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Two Poetic Laboratories in Comparison: Dante’s Rime and Pasolini’s Poesie a Casarsa

Deux laboratoires poétiques en comparaison : les rime de Dante et Poesie a Casarsa de Pasolini
Due laboratori poetici a confronto: le rime di Dante e Poesie a Casarsa di Pasolini
Maddalena Moretti

Résumés

Cet article a pour but d’étudier le rapport entre Dante Alighieri et Pier Paolo Pasolini à travers une approche comparative. Le sujet de comparaison porte sur la première production poétique des deux auteurs, à savoir les premières rime (autour de 1283-1295) et Poesie a Casarsa (1942), que les deux auteurs ont intégrées dans des ouvrages successifs, en donnant naissance à un laboratoire poétique long et durable. Dante a réutilisé certaines rime dans la Vita Nova (autour de 1295) et dans le Convivio (1304-1307). Pasolini a republié Poesie a Casarsa dans La meglio gioventù (1954) et successivement, dans La nuova gioventù (1975). Dans cet article, nous voulons comparer les laboratoires poétiques de Dante et de Pasolini, afin de mettre en valeur les stratégies poétiques employées par les deux auteurs pour réhabiliter, à chaque fois, leur production de jeunesse. En particulier, nous démontrerons que pour les deux auteurs, la réutilisation des premiers poèmes a engendré une réinterprétation rétrospective de la précédente production poétique, et a contribué à la construction de leur autobiographie poétique.

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  • 1 Manuele Gragnolati, Amor che move: linguaggio del corpo e forma del desiderio in Dante, Pasolini e (...)

1The study of the relationship between Dante Alighieri and Pier Paolo Pasolini constitutes a rich and well-established field of literary criticism. The strong, often explicit references to Dante in Pasolini’s oeuvre has turned Pasolini’s Dantism into a specific research area inside the general field of Pasolini studies. Examined through the lens of intertextuality, Pasolini’s reception of Dante is understood as a creative and heterogeneous re-appropriation of the original source. The intention of this contribution is to investigate the relationship between the two authors from a different angle, that is, comparative literature. The differences in terms of language and culture, required in a comparative study, are replaced by the temporal and socio-cultural distance that divides a medieval and a contemporary author, despite their both belonging to the same literary tradition. In addition, this comparative study considers works written in diachronically distant idioms – Dante’s Florentine vernacular and Pasolini’s Friulian dialect. The methodology of this contribution takes its cue from Manuele Gragnolati’s Amor che move (2013), which brought a similar approach to the study of the relationship between Dante and Pasolini1. Gragnolati uses a method of “diffractive reading,” which makes the texts interact with one another. Without taking into account Dante’s influence on Pasolini, he studies them together and also one through the other. In a similar approach to that of Gragnolati’s study, this investigation will leave aside questions of influence and legacy. Employing a comparative approach will allow us to see compelling similarities between the two authors’ poetic strategies, adding to the study of their relationship.

  • 2 As I will explain further on, Dante’s rime refers to a group of lyrics written by the author over t (...)
  • 3 Pier Paolo Pasolini, Poesie a Casarsa (19421), in Pier Paolo Pasolini, Tutte le poesie, ed. by Walt (...)
  • 4 Teodolinda Barolini, “Le Rime di Dante tra storia editoriale e futuro interpretativo,” in Dante Ali (...)
  • 5 Franco Brevini, “Una vita trascorsa ricordando il Friuli,” Corriere della Sera, 24 December 1994.
  • 6 Dante Alighieri, Rime, ed. by Gianfranco Contini, Turin, Einaudi, 1939.
  • 7 Gianfranco Contini, “Al limite della poesia dialettale,” in Corriere del Ticino, 24 April 1943, in (...)
  • 8 Contini, “Al limite della poesia dialettale,” pp. 50-51.
  • 9 For the De vulgari eloquentia, I refer to the edition edition by Pier Vincenzo Mengaldo, in Dante A (...)
  • 10 Pier Paolo Pasolini, Poesia dialettale del Novecento: con traduzioni a piè di pagina, ed. by Mario (...)
  • 11 I refer to Pasolini’s Roman novels, written in a mix of Italian language and Romanesque slang: Pier (...)

