Tag: literature

Above all, this criticism that cannot analyze a verse without associating it with a “movement” is sterile, as if the author, when composing it, was only thinking of adapting it to a “current”, of supporting it with a pile of buzzwords that distinguish a “ lineage”. How many great poets have done this? Is symptomatic this refusal to see the individual, or rather, this insistence on wanting to see an artificial collective mentality, in most cases not only non-existent, but impossible. Sometimes, to avoid such ridicule, it seems that it would be best never to resort to such classifications…

In the West, the gradual easing of access to books has not been accompanied by a gradual increase in the understanding of reality. Quite the opposite: in recent decades, when access has become monstrously easy, there also seems to have been a monstrous increase in the mental confusion in which the West finds itself. The irony of all this is the return of very old problems that seemed long since pacified—problems that, theoretically, a little study could solve. For some reason, it seems that inaccessibility aroused curiosity, which in turn encouraged reading and the desire to understand. There is no denying it: man is inclined to judge the most accessible as less interesting—unfortunately.

A major mistake of these artists who want to create works of “national importance” is that, by focusing on a supposedly comprehensive theme, they forget that, in order for it to be truly comprehensive, the best test is to ensure its relevance on a personal level. Failing to realize this, they fall into an artificiality that is the natural result when one does not understand the real importance of things. The work, therefore, conceived to be comprehensive, ends up detached from reality—or, more simply, irrelevant.

It is incredible to see how poetry, from the middle of the last century onwards, has become practically unreadable. Unreadable and bad, with very few exceptions that seem to belong to another time. It is no use, not even with the utmost goodwill can the problem be overcome: contemporary poetry, at best, looks interesting, it deceives when endowed with an obscurity that seems to hold some treasure. In short, the effort to understand it never pays off. It is a shame.