Gabriele D'Annunzio
1863–1938
Biography
Gabriele D'Annunzio was born in Pescara in 1863 and died in 1938 at Gardone Riviera, on Lake Garda. He was a poet, novelist, playwright, journalist and soldier, and he held a central place in Italian letters from about 1889 to 1910. His early writing belongs to the decadent movement, which reacted against naturalism and prized beauty, sensation and a kind of mystical feeling. French symbolism and the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche shaped him deeply. His private life, including affairs with several women such as the actress Eleonora Duse, drew wide public attention.
During the First World War he became a national hero. He flew over Vienna in 1918 to drop leaflets, and in 1919 he led an armed group that seized the Adriatic port of Fiume, where he set up a short-lived regency with himself at its head, lasting until late 1920. His politics changed several times, from a flirtation with the left to ardent nationalism. He is often credited with helping to shape Italian fascism, although he never called himself a fascist, and Mussolini was influenced by him. He also inspired some of the earliest opponents of fascism, so his legacy is mixed.
Two of his books are on this site. L'Innocente, written in Naples and published in 1892, tells of a nobleman who lets his newborn son die because he believes the child belongs to another man. It is one of the novels of the group known as the Rose cycle, which also includes Il piacere and Il trionfo della morte. Forse che sì forse che no, from 1910, is set in Mantua, in a palace whose inscription gave the book its title. Its hero, Paolo Tarsis, turns away from the decadent fashions of his youth toward the new world of motor cars and aeroplanes, and the novel's enthusiasm for flight reflects the poet's wider fascination with speed and heroism.
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Books
Forse che sì forse che no
by Gabriele D'Annunzio
Forse che sì forse che no (Maybe Yes, Maybe No) is a novel published in 1910 by Gabriele D'Annunzio. As all of D'Annunzio's novels, Forse che sì forse che no partially echoes one of D'Annunzio's own experiences. In particular, this novel draws on D'Annunzio's summer of "erotic…
Summary from Wikipedia: Forse che sì forse che no (CC BY-SA 4.0)L'Innocente
by Gabriele D'Annunzio
Tullio Hermil, a refined and unfaithful aristocrat, opens his story by confessing to a crime that no court of law could judge. He tells how he tried to win back his neglected wife Giuliana during a spring in the country, and how everything changed when he learned that she was…
Summary written by Claude Opus 5.5.Le Novelle della Pescara
by Gabriele D'Annunzio
Eighteen stories of the Abruzzo coast and countryside around Pescara, from the lives of two devout sisters, Orsola and Anna, to feuding village idolaters, a ferryman, a ship's surgeon and the wanderer Turlendana. D'Annunzio's early tales are violent, sensual and steeped in local…
Summary written by Claude Opus 5.5.