Full transcript of “Lezione 18 - Italo Svevo”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:12 Hi everyone, today we're going to talk about Italys Vivo. Italys Vivo's real name was Aaron Ecto Smith and he was born in Trieste in 1861. At that time, Trieste was a city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, so he was actually an Austrian. His father was an Austrian Jewish man and his mother was Italian, so at home he spoke either the Florentine dialect or, excuse me, the Trieste dialect or German. So for him, Italian was a language he acquired later on. He
0:58 learned it little by little, over time, and this is something he is keen to emphasize. Later on, when he published his novels, he published them under the pseudonym Italosvo, to show that he was half Italian, half German. Svevo was from a German family, but his real name was something else. And Trieste was a multi-ethnic city. It was an important port in the empire. It was one of the very few outlets to the sea of the Austrian empire. So it was a multi-ethnic city. also rich from a commercial point of view and Svih belonged to a bourgeois family and in 1874 he went to study in Germany.
1:47 And then in 1880, after finishing his studies, he worked in a bank and it was a job that would last him for quite a long time. In 1892 his father died, a very important figure, his father, also because he had, as would later be the case for his characters, a very turbulent, conflicted relationship with his father. In the same year, in 1892, he published his first novel A Life. And it was a great failure. Now we will see why. In 1896 he married, let's say, the daughter of a merchant who was a business partner of his father, from a very wealthy family, Livia Veneziani.
2:36 And then, for this very reason, he soon quit his job at the bank and started working in his father-in-law's company. In 1996, he published his second novel, Senelita. And this too was a great failure, perhaps even worse than the first. He was disappointed, he got angry, he said, enough, I won't write anymore. Well, he left the bank and stopped writing, he changed his life and started traveling, both for work and for other reasons. He met James Joyce, who was one of the greatest European novelists of the 1900s, and in 1908 he also learned about Freud's psychoanalysis. Well, he was the first to learn about it compared to the rest of Italy,
3:23 also because he could read it directly in German, of course, and without having to wait for the Italian translation. In 1915, at the outbreak of the First World War, his father-in-law's company went into crisis because, well, the war had stopped much of the non-war production and so he found himself, in effect, without a job. As he himself says, and as he himself says, having a lot of free time, he started writing again. In 1919, in 1923 he wrote, in fact, in 23 he would publish his great masterpiece, Zeno's Conscience. And this time instead it was a great success, also because it was reviewed by
4:11 both a French newspaper and by Joyson in Italy it would also be reviewed by Montal and therefore the cultural climate changed. Zeno's conscience was received in a completely different way compared to the first two novels. In 1928 he died in a car accident. Well, he had a car because, in fact, he belonged to a wealthy family. And I would add, fortunately he died, in quotes, because he was Jewish and shortly thereafter, if he had lived a few more years, Sararisco would have ended up in the German extermination camps. He would have suffered the delirium and madness of the changes of extermination. Fortunately for him he was spared
4:59 them. Um, as we said in the lesson on decadentism and we'll briefly review it. Italian decadentism, of which Svevo is a part, is divided into two large parts, the Perception of the Crisis and the Awareness of the Crisis Perception of the Crisis, to be clear, Donunzio and Pasquale The Awareness of the Crisis, Svevo and Pirandello The Perception of the Crisis means that Italian intellectuals, First and foremost, Donunzio and Pasquale understand that something is wrong, that modern society is in crisis, but they don't yet
5:46 know the reason and so they distance themselves from it, they flee from everyday reality in a methodical way, with completely different methods, but, as we've seen, we won't go back to that. On the other hand, with Svevo and Pirandello we have the awareness of the crisis. Italian intellectuals know what the problem is and it is precisely this, modern society. In fact, Svevo and Pirandello have many points in common in terms of reflection and, as we say, way of understanding literature. And Svevo is important, he is very important in the history of Italian literature, because he reformed, first of all, even more than Pirandello, the Italian novel, he disrupted its
6:33 structure, the structure of time, space, and narration. Up until that point, let's consider. For example, I'm Malavolia or I promise I sposi. They had a chronological narrative. The events were told from beginning to end and Pirandello had somewhat disrupted this, let's say, chronological narration, but Sfio gave him the final blow. And now let's see why. When we talk about Sfio's thought we talk about Inept. What does Inept mean? Inept is... The modern man, it is the disease of modern man, it is the one who instead of acting thinks so much that in the end he does not act.