2The object of comparison regards the early poetic works of the two authors: Dante’s rime (ca. 1283-1308)2 and Pasolini’s Poesie a Casarsa (1942)3. Their early poetry is key to understanding both poets’ experimentalism and their later greater works. The rime, says Teodolinda Barolini, are the ideological sources out of which the founding ideas of the divine poem emerge4. Franco Brevini argues that the centre of gravity of Pasolini’s oeuvre is the early Friulian poems. In order to understand this controversial author, he argues, one must start from there5. Both works were studied and commented on by the Italian critic Gianfranco Contini. His edition with commentary of the rime, published in 1939, is among the greatest studies on the work produced in the last century6. In 1943 Contini reviewed Poesie a Casarsa, grasping the importance of the collection, even though at that time its author was completely unknown7. Contini’s work appears as a precursor to the comparative study conducted here. Indeed, in his review Contini praises Pasolini’s use of dialect, elevating it to the level of “l’alta lingua letteraria,” and suggests a parallel with Dante’s use of vernacular8. In this respect, I would like to add that the two authors shared an interest for non-standard languages. Dante evaluated and used the vernacular in a time when Latin was both the language of the elite and the established literary language. He laid out arguments for the importance and legitimacy of the vernacular in the De vulgari eloquentia (1303-05) and wrote his “sacrato poema” in vernacular (Par. XXIII, 62)9. Pasolini was very interested in the question of dialect in twentieth-century Italy and in how to re-create it in literary language. He curated two anthologies of poetry in dialect in the 1950s10 and experimented with Friulian and Romanesque dialect in the course of his career11.

  • 12 For the Vita Nova, I refer to the edition edition by Domenico De Robertis, in Opere minori, ed. by (...)
  • 13 Pier Paolo Pasolini, La meglio gioventù (19541), in Tutte le poesie, I, pp. 1-159. Pier Paolo Pasol (...)

3Particularly notable is that both authors demonstrated a strong attachment to their early compositions, including them in later works. Dante reused some of the rime for the Vita Nova (ca. 1295) and for the Convivio (1304-07); and three of them are mentioned in the Commedia (1304-21)12. Pasolini republished Poesie a Casarsa in La meglio gioventù (1954) and later in La nuova gioventù (1975)13, his final poetic collection. In each case, one may then speak of a poetic laboratory, which runs across the poet’s life. By poetic laboratory, I mean a space where the author experiments with writing and reflects on his own production and poetics. This study intends to compare Dante and Pasolini’s poetic laboratory with the aim of highlighting the strategies employed by the two authors to renew and repurpose their early poetry. In particular, the intention is to demonstrate that, for both poets, reusing their early poems implied a retrospective re-interpretation of the previous poetic works, which contributed to the construction of the author’s poetic autobiography.

From the rime to the Commedia

4The rime are a series of lyric poems composed by Dante throughout his youth (beginning ca. 1283) and until the years of his exile (1307-08). As was customary at the time, Dante viewed his lyrics as freestanding independent texts and not as part of a single work, except for the ones he then included in the Vita Nova and the Convivio. In the beginning, there was thus no unified project containing all of the lyrics written by Dante. Only after his death were the lyrics organised into a single book by editors and copyists such as Boccaccio. The title Rime, as the collection is commonly known today, only became standard in the twentieth century. As mentioned before, Dante organised some lyrics previously written in the Vita Nova; he reused three canzoni in the Convivio, and he mentioned three canzoni (one already included in Vita Nova and two in the Convivio) in the Commedia – ‘Amor che nella mente mi ragiona’ (Purg. II, 112), ‘Donne ch’avete intelletto d’amore’ (Purg. XXIV, 51), and ‘Voi ch’ntendendo il terzo ciel movete’ (Par. VIII, 37). For reasons of consistency with the analysis of Pasolini’s poetic works, I will only focus on some early rime which Dante reused in his later poetic projects like the Vita Nova and the Commedia.

  • 14 I refer, for example, to the studies of Domenico De Robertis and Michelangelo Picone: Dante Alighie (...)
  • 15 Manuele Gnagnolati, “Authorship and performance in Dante’s Vita Nova,” in Manuele Gragnolati and Al (...)

5Composed in the first half of the 1290s, the Vita Nova presents itself as a retrospective summing up of Dante’s early career as a vernacular love lyricist. Following the prosimetrum form, the book consists of 31 poems – for the most part written earlier – surrounded by explanatory prose. The poems are presented as artifacts of the past, recounting specific moments of his love for Beatrice, whereas the prose belongs to the present of the book’s composition. As already noted by scholars, Dante’s organisation of the rime in the Vita Nova endowed them with a different meaning from the originals14. The new nature of the lyrics is not given by textual variants – which sometimes Dante included in his re-writing of the original versions – but by the prose and the narratio of the Vita Nova. Dante presents himself, at the beginning of the libello, not only as the author of these poems, but as the one who had selected, organised into a unified project, and commented upon them (NV 1.1). In summary, it is the mise-en-scène of the rime in the Vita Nova that effectively re-writes the poems, giving them a meaning that they did not originally have. Some of the differences between the rime as freestanding poems and as part of the Vita Nova have been recognised and commented on by scholars. However, it was only Gragnolati who, following the steps of Barolini’s edition of the rime (2009), underlined the importance of the dual temporality that characterises the rime and investigated in detail the semantic gap between the poems pre- and post-Vita Nova15. His work has thus proven particularly important for my study of Dante’s rime.

6A clear example of the Vita Nova’s poetic laboratory is the first sonnet:

  • 16 The text is quoted from Dante, Rime, ed. by Barolini. I refer to this also for the comment on the r (...)

