The Italian Language

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The XX century

Early XX century thought was characterised by a deep anxiety, a sense of insecurity caused by the loss of faith in science and in reason. The Crepuscolari, a group of poets of a disenchanted twilight (from the Italian crepuscolo: twilight), gave expression to this ennui. They rejected contemporary political, social and cultural problems. The poet who voiced this languid melancholy most clearly was Guido Gozzano (1883-1916) whose merit lies in his skilful use of a simple, colloquial language.

The Futurist movement sought to be the voice of the dynamic modern world, praising the machine age and glorifying irrational energy, aggressive energy, violence, heroism and war. Futurist writers included Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944), author of the Futurist Manifesto, Corrado Govoni (1884-1965), Giovanni Papini (1881-1956), Aldo Palazzeschi (1885-1974). They searched for fresh modes of expression that led them to a new use of language, rejecting syntax, expressing the immediacy of the workings of the subconscious through analogy and suggestion.

		The works of Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) (Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934) originated on the fringes of Realism but soon took on their own identity through their bitter and ironic view of life. Pirandello character is anxious, desperate to live and to acquire importance, but remains unsatisfied and ends in bizarre, often insane situations. In an his view all appears relative, including this individual, whose discovery of his irrelevance and the insignificance of existence is at the core of Pirandello's novels Uno, Nessuno, Centomila and Il Fu Mattia Pascal and his plays Six Characters in Search of an Author, Henry IV and Così È, Se Vi Pare.
Luigi Pirandello

The Italian philosopher of European repute Benedetto Croce (1866-1952), dominated Italian culture for a long time. He was the first advocate of the individual as creator. He reaffirmed spiritual values and understood history as the progress of freedom. He was also active as a literary critic.

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (1896-1957) wrote of Sicilian society at the time of Italian unification in his Leopard.