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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
It is no longer necessary to say that Benedetto Croce and several other critics have praised the works of Salvatore Di Giacomo. The poet, who wrote in the mellow and musical Neapolitan dialect, deserves such literary attention. However, his use of the dialect has unfortunately deprived Di Giacomo of the greater renown he would have received had he used the official Italian language. This is paradoxical because from the late Quattrocento through the early Seicento not only Italian literati but also European scholars, poets, and musicians collected, imitated, and set to music the semi-popular poems known as villanelle napoletane written in the Neapolitan dialect. Later these Neapolitan villanelle came to be called villanelle alla napoletana, or simply napoletane, attesting to the fact that they had become a tradition. For over a century ballads, songs, strambotti, rispetti, and madrigals were composed alla napoletana throughout Europe in the poetical mood and dance rhythm developed primarily by the villanelle songs of Naples.
1 The villanelle were sung; Di Giacomo reported that people also danced to their rhythm and words. These poems became the traditional prototype of the modern Neapolitan songs famous the world over even today. An early song is Michelemmà, attributed to Salvator Rosa, painter and poet of the Settecento. Some villanelle and later songs are still available on records.
2 “Salvatore Di Giacomo e la