A ciascun’alma presa e gentil core
nel cui cospetto vèn lo dir presente,
in ciò che mi rescrivan suo parvente,
salute in lor segnor, cioè Amore.
Già eran quasi che aterzate l’ore
del tempo che omne stella n’è lucente,
quando m’apparve Amor subitamente,
cui essenza membrar mi dà orrore.
Allegro mi sembrava Amor tenendo
meo core in mano, e nelle braccia avea
madonna involta in un drappo dormendo.
Poi la svegliava, e d’esto core ardendo
lei paventosa umilmente pascea.

Appresso gir lo ne vedea piangendo
16.

  • 17 Gragnolati, Amor che move, pp. 23-26.

7As a freestanding sonnet, ‘A ciascun’alma presa e gentil core’ is the obscure account of a dream. Amore carries a sleeping lady in his arms, then wakes her to make her eat the poet’s heart, and finally leaves crying. The description of the dream, characterised by a palpable erotic charge, was sent by Dante to other poets so that they could help him decrypt its meaning. With the poem, Dante aimed to start a dialogue with other fellow poets and indeed received three replies. Guido Cavalcanti’s reply, for example, ‘Vedeste a mio parere onne valore’, interprets the dream as sign of the attainment of happiness. In the Vita Nova, ‘A ciascun’alma presa e gentil core’ acquires a completely different meaning. The sonnet becomes the account of a vision prophesying Beatrice’s death and ascent to heaven, despite the fact that there is nothing in the sonnet itself suggesting that the lady held by Amore is Beatrice. It is only in the libello, which is centred around Beatrice’s death, that Dante’s dream can represent a premonition of her departure from life and glorious destiny in heaven17. The new meaning is also reinforced by the prose which accompanies the lyric, as it specifies that Amore carries the lady towards the sky – “braccia, e con essa mi parea che si ne gisse verso lo cielo” (VN 1.18). The sonnet is re-semanticised in the libello’s context, where it is charged with a meaning that could have not been extrapolated from the single poetic text.

  • 18 Gragnolati, Amor che move, pp. 29-31.

8Another bold re-writing concerns ‘Io mi senti’ svegliar dentro a lo core’, which depicts the approach of “monna Vanna e monna Bice” towards Dante as if in a pageant. Originally, the sonnet is a celebration of Amore, as well as of Cavalcanti’s and Dante’s beloved ladies, who are here called by their own names (Giovanna and Beatrice, respectively). In the Vita Nova, the poem creates a parallel between Beatrice and Christ, contributing to the process of Beatrice’s divinisation. As for the lyric commented on above, there is no sign of Christ in the poetic text. The Christological meaning is offered by the prose, where the name “Primavera,” referring to Giovanna, is interpreted as “prima verrà” and so associated to John the Baptist (VN 24.5-7). If Giovanna is John the Baptist, then Beatrice is Christ18. Acquiring such a different meaning, the lyric becomes something completely new compared to what it stood for before. Without re-writing the text, Dante successfully manages to change the rime’s original meaning.

  • 19 Gragnolati, Amor che move, p. 33.

9The poetic laboratory of the Vita Nova is read by Gragnolati in terms of a “performance of the author”19. Manipulating the poet’s early work, the book creates a new poetic identity, a new author, different from the one who had composed the rime. In the libello, Dante presents himself as the poet of a renewed form of love, both spiritual and mystical. He shows himself to have abandoned his Cavalcantian phase and the limits of that type of poetry – where love was seen as an overwhelming force which intellect could not control – and to have elaborated a new poetics, centred on the disinterested praise of the lady’s beauty and virtue – the so-called “stile della lode” (VN 17.4). In its new mystical nature, the love for the lady (Beatrice) becomes the means through which the poet can reach spiritual salvation and, hence, God.

  • 20 I refer to the commentary on the Commedia by Anna Maria Chiavacci Leonardi, Milan, Mondadori, 1991- (...)

10The quotation of the incipit of ‘Donne ch’avete intelletto d’amore in the Commedia confirms, retrospectively, the importance of the Vita Nova’s textual strategy for the creation of Dante’s poetic autobiography. In the libello, the canzone opens Dante’s new poetic phase and the departure from the Cavalcantian concept of love. In Purgatorio XXIV, Bonagiunta Orbicianni, who belongs to the previous generation of Tuscan poets, refers to Dante as the author of ‘Donne ch’avete intelletto d’amore’, praising him for initiating a new type of poetry: “Ma dì s’i’ veggio qui colui che fore / trasse le nove rime, cominciando / ‘Donne ch’avete intelletto d’amore’” (Purg. XXIV, 49-51). In response to Bonagiunta, Dante uses the present tense, suggesting that the meaning of his past poetry still matters to him and is present in the Commedia too: “I’ mi son un che, quando / Amor mi spira, noto, e a quel modo / ch’e’ ditta dentro vo significando” (Purg. XXIV, 52-54). In fact, it is because Dante wrote ‘Donne ch’avete intelletto d’amore’, initiating a poetics centred on spiritual and mystical love, that he is now writing his “poema sacro” (Par. XXV, 1). The extraordinary intuition Dante had in his youth, documented by the canzone and defined here with the image of the scriba amoris, serves as the foundation for the poetics of the Commedia. Later on in the poem, Dante will declare himself as the scribe of the material he narrates – “quella material ond’io son fatto sciba” (Par. X, 27) – that is, the scribe of that “Love that moves the sun and the other stars”20. Just like the Dante of Vita Nova gave a new meaning to his rime, so the Dante of the Commedia sums up his early poetics and, with a new consciousness, brings it to the level of his major work.