7:26 In Sv'evo 2 we can start from the difference that we saw in Leo party between nature and reason. Nature would be action. Reason would be thought. The characteristic of modern man is that he thinks too much and does not act. In the end he lost his physicality, he lost his ability to live according to nature, as Leopardi and others said. Modern man, Petrarch had already spoken of something like this, clearly not in modern man. Petrarch called it Assydia, the lack of will, the man who freezes, is unable to act. I give my students the example when I
8:15 tell you, you say tomorrow I study. Yes, tomorrow I study, tomorrow I study, tomorrow I study. Only this tomorrow never comes because there is no will. Another point in common with Pirandello is irony. At the base of all of Svivo's writings, especially, La Cosienza di Zeno. There is a strong irony, even self-irony, which is also characteristic of modern man, not taking oneself seriously, because reality is so tragic, desolate, that in the end modern man can do nothing but smile. It is useless to fight, there
9:01 remains. There is nothing left to stop, just like, in Pirandello, that irony. Well, Lennetto can be compared to the mask, to Pirandello's madness. What do I mean? There are two categories of men. According to Sfio, all of humanity is sick. And ineptitude is the illness, the typical illness of modern man. It's just that some know it, they know it, they are aware, they are conscious of being sick, others don't know it, few know it, many don't know it. Now, it's not like if I am aware or conscious of being sick, I can
9:49 get out of it. It's modern society that. Brands. Those who are aware of being sick is sick. I don't know if I made myself clear. Madness and or Pirandello's mask. We all wear a mask, it's just that some know it, few, many don't know it. The fact that I know I'm wearing the mask doesn't mean I can take it off. The fact that I know I'm healthy doesn't mean I can heal from the illness, so being aware of one's illness doesn't mean healing, because one can't heal.
10:36 This is the no way out that characterizes decadent writers, precisely Svevo and Pirandello. Modern man becomes aware of himself. aware of the crisis, as we saw earlier, but he can't do anything because if I take off my mask'll be called crazy. If in Pirandello it's even worse, in Svevo it's even worse. I can't even try to get better. Zeno Kosini, as we'll see in Zeno's conscience, goes to psychotherapists to get better, but he can't get better because it's not him who's sick, but society that's sick.
11:24 Very important, as we said earlier, with Svevo is his knowledge of the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud, an Austrian doctor who completely revolutionized human consciousness and awareness. He discovered the unconscious, the unconscious is nothing more. When I explain it in class 1 define it in a very simplistic way. A drawer inside our brain, inside which man, automatically stores fears, perversions, pain, everything that is carried over, everything that should not come out. However, sometimes this drawer opens unconsciously.
12:15 This is Freud's great discovery in a very, very simple and banal way. The awareness of this unconscious is present in Svevo. Svevo appreciates psychoanalysis for its ability to reveal illness, but he does not believe that it can be cured. This is the point. Psychoanalysis, yes, is useful, but it does not lead to healing because it is not the illness of the individual, it is the illness of all humanity, so it cannot be cured. and Svevo. Two, as
13:02 we have already seen in Pirandello, had the idea of literature. That served to reveal the condition of man, the sad, the tragic, more than sad condition of man. Precisely for this reason it is a literature that serves people, it is not a literature intended like Donuncio, for embellishment. Precisely for this reason, Svevo's language is a very simple language. Svevo has even been accused of speaking incorrect Italian, rather than pure Italian. This is true. But this is also part of Svevo's beauty and greatness.
