Abstract
This chapter analyzes the poetry and the novels of Paolo Volponi, whose concept of utopia is influenced both by the Renaissance model—represented by his native city of Urbino—and by the industrial utopia imagined by Adriano Olivetti. Hybridizing utopia, nuclear dystopia, and science fiction, especially in a text like Il pianeta irritabile, Volponi criticizes the anthropocentric vision of classical utopias and proposes a new utopian model, based on the redefinition of the image of a new man; a man that abolishes the artificial border between human and animal, and creates the conditions for a new relationship with nature, based not on exploitation but on mutual respect.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Unless otherwise indicated, translations are my own.
- 2.
See also Volponi, Paolo. Del naturale e dell’artificiale. Ancona: Il Lavoro Editoriale, 1999.
- 3.
See Muzzioli, Francesco. “La poesia allegorica e antagonistica di Paolo Volponi”. Cuadernos de Filologia Italiana. Madrid: Servicio de Publicaciones UCM, 1997, 188.
- 4.
We could find countless examples of this view on femininity, for example the figure of Gurù, the “goat-woman” in Tommaso Landolfi’s novel La pietra lunare (1939), but also in cinema. It is very interesting that in Fellini’s La dolce vita (1960) Sylvia, the American actress played by Anita Ekberg, shows a particular relationship with animals, not only when she plays with a stray cat, right before the famous scene in the Trevi fountain, but also when she howls in the countryside at night, answering to the cries of a wolf. Not to mention the scene in the club, when she dances with a bearded man that looks like the god Pan himself.
- 5.
See Olivetti, Adriano. Città dell’uomo. Milano: Edizioni di Comunità, 1960.
- 6.
See Berta, Giuseppe. Le idee al potere. Adriano Olivetti e il progetto comunitario. Milano: Edizioni di Comunità, 1980.
- 7.
The English translation is taken from Volponi, Paolo. My Troubles Began. New York: Grossman, 1964, 19.
- 8.
My Troubles Began, 39.
- 9.
See Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison (Surveiller et punir. Naissance de la prison, 1975), translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage, 1995.
- 10.
My Troubles Began, 45.
- 11.
See Zinato, Emanuele. “Un pianeta senza moneta. Cosmogonie volponiane: utopia, scienza e letteratura”. Istmi, nn. 13–14, 2003–2004, 10–13.
- 12.
Zublena, Paolo. “Anteo liberato? La lingua della Macchina mondiale di Volponi”. Istmi, nn. 15–16, 2005–2006, 133.
- 13.
See Ferretti, Gian Carlo. La letteratura del rifiuto. Milano: Mursia, 1981, 238–240.
- 14.
The Worldwide Machine 48.
- 15.
The Worldwide Machine 209.
- 16.
The Worldwide Machine 212.
- 17.
The Worldwide Machine 58.
- 18.
See Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabeais and His World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984.
- 19.
In two letters to Pasolini, Volponi referred to his new novel as “L’animale”. See Scrivo a te come guardandomi allo specchio, 159.
- 20.
Leopardi brings his critique even further, supposing that every species, and not only man, considers itself at the center of the universe. In fact, in the dialogue the elf seems to be convinced that the world has been made for the elves, while the gnome firmly believes that the world was made for the gnomes (Leopardi 1988, 35).
- 21.
During the “autunno caldo”, the wave of protests and strikes that hit Italy in the fall of 1969, Volponi, who was known for being a writer and a leftist intellectual, was able to prevent many of the strikes minimizing the damage for the Olivetti. This is probably why the president of Olivetti, Bruno Visentini, offered him the position of CEO of the entire company. Visentini’s intention was not to allow Volponi to revolutionize the industrial plan of the company, but to use him as a front man. This is why he wanted to place next to Volponi a very different and more conservative figure, the former navy admiral Ottorino Beltrami. As a consequence of this choice Volponi decided to leave Olivetti. For more information, see the notes by Emanuele Zinato in Romanzi e prose I, with a particular reference to pages LXIX–LXXI.
- 22.
See the notes to the text, written by Emanuele Zinato, in Romanzi e prose III, Torino: Einaudi, 2002.
- 23.
See Luperini, Romano. Allegoria del moderno. Roma: Editori Riuniti, 1990, 300.
- 24.
See Horkheimer, Max; Adorno, Theodor W. Dialettica dell’illuminismo (Dialektik der Aufklarung, 1947). Torino: Einaudi: 2002, 129.
Bibliography
Horkheimer, Max, and Adorno, Theodor W. Dialettica dell’illuminismo (Dialektik der Aufklarung, 1947). Torino: Einaudi, 2002.
Leopardi, Giacomo. Poesie e prose , vol. II. Milano: Mondadori, 1988.
Olivetti, Adriano. Città dell’uomo. Milano: Edizioni di Comunità, 1960.
Volponi, Paolo, and Leonetti, Francesco. Il leone e la volpe. Torino: Einaudi, 1995.
Volponi, Paolo. Scrivo a te come guardandomi allo specchio. Lettere a Pasolini 1954-1975. Firenze: Polistampa, 2009.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Fioretti, D. (2017). Utopia and Hybridization in Paolo Volponi. In: Utopia and Dystopia in Postwar Italian Literature. Italian and Italian American Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46553-1_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46553-1_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-46552-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-46553-1
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)