  • 21 For further details on Dante’s as a proto-modern author, see Albert Russell Ascoli, Dante and the M (...)

11First the Vita Nova and then the Commedia were written by an author who actively governed the meaning of his own work and believed himself to be in full and conscious control of his own poetic output. Moreover, the definition of his own authorship was crucial for him. By reusing the rime and charging their original meaning with an ever-new perspective, Dante was able to hold on to the reins of his poetic autobiography. In this respect, Dante demonstrated an engagement with his own materials that is similar to that of a modern writer21.

The publishing history of Poesie a Casarsa

  • 22 Francesca Cadel, La lingua dei desideri: il dialetto secondo Pier Paolo Pasolini, Lecce, Manni, 200 (...)
  • 23 Pier Paolo Pasolini, Pasolini su Pasolini (19921), in Pier Paolo Pasolini, Saggi sulla politica e s (...)

12As was the case for Dante, Pasolini’s literary career began under the sign of lyrical poetry. In his years as a student of literature at the University of Bologna, Pasolini composed Poesie a Casarsa and published it at his own expense in 1942. His poetic debut brought novelty to the Italian literary context of the time for, in the first place, his choice of idiom. The collection consists of 14 poems written in a poetic language inspired by a variety of Friulian dialect of Casarsa della Delizia, the town from which Pasolini’s mother hailed and where Pasolini’s family used to spend their summer holidays. Neither Pasolini nor his mother were native speakers of this specific Friulian dialect. Thus, Pasolini acquired it by listening to the local farmers, who were native speakers, and wrote his poems with the help of Friulian dictionaries. The intense subjectivity of the language matches the autobiographical and narcissist character of the poems. The dialect of Poesie a Casarsa is re-created for the sole purpose of being a literary-hermetic language to express the poet’s own inner self22. As Pasolini said when reflecting back on his early poems: “Come linguaggio speciale per la poesia io adottai il friulano, ed era l’esatto contrario di ogni tendenza al realismo. Era il massimo dell’irrealismo, il massimo dell’oscurità23. Just as Dante had sent the early sonnet ‘A ciascun’alma presa e gentil core’ to other fellow poets, Pasolini sent his collection for reading to other poets and critics such as, for example, the aforementioned Contini.

  • 24 Pier Paolo Pasolini, Dov'e la mia patria, Casarsa, Edizioni dell'Academiuta, 1949. Pier Paolo Pasol (...)
  • 25 For further reference to the poems collected in La meglio gioventù, see Walter Siti and others, Not (...)
  • 26 Pasolini inserted some variants and created a new phonetic vest; four poems were removed (‘L’ingann (...)

13Twelve years later, Pasolini reorganised Poesie a Casarsa into the broader collection of La meglio gioventù (1954), which also contains poems in dialect previously published in other works (in 1949 and 1953)24 or in journals (1942-53), as well as some which were previously unpublished. La meglio gioventù contains, essentially, the whole of Pasolini’s productions in dialect, from the early years of Poesie a Casarsa to 1953, in a new organised form25. Inside the collection is divided into two volumes. ‘Volume primo: Poesie a Casarsa’ is composed of two sections: ‘Poesie a Casarsa (1941-43)’ which contains the poems of the first collection with some variations and additions26, and ‘Suite furlana (1944-49)’ which collects other later poems, similar in terms of style and theme to the first ones. ‘Volume secondo: Romancero’ contains poems written during the period 1947-1953 and is also organised into two sections: ‘Il Testamento di Coràn (1947-52)’ and ‘Romancero (1953)’.

  • 27 For the analysis of the differences between Poesie a Casarsa and La meglio gioventù, I refer to Cad (...)

14The differences between the first and second volume are evident in terms of language and subject. Compared to the invented Casarsese of the 1942 collection, the poems in ‘Romancero’ present a more accurate use of the dialect, as well as a greater number of variants of Friulian dialect. This is because Pasolini lived continuously in Friuli between 1943 and 1950. Moreover, in the second volume, the strictly autobiographical theme is abandoned in favour of a more otherness-focused subject; it reveals a growing attention to the outside world of the Friulian peasants. A good example of these changes is ‘El testament Coran’. The poem is written in the Venetian-Friulian variant of Bianna and narrates the historical event of the killing of a young farmer by German soldiers in 1944. Compared to Poesie a Casarsa, thus, Pasolini’s later Friulian work is less lyrical and presents a more realistic use of dialect27.