13:52 He learned Italian as an adult through books, and sometimes there are imperfections in the use of the auxiliary verbs, acer, and Aver. But because, as we have already seen in Pirandello, for him it is not important how you say it, but what you say is important. For Pirandello too. Language had to be simple, precise, essential, it had to have no embellishments, it had to serve to tell the truth. So the language and also the conception of literature between Svevo and Pirandello are very, very similar. And what they both have in common is luck.
14:43 As we saw when we talked about Bergamo, also about Pirandello, we said that Svevo's first two novels were absolutely unsuccessful. A Life of Ninility Una Vida was published, sorry but I never remember the dates, I forget them. Una Vida was published in 1892. So we are already beyond the pleasure of Don Nunzio who was published in 89 and Senelita was published in 1896. These are novels that were not successful because we have said many times that Italian literature at the end of the 19th century was absolutely monopolized by the proclamation, the themes, the language of a victorious, victorious, strong, anti-democratic, elitist, aristocratic
15:29 Italy by a pompous language. The fashion. Let's say of the public and intellectuals was monopolized by Donuncio. So either you wrote like that or you were out of fashion and you were not read. Later, as we have said other times in 1918, when the war ended and everything changed. Europe was destroyed, it was in pieces. Couldn't we still think of talking about a victorious, strong, masculine, veral Europe? Well, Europe was in pieces, Italy was in pieces, even though it had won. And so the triumphalist, victorious, strong themes no longer take hold.
16:19 Who, who, which intellectual is being reclaimed? All those intellectuals who had already spoken about defeat, illness. Madness and so Verga is celebrated, Pirandello and Svevo were celebrated and in fact Zeno's Conscience, published in 23 after the end of the second and first world wars, was well received, an enormous success also because they could say, I told you so, that that type of triumphalist culture made no sense, that it would lead to destruction as a reality. Europe is sick, we have been saying it for 20 years, for 30 years, but we have been saying it since. 1980s
17:09 and yet you have not listened to us and the result is this i am saying it in a very very simple way svevo's output is very simple and short by the way also because for more than 20 years from 96 to 23 so a little less actually 20 years he didn't publish anything anymore he was disappointed he was disgusted the public didn't follow him, he didn't write anymore. Well, in his first novel, Una Vida, the protagonist Alfonso Nitti is introduced and he's also an inept person. Alfonso Nitti, and to put it briefly, is a character who is about to make
17:54 the move to climb the social ladder and he's still a bourgeois like Svevo. Svevo's characters are strongly autobiographical. He's a bourgeois who has literary aspirations, completely frustrated aspirations like Svevo who is about to make the social leap, he's about to get married, he had won over the boss's daughter and so he was about to climb the social ladder. A moment before he backs out like that for no reason, he goes to look after his sick mother, moves to the village and when she returns she is already remarried. So he is the one who withdraws for no reason. He should act but he does not. He holds back, he thinks but does not act. He is an inept
18:42 person who condemns himself to failure and destruction. We have said that it is strongly autobiographical, like all of Svivo's characters. He is a loser, but he is not the heroic loser of Antonio, of Jacob Ortis who commits suicide. He is a grey, banal person. The other character like Alfonso Nitti, also this, the other character of Svevo is Emilio Brentoni who is the protagonist of the novel Senelida, published in 1896. He too is a failed intellectual. There is always the aspiration to art, the
19:30 aspiration to emerge from anonymity through art. Only then there is always defeat, he never succeeds. The protagonist is 35 years old, but he already feels old inside and he too is an inept person. Emilio Brentani lives with his sister Amalia who falls in love with a sculptor Bali who is the exact opposite of Emilio Brentani. The former is dull, useless, inept, while the latter is vital, a winner and exactly the opposite. Amalia falls in love with Bali, it is an unrequited love, then in the end his sister will commit suicide.
