannelli, Pier Emilio Francesconi) who have emigrated to Milan make Scapigliatura’s literature known to intellectuals who stay in Verona. These journalists also work in Milanese press. Through this thesis, I demonstrate that Veronese press shows both analogies and differences from Milanese and national press. As most of the Italian magazines, Veronese periodicals (political dailies above all) publish French feuilletons. “L’Arena” and “L’Adige” pay a wide attention to French novels edited by the most popular French writers: Pierre Zaccone, Paul Féval, Jules Mary, Xavier de Montépin, Ponson du Terrail. Serial stories by Italian writers are generally historical novels; their authors are particularly known in the Veronese area. The Veronese periodicals do not publish Scapigliatura’s neither Naturalistic novels. Only “La Nuova Arena” reduces the space of historical novel and makes adventure novels known to its subscribers. As the most important Italian periodicals in the end of the XIX century, Veronese magazines reveal a plebiscitary predilection for the Italian short novel. The authors are mostly known in Veronese area, even though some of their names have already become famous in some national periodicals. Most of Veronese short novels belong to pathetic-sentimental genre, but many of them show elements which are typical of Scapigliatura’s literature: young artists, phthisical characters, ghosts, femmes fatales, sick and ugly women, verminous corpses lying in cemeteries or above anatomical tables. These tales have usually a happy end: Veronese short stories show the most superficial elements of the Scapigliatura’s literature. They exclude the historical reflection and the debate about antimilitarism, while their characters are far away from the feeling of existential alienation which is typical of some Bohémiens novels. Even the reflection about the role of science, of religion and of traditional Italian literature is marginal. Veronese novels and short novels reveal a typically traditional and “polite” language, and they avoid any attempt at linguistic renewal. Veronese press pays attention to foreign literature, as it is shown by many translations from Goethe, Heine, Byron, Tennyson, Shelley, Shakespeare, Hamerling e Tolstoj, written by Carlo Faccioli, Andrea Maffei, Vittorio Betteloni e Gaetano Patuzzi. Even poetry shows traditional elements: a classical language and a classical thematic repertory. Veronese magazines, especially political dailies, reduce the space reserved to poetry. The poetries belong both to sentimental and to Scapigliatura genre. Most of the poets are well known in the local literary world, but some of them are famous even out of Verona: Gaetano Patuzzi, Vittorio Betteloni and Aleardo Aleardi. National poets and Scapigliatura’s poets instead have a marginal role in the Veronese press. Bibliographical reviews are very numerous. Few reviews talk about the most important names of Italian literature: Carducci, Fogazzaro, D’Annunzio, Baudelaire, because most of articles are about Veronese poets, novelists and journalists. In conclusion, the trend of Veronese periodicals can be defined as “cautiously ecletic” because, apart from the literary genre to which they belong, the texts I examined show particularly Scapigliatura’s literary elements, but also Realistic and Decadent elements. Some Veronese journals and intellectuals are able to experiment a literary renewal according to the social instances of the new Italy; but the most of writers does not dare to shake the solid foundations of Veronese culture, neither they realize the necessity of literary renewal both in form and content in a society which is getting ready, even if late, to capitalism and industrialism.