15The two volumes represent distinct phases of Pasolini’s poetics in dialect, and the dual structure according to which Pasolini reorganised his poems reveals the intention to strengthen their differences even more. The fact that La meglio gioventù is divided into two main parts seems to suggest to the reader that the collection should be read as the progressive evolution of the poet’s poetics from the early 1940s to the 1950s. By inserting Poesie a Casarsa in a chronological sequence, Pasolini outlined his own ideal poetic autobiography, showing how important and necessary his early poems had been to achieve his present poetics. Even though Poesie a Casarsa refers to a past poetic phase, the author did not abandon it but rather charged it with a new perspective. In a way that is similar to what Dante does in the Vita Nova, Pasolini renewed his early Friulian work in a broader context and mediated their reception. In addition, attaching them to the less lyrical and more realistic part of ‘Romancero’ adds meaning to his early poems. The stratification of different poetic materials in the same collection affects the original meaning of the early work.

  • 28 Pasolini, “Nota” (1974), in La nuova gioventù, p. 520. See this also for information about Pasolini (...)

16The publishing history of Poesie a Casarsa goes on. Thirty-three years after the first edition, Pasolini republished it a second time, in the collection La nuova gioventù (1975). This work also presents a dual structure. The first volume faithfully reproduces La meglio gioventù, and therefore Poesie a Casarsa, which is the first part of the 1954 collection. The second volume, entitled ‘Seconda forma de La meglio gioventù’, contains new poems, some in dialect and some in a mix of Italian and Friulian. The ones in dialect are new versions of the poems collected in the first volume of the 1954 collection and therefore of Poesie a Casarsa. Thus, in the same collection there are, on the one hand, the early Friulian poems and, on the other, their new 1970s versions. In the ‘Nota’ to the collection, Pasolini explains the dual structure of the work and invites the reader to compare the texts of the previous edition with the new versions to draw attention to similarities and differences: Il lettore […] potrà […], in un confronto testuale tra la ‘vecchia’ e la ‘nuova’ forma, notarne le concordanze (che vorrebbero essere ‘formalmente’ preminenti, anzi assolute) e le discordanze28. Despite the poet’s wish that the similarities would prevail, the new versions carry a completely new perspective. Pasolini starts from the original text to then create something completely new; he produces a drastic overturning of meaning. Looking at the re-writing of ‘Dedica’ and comparing it to the original text explains the poet’s poetic operation well:

  • 29 Pasolini, “Dedica,” in La meglio gioventù, p. 9.

Fontana di aga dal me paìs.
A no è aga pì fres-cia che
tal me paìs.
Fontana di rustic amòur
29.

  • 30 Pasolini, “Dedica,” in La nuova gioventù, p. 407.

Fontana di aga di un paìs no me.
A no è aga pì vecia che tal chel paìs.
Fontana di amòur par nìssùn
30.

  • 31 Marco Antonio Bazzocchi, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Milan, Mondadori, 1998, p. 127.

17The new version stands as a doubling of the previous meaning but in a negative sense. What was an open declaration of love towards Casarsa has been turned into a refusal of the adopted hometown. The re-writing of Poesie a Casarsa should be understood as the rejection of the worldview that had sustained Pasolini’s poetics until then. It is also a poetic mourning of the Friulian rural world and language, which capitalist society had eventually destroyed. At that time, in fact, Pasolini believed that linguistic and cultural variety were disappearing in Italian society, replaced by mass culture and the television’s Italian. The term nuova, which in Dante’s work had assumed a positive meaning – a new poetics and a renewed love for the lady – is charged with a strongly negative connotation in Pasolini’s. It represents the deadly novelty brought about by capitalist society, which has cancelled what was best before31. In the troubling time of capitalism, Pasolini felt the need to rethink his poetics and his role as a poet. He did so by looking back to Poesie a Casarsa, which had represented his debut in this role. This shows how important the early poems had been for the construction of Pasolini’s own poetic identity. Published a few months before the poet’s death, La nuova gioventù happened to be Pasolini’s final collection, closing his poetic parable there where it had all started, as if it were a circle.

  • 32 Pasolini, “Le ceneri di Gramsci,” in Le ceneri di Gramsci (19571), in Tutte le poesie, I, pp. 815-2 (...)