20:15 And Emilio Brendani falls in love with Angelina, a vital, a shapely, beautiful girl, who attracts Emilio Brendani. There too Emilio Brendoni stands for but does not do. In the end he also loses Angelina because he is inept, he does not act, does not make decisions. Both Emilio and Amalia are losers. Then we said the break, he does not write anymore for 20 years and then in 1923 we have his great masterpiece, The Conscience of Zeno. Zeno's conscience is the story of this character Zeno Kosini who, um, is sick, he
21:04 has a little tick, or rather no tick, excuse me, he has a small problem with his limping leg. It is a somatization of an illness. Somatization means that a psychological illness becomes a physical illness and from the mind it becomes a disease of the body, so he limps and in addition he has. The vice of smoking. He wants to quit smoking but he can't because he is inept. He would like to but he doesn't do it. He goes to the doctor, who is a psychoanalyst, to heal himself from these illnesses and he recounts the central events of his life, only then that in the end, um, he gets fed up, he doesn't go to the psychoanalyst anymore, to the doctor
21:51 and interrupts the sessions without reason and doesn't pay him. and in Revenge this doctor publishes, changes the name, shortens the name, does not make known, let's say, the name of the patient and publishes the sessions he had with this man with Zeno Cosini and so it is not a chronological story, they are chapters. Once the death of his father, once the smoking habit, and first of all, it completely disrupts the chronological narrative, it's a stream of consciousness as they come out. and he says that they are stories, not true because they are described by a
22:38 sick man, which Zinacini was. Time is also relative. Why is time relative? Because he, let's say, dedicates episodes that last 10 years, he describes them in 3 minutes, episodes that last a day he describes in 20 pages. Because it's an inner time, the time of consciousness. He doesn't describe the past, he describes the past changed, modified, transformed with the eyes of modern man, of the man he's about to tell. So the truth doesn't exist here either. It's a partial truth. It's a truth told by a sick
23:26 man. The smoking habit is the symbol of ineptitude. He writes, finds a lot of slips of paper written, last cigarette, and gives it away. This time it's enough, this time I'll definitely quit. It's just that I couldn't do it. Sveo used to say that quitting smoking is very easy. I do it every day. And here's the paradox. He was convinced he could do it, he could quit smoking, but he can't. He can't because he's inept. So, there's the theme of illness, of the smoking habit, and we said, the character is an anti-hero, he's not a positive hero and the novel can also be defined as an anti-novel. There's no objective description, there's no objective theme.
24:17 The narrative, time and space change completely. And he's the first to do it in Italy, in Europe we have other examples with Proust and so on. Ineptitude almost becomes positive because he doesn't want to get over his illness anymore because the illness, or rather the awareness of the illness. Everyone is sick, at least Zeno knows he's sick, the others don't. Just like those who know they're wearing masks. And so they can't take off their masks and he can't, he can't heal and he ends up tragically, the sickest man, the sickest of all men who will destroy the world.
25:08 being of the Jewish religion, has also seen himself in an almost gruesome way, let's say, talking about Hitler and in fact there is this tragic vision of humanity and between his illness and another illness is the conflict with his father. The father is the one who creates his illness and it is a very turbulent vision, a very turbulent conflict with the father. In one of the chapters, his father is dying, he approaches him and almost slaps him and he experiences this last gesture of his father in a tragic way. In the meantime, let's say that he is set in Trieste. Trieste is no longer
25:56 the Austrian Trieste, it is the Italian Trieste. Trieste, the port, is now in decline, not because it is in decline, but because it was one of the very few Austrian ports. Italy had many ports, hundreds, so it wasn't just one port, it was one of many and therefore it is clear that it was in decline. We have already said that the language was simple, essential, sometimes even incorrect, in other words an anti-Donunzio language. Svevo is an author who can still be read today. He is a splendid, ironic author who truly shows the condition of modern man. In fact, I invite young people to read him. Thank you.
