L’Ecloga II. La vita silenziosa di Andrea Zanzotto

Abstract

The «Ecloga II. The silent life» is included in one of the most influential books of poetry of the late italian twentieth century, «IX Ecloghe»(1962) by Andrea Zanzotto (1921-2011). This work is very important because it announces one of the masterpieces of contemporary Italian poetry, «La Beltà», published by Zanzotto in 1968, but also for the great artistic value of many poems that includes. The article analyzes in detail the text of «Ecloga II» and proposes an interpretation substantially different from those now prevalent. Close examination of the poem shows that the expression of the title (“silent life”) has a meaning very articulate and ambivalent axiology. This interpretation considers the most reliable studies on Zanzotto and «IX Ecloghe» and emphasizes the importance (for the Venetian poet between the Fifties and Sixties) of phenomenological existentialist thought. In particular, it is assumed that the poet alludes to an idea of silence (and "silent life") that may be related to some theoretical clarifications of «Phenomenology of Perception» by Merleau-Ponty (but not only). This interpretation differs from the hermeneutics of silence generally offered by the most accredited critics of Zanzotto (from Agosti to Dal Bianco, until the recent book by Luigi Tassoni). Zanzotto believes the “silence” is not only a subjective and objective experience as opposed to the noise (verbal and non-verbal), but it is essentially an ontological dimension connected to give “mute” of Nature and Being ("Physics" and Ontology in the work of the author are closely linked). A dimension pre-linguistic but saturated of Sense, the expression of which is not attributable only to a particular rhetorical (reticence, blank, breaks, etc.) but involves the origin of the transaction poetic. The article also proposes some ideas for a possible re-consideration of the overall character of the different stages of production poetic of Zanzotto, from «Dietro il paesaggio» (1951) to «Conglomerati» (2009).