18Comparing the poetic laboratory of La nuova gioventù with the Vita Nova highlights the authors’ poetic strategies. Dante did not draw attention to the pre-Vita Nova nature of the rime: they exist only in the libello and with the specific meaning given by the context. To the contrary, Pasolini drew attention to the pre-history of the poems by exhibiting the original version next to the new version and asking the reader to examine them in comparison. The dual, opposing nature of the poems does not produce a synthesis; the contradiction remains unsolvable. In this respect, the final edition of Poesie a Casarsa mirrors the eternal duality and inner contradiction that Pasolini noted as his most remarkable feature – what Pasolini called “lo scandalo del contraddirmi”32.

Conclusions

19The comparison between Dante’s and Pasolini’s poetic laboratories has highlighted the textual strategies employed by the two authors to renew their early poetry. It has also shown that, for both poets, reusing the early poems implied a retrospective summing up and re-interpretation of the previous poetic experience and meaning. The rime assume a new meaning in the context of the Vita Nova just as Poesie a Casarsa does in its two subsequent editions. The textual strategies adopted by both authors do not consist in re-writing the early texts. The new meaning is given by the assimilation of the early poems into a new, more expansive project, which re-semanticises them. The result is, in both cases, the creation of a layered textuality and a multi-temporal perspective.

20Dante’s modernity in terms of authorship has offered a common ground to underline another significant similarity between the two poetic laboratories. The re-use and re-semantisation of the early poetry are a strategy both poets adopted to develop and perform their authorship. The early rime and Poesie a Casarsa are not symbols of a specific time in the poets’ lives; their multi-temporal existence offered the two poets an ideal space to draw their poetic autobiography. Dante and Pasolini’s vita nova flowed side by side with the new meaning given to their first poetry. In conclusion, by underlining a strong linkage between poetic laboratory and poetic identity in the publishing history of both the rime and Poesie a Casarsa, this comparative approach has brought new insights to the study of the relationship between Dante and Pasolini. It has proven that there are compelling shared tendencies between the two poets which go beyond questions of influence and legacy.

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Bibliographie

Works by Dante Alighieri

Convivio, ed. by Cesare Vasoli and Domenico De Robertis, in Opere minori, Milan-Naples, Ricciardi, 1988, I.2.

De vulgari eloquentia, ed. by Pier Vincenzo Mengaldo, in Opere minori, ed. by Pier Vincenzo Mengaldo and others, 2 vols, Milan-Naples, Ricciardi, 1979, II, pp. 3-237.

La Commedia secondo l’antica vulgata, ed. by Giorgio Petrocchi, Milan, Mondadori, 1966-67.

Rime giovanili e della Vita Nuova, ed. by Teodolinda Barolini, notes by Manuele Gragnolati, Milan, BUR, 2009.

Rime, ed. by Gianfranco Contini, Turin, Einaudi, 1939.

Rime, ed. Domenico De Robertis, in Le Opere di Dante Alighieri, Edizione Nazionale ed. by Società Dantesca Italiana, 5 vols, Florence, Le Lettere, 2002.

Vita Nova, ed. by Domenico De Robertis, in Opere minori, ed. by Domenico De Robertis and Gianfranco Contini, 2 vols, Milan-Naples, Ricciardi, 1984, i.1, pp. 1-247.

Works by Pier Paolo Pasolini

Poesie a Casarsa [1942], in Tutte le poesie, ed. by Walter Siti, 2 vols, Milan, Mondadori, 2003, I, pp. 163-93.

Dov’e la mia patria, Casarsa, Edizioni dell’Academiuta, 1949.

Poesia dialettale del Novecento: con traduzioni a piè di pagina, ed. by Mario Dell’Arco and Pier Paolo Pasolini, Parma, Guanda, 1952.

Tal cour di un frut, Tricesimo-Udine, Edizioni di lingua friulana, 1953.

La meglio gioventù [1954], in Tutte le poesie, ed. by Walter Siti, 2 vols, Milan, Mondadori, 2003, I, pp. 1-159.

Canzoniere italiano. Antologia della poesia popolare, ed. by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Parma, Guanda, 1955.

Ragazzi di vita [1955], in Romanzi e racconti, ed. by Walter Siti and Silvia De Laude, 2 vols, Milan, Mondadori, 1998, I, pp. 521-771.

Una vita violenta [1959], in Romanzi e racconti, ed. by Walter Siti and Silvia De Laude, 2 vols, Milan, Mondadori, 1998, I, pp. 817-1193.

Le ceneri di Gramsci [1957], in Tutte le poesie, ed. by Walter Siti, 2 vols, Milan, Mondadori, 2003, I, pp. 815-26.

La nuova gioventù [1975], in Tutte le poesie, ed. by Walter Siti, 2 vols, Milan, Mondadori, 2003, II, pp. 391-520.

Pasolini su Pasolini [1992], in Saggi sulla politica e sulla società, ed. by Walter Siti and Silvia De Laude, Milan, Mondadori, 1999, pp. 1283-399.

Other works

Bazzocchi, Marco Antonio, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Milan, Mondadori, 1998.

Borghello, Giampaolo and Angela Felice (eds), Pasolini e la poesia dialettale, Venice, Marsilio, 2014.

Brevini, Franco, “Una vita trascorsa ricordando il Friuli,” Corriere della Sera, 24 December 1994.

Cadel, Francesca, La lingua dei desideri: il dialetto secondo Pier Paolo Pasolini, Lecce, Manni, 2002.

Contini, Gianfranco, “Al limite della poesia dialettale,” in Corriere del Ticino, 24 April 1943.

Gnagnolati, Manuele, “Authorship and performance in Dante’s Vita Nova,” in Manuele Gragnolati and Almut Suerbaum (eds), Aspects of the Performative in Medieval Culture, Berlin/New York, De Gruyter, 2010.

---, Amor che move: linguaggio del corpo e forma del desiderio in Dante, Pasolini e Morante, Milan, Il Saggiatore, 2013.

Picone, Michelangelo, “Dante rimatore,” in Letture classensi, 24, 1995, pp. 171-188.

Russell, Albert Ascoli, Dante and the Making of a Modern Author, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Siti, Walter and others, “Note e notizie sui testi,” in Pier Paolo Pasolini, Tutte le poesie, ed. by Walter Siti, 2 vols, Milan, Mondadori, 2003, I, pp. 1453-774.

Voza, Pasquale, Tra continuità e diversità: Pasolini e la critica: storia e antologia, Naples, Liguori, 2000.

Online resources

Dartmouth Dante Project, Robert Hollander, Stephen Campbell, and Simone Marchesi (eds), https://dante.dartmouth.edu

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Notes

1 Manuele Gragnolati, Amor che move: linguaggio del corpo e forma del desiderio in Dante, Pasolini e Morante, Milan, Il Saggiatore, 2013.

2 As I will explain further on, Dante’s rime refers to a group of lyrics written by the author over the course a long period. In my study, I consider only early poems composed between 1283 (the date of ‘A ciascun Alma presa e gentil core’) and the years of the Vita Nova (1293-95).

3 Pier Paolo Pasolini, Poesie a Casarsa (19421), in Pier Paolo Pasolini, Tutte le poesie, ed. by Walter Siti, 2 vols, Milan, Mondadori, 2003, I, pp. 163-93.

4 Teodolinda Barolini, “Le Rime di Dante tra storia editoriale e futuro interpretativo,” in Dante Alighieri, Rime giovanili e della Vita Nuova, ed. by Teodolinda Barolini, notes by Manuele Gragnolati, Milan, BUR, 2009, pp. 5-40, p. 5.

5 Franco Brevini, “Una vita trascorsa ricordando il Friuli,” Corriere della Sera, 24 December 1994.

6 Dante Alighieri, Rime, ed. by Gianfranco Contini, Turin, Einaudi, 1939.

7 Gianfranco Contini, “Al limite della poesia dialettale,” in Corriere del Ticino, 24 April 1943, in Pasquale Voza, Tra continuità e diversità: Pasolini e la critica: storia e antologia, Naples, Liguori, 2000, pp. 49-52.

8 Contini, “Al limite della poesia dialettale,” pp. 50-51.

9 For the De vulgari eloquentia, I refer to the edition edition by Pier Vincenzo Mengaldo, in Dante Alighieri, Opere minori, ed. by Pier Vincenzo Mengaldo and others, 2 vols, Milan-Naples, Ricciardi, 1979, II, pp. 3-237. For the edition of the Commedia, I refer to Dante Alighieri, La Commedia secondo l’antica vulgata, ed. by Giorgio Petrocchi, Milan, Mondadori, 1966-67, and use the following abbreviations: Purg. – Purgatorio, Par. – Paradiso.

10 Pier Paolo Pasolini, Poesia dialettale del Novecento: con traduzioni a piè di pagina, ed. by Mario Dell’Arco and Pier Paolo Pasolini, Parma, Guanda, 1952. Pier Paolo Pasolini, Canzoniere italiano. Antologia della poesia popolare, ed. by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Parma, Guanda, 1955. For details on Pasolini and dialect poetry, see Giampaolo Borghello and Angela Felice (eds), Pasolini e la poesia dialettale, Venice, Marsilio, 2014.

11 I refer to Pasolini’s Roman novels, written in a mix of Italian language and Romanesque slang: Pier Paolo Pasolini, Ragazzi di vita (19551), in Pier Paolo Pasolini, Romanzi e racconti, ed. by Walter Siti and Silvia De Laude, 2 vols, Milan, Mondadori, 1998, I, pp. 521-771; Una vita violenta (19591), in Romanzi e racconti, I, pp. 817-1193.

12 For the Vita Nova, I refer to the edition edition by Domenico De Robertis, in Opere minori, ed. by Domenico De Robertis and Gianfranco Contini, 2 vols, Milan-Naples, Ricciardi, 1984, i.1, pp. 1-247. Henceforward, VN. For the Convivio; I refer to the edition ed. by Cesare Vasoli and Domenico De Robertis, in Opere minori, Milan-Naples, Ricciardi, 1988, I.2.

13 Pier Paolo Pasolini, La meglio gioventù (19541), in Tutte le poesie, I, pp. 1-159. Pier Paolo Pasolini, La nuova gioventù (19751), in Tutte le poesie, II, pp. 391-520.

14 I refer, for example, to the studies of Domenico De Robertis and Michelangelo Picone: Dante Alighieri, Rime, ed. Domenico De Robertis, in Le Opere di Dante Alighieri, Edizione Nazionale ed. by Società Dantesca Italiana, 5 vols, Florence, Le Lettere, 2002; Michelangelo Picone, “Dante rimatore,” in Letture classensi, 24, 1995, pp. 171-188.

15 Manuele Gnagnolati, “Authorship and performance in Dante’s Vita Nova,” in Manuele Gragnolati and Almut Suerbaum (eds), Aspects of the Performative in Medieval Culture, Berlin/New York, De Gruyter, 2010, pp. 125-142; then in Gragnolati, “Identità d’autore. La performance della Vita Nuova,” in Amor che move, pp. 17-34.

16 The text is quoted from Dante, Rime, ed. by Barolini. I refer to this also for the comment on the rime as freestanding text.

17 Gragnolati, Amor che move, pp. 23-26.

18 Gragnolati, Amor che move, pp. 29-31.

19 Gragnolati, Amor che move, p. 33.

20 I refer to the commentary on the Commedia by Anna Maria Chiavacci Leonardi, Milan, Mondadori, 1991-1997, Purgatorio XXIV Nota, in Robert Hollander, Stephen Campbell, and Simone Marchesi (eds), Dartmouth Dante Project, accessed 27 April 2021, https://dante.dartmouth.edu.

21 For further details on Dante’s as a proto-modern author, see Albert Russell Ascoli, Dante and the Making of a Modern Author, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008.

22 Francesca Cadel, La lingua dei desideri: il dialetto secondo Pier Paolo Pasolini, Lecce, Manni, 2002, pp. 25-26.

23 Pier Paolo Pasolini, Pasolini su Pasolini (19921), in Pier Paolo Pasolini, Saggi sulla politica e sulla società, ed. by Walter Siti and Silvia De Laude, Milan, Mondadori, 1999, pp. 1283-399, p. 1289.

24 Pier Paolo Pasolini, Dov'e la mia patria, Casarsa, Edizioni dell'Academiuta, 1949. Pier Paolo Pasolini, Tal cour di un frut, Tricesimo-Udine, Edizioni di lingua friulana, 1953.

25 For further reference to the poems collected in La meglio gioventù, see Walter Siti and others, Note e notizie sui testi, in Tutte le poesie, I, pp. 1453-774, pp. 1459-533.

26 Pasolini inserted some variants and created a new phonetic vest; four poems were removed (‘L’ingannata’, ‘Al fratello’, ‘Fuga’, ‘Altàir’); and five new poems, written in 1943, were added to the original corpus (‘Aleluja’, ‘Fevràr’, ‘A na fruta’, ‘Vilota’, ‘Romancerillo’).

27 For the analysis of the differences between Poesie a Casarsa and La meglio gioventù, I refer to Cadel, La lingua dei desideri, pp. 114-45.

28 Pasolini, “Nota” (1974), in La nuova gioventù, p. 520. See this also for information about Pasolini’s variations and additions to the new collection.

29 Pasolini, “Dedica,” in La meglio gioventù, p. 9.

30 Pasolini, “Dedica,” in La nuova gioventù, p. 407.

31 Marco Antonio Bazzocchi, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Milan, Mondadori, 1998, p. 127.

32 Pasolini, “Le ceneri di Gramsci,” in Le ceneri di Gramsci (19571), in Tutte le poesie, I, pp. 815-26, p. 820.

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Maddalena Moretti, « Two Poetic Laboratories in Comparison: Dante’s Rime and Pasolini’s Poesie a Casarsa »TRANS- [En ligne], 27 | 2021, mis en ligne le 17 février 2022, consulté le 07 février 2025. URL : http://0-journals-openedition-org.catalogue.libraries.london.ac.uk/trans/6559 ; DOI : https://0-doi-org.catalogue.libraries.london.ac.uk/10.4000/trans.6559

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Auteur

Maddalena Moretti

Maddalena Moretti is a LAHRI Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Leeds, where she recently obtained a PhD in Italian Studies. Her doctoral research, entitled Pasolini’s Reconceptualisation of Dante in his Theory and Practice of Realism, investigates the legacy of Dante and twentieth-century Dante critics in Pasolini’s approach to the question of realism. Before her PhD degree, Maddalena Moretti studied at the University of Bologna, when she obtained a BA (2012) and an MA (2014) in Modern Literature. Her research interests bring together Italian literature and twentieth-century studies.

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