The Golden Age
The Neapolitan city becomes Parthenopean when the legend remembers that a mermaid, pushed away by Ulysses, washed up on the sandy beach, that some people buried her and honoured her, that around her tomb a village was built, and that from the village a city was born which first bore her name. But Naples, if it keeps the maiden face of the Virgin Parthenope, also recognizes itself in the myth of the Phoenix that is consumed in flames and always comes back to life. This was undoubtedly the destiny of a land that grew up in the shadow of a volcano, whose wrath in 79BC fell on Pompeii, taking the breath away from Pliny the Elder, as his nephew, the Younger, told Tacitus in one of the Letters that ensured his immortality. Herculaneum, buried under the lava, escaped the same fame. Yet, when its gangue was broken many centuries later, it offered the world a priceless treasure, an exceptionally well-preserved library found in the heart of the Villa dei Papyri. Its scrolls are so delicate that we will have to wait until science progresses before they reveal all their secrets. Using the metaphor of the firebird, the ashes are also those of Virgil, who asked to be buried in Naples for eternity. He became a tutelary figure of the city and of the poets who, in his wake, would cherish it as much as he did. According to Dante, he had an influence on Stace, who was born in Naples in 40 and converted after reading the Bucolica. This earned him a prominent place in the Purgatory of the Divine Comedy, an honour that is added to that of having written two epics, the Thebaid and theAchilleides.
The ancient period was followed by the power games that saw Naples become Byzantine, dream of independence, welcome the Normans, and then be proclaimed capital of a kingdom to which its name is commonly and improperly attributed. The city gained influence far beyond the shores of the Mediterranean and continued to develop. Exchanges were not only commercial, but also intellectual, as attested by the inauguration in 1224 of a prestigious university, the Studium, desired by Emperor Frederick II of Swabia. It was first devoted to the training of the ruling class, specializing in law, before opening up to other disciplines. Its evolution alone is a perfect summary of the history of Naples, between periods of withdrawal and pioneering metamorphoses. Two centuries later, in the middle of the 15th century, the creation of the Pontanian Academy confirmed the exaltation of the spirits that reigned in Naples. It was initially named Porticus Antoniana in homage to its founder Antonio Beccadelli, and then took the name of his successor Giovanni Pontano (1429-1503), who survived a difficult childhood in Umbria and found refuge in a region where his natural talents could be fully developed. His poetry is equalled only by his erudition. Curious about everything - from astrology to ethics to botany - Giovanni Pontano is to be discovered with pleasure and surprise by Les Belles Lettres, in three very different volumes: Eplogues, which promises a refreshing vision of the court of Naples, Latin Dialogues Volume I(Charon - Antonio - The Donkey) which, through the art of example, gives an insight into his philosophy, and finally L'Eridan, a poetic text with numerous ancient references. His work was collected by Pietro Summonte, a professor of rhetoric who was born in 1453 and assiduously attended the Academy, and to whom we owe a beautiful testimony of the exalted Neapolitan Renaissance, and by Jacopo Sannazaro (1458-1530), another of his disciples who, from a very young age, showed such a loving sensitivity and desire to learn that he attracted the attention of his master. Using the pseudonym of Azio Sincero, he left behind an important body of verse written in the vernacular and in Latin, but it was above all his masterly L'Arcadia that brought him fame. In this long evocation in 12 chapters, the narrator recalls the land of milk and honey which saw him grow up and which gives the collection its name. Between autobiography and allegory, tender memories of the simple life of the shepherds and terrible reminders of the mourning of the beloved, mixing prose and poetry, this work has the power of the founding texts, which seems to be attested by the dozens of reprints of which it has been the object since its first publication in 1502 in Venice. It can be found in French translation and original Latin at Belles Lettres.
A few miles from Naples, in the town of Sorrento, a poet who is perhaps more familiar to us because his memory was kept alive by the admiration of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Simone Weil, gave his first cry on 11 March 1544. Torquato Tasso, known as Le Tasso(il Tasso in Italian), grew up in a noble environment, the son of an aristocratic poet from Bergamo and a mother from a great lineage, but he nevertheless suffered the major reversal of his family's fortunes when he was only 9 years old, when his father was forced into exile by a dark game of political power. His youth was shaped by his father's travels, living in France and then in Rome, frequenting the highly intellectual court of Urbino and the equally refined court of Venice, and finally settling in Ferrara in 1565. It was here that he wrote his two masterpieces - Aminta and The Jerusalem Delivered - but it was also here that he gave in to exhaustion and doubt, succumbing to a cruel psychological drift that led to his internment. This second life, which was not very successful, was marked by the apogee of his career, when Pope Clement VIII decided to honour him with the crown of laurels that had been placed on Petrarch's forehead 200 years earlier. A final appointment that Le Tasse could not honour, death cutting him off at the end of the last wanderings that were to lead him to the Capitol
Decline and contemporary times
The beginning of the 17th century saw the fantasy of Giambattista Basile, a native of Giugliano in Campania, blossom. He collected tales from the oral tradition and produced an explosive collection, the Pentamerone, a precursory work that anticipated that of Charles Perrault and the Grimm brothers. The reading of selected pieces published by Libretto under the title Le Conte des contes (The Tales of the Tales ) will dispel the prejudice that they are intended for a childish audience, their irreverence and the savoury tone of the Neapolitan language making them jubilant. Poetry was still in the limelight in this new century, and in 1611 theAccademia degli Oziosi was created at the request of Giovanni Battista (1567-1647), friend and first biographer of Le Tasse. This institution helped to promote the work of Torquato Accetto and Tommaso Campanella, both of whom lived through a more or less serene Neapolitan period. Literature did indeed give way to political events, and it was not until the nineteenth century - the Risorgimento - that Naples was able to welcome the emergence of new writers, although at first it took offence at the really sharp writing of the journalist Matilde Serao. Let's admit that the portrait she paints of the city in Le Ventre de Naples 1884-1904 (finally translated thanks to the Italian Cultural Institute) is uncompromising, and yet what tenderness for the little people behind her indignations! Salvatore Di Giacomo (1860-1934) took this almost ethnological and deeply respectful path when he chose to use dialect in his verses, whose musicality and odd rhythm heralded the advent of modern poetry, followed in turn by the playwrights Roberto Bracco (1861-1943) and Eduardo De Filippo (1900-1984), both of whom took an interest in societal issues and both of whom were also shortlisted for the Nobel Prize for Literature. To complete the picture, let us add that Naples at that time had perhaps lost in prestige what it had gained in audacity, as Francesco Cangiullo's (1884-1977) involvement in the Futurist movement, of which he wrote some manifestos, tends to show.
In this tumultuous 20th century, the time is ripe for realism, and Luigi Compagnone (1915-1998), who, when he is not working as a journalist, devotes himself to a literary activity that uses the same preoccupation with social problems and enjoys using his city as a setting. These are two points he has in common with Domenico Rea, who can almost be called a neorealist, and who won the Viareggio Prize in 1951 for the collection of short stories Jesus, shine the light! (Actes Sud), an intimate dive into the complexity of Neapolitan society, and the Strega Prize, the year before his death in 1994, for Ninfa plebea. He shares these two awards with Raffaele La Capria, born in 1922, who also sets out to describe the contradictions of a city that, once again, reveals its two facets, "one mystified, the other real", as he so rightly pointed out. His Neapolitan trilogy - The Lost Harmony, Snow from Vesuvius and Wounded to Death - remains his major work. And the city is as influential as it is inspiring, allowing Luciano De Crescenzo's (1928-2019) novel Thus Spoke Bellavista to become a bestseller. In a beautiful series of short sketches, the narrator draws up a superb gallery of portraits, with a slightly mocking humour that never loses its deep humanity.
Contemporary literature is crowned by the success of three authors. The first is a woman, or at least her pseudonym is female. Indeed, the true identity of Elena Ferrante remains a mystery, giving rise to a whole host of hypotheses and elucidations that should in no way detract from the talent she displays, not only in L'Amie prodigieuse, a story of friendship with multiple volumes and numerous twists and turns, but also in her other titles, from L'Amour harcelant (Stalking Love ) to Poupée volée (Stolen Dolls), from Les Jours de mon abandon (Days of My Abandonment ) to La Vie mensongère des adultes (The Lying Life of Adults). Her novels, translated by Gallimard, are endowed with great psychological finesse, but also with an elegant style that brings her closer to another lover of Naples, Erri De Luca, who admits - with a touch of modesty that one can imagine is not feigned - that the city is his main character, although most of his texts are highly autobiographical. Born poor in 1950 into a family that was once rich but from which the war had taken everything, the author cultivates, if not the regret of childhood, at least its nostalgia. It is revealed in Montedidio , which won the Prix Femina in 2002, but this text is only a small part of a very rich body of work, and of a committed life. In another genre, Roberto Saviano tackles contemporary times by denouncing the crimes of the Neapolitan mafia, the Camorra. His in-depth investigations - notably Gomorra, translated in 2007 by Gallimard - brought him international recognition, as well as close police protection.
