Soundscapes. Le «Campane de’ Villaggi»

Abstract

This study, placed in the double framework of the so called ‘soundscapes’ and the secular satirical polemic ‘against bells’ in Italian literature, attempts to examine thoroughly a poem once renowned – and systematically memorized in the schools – of a Ninetieth Century minor Italian poet, Giacomo Zanella (1820-1888): Le campane de’ villaggi “The Villages Bells”. The analysis highlights the sophisticated syntactic and semantic construction of the poem, as well as its lexical and formulaic debts to former authors and lyrics (especially Parini), and fully justifies the high consideration of the poem (and of its author) in the works of C.E. Gadda, and the recurrent quotations and complex elaborations of some central lines.

Keywords

• Soundscapes
• Bells
• Bells in Poetry
• Ninetieth and Twentieth Century Italian Literature
• Giacomo Zanella
• Carlo Emilio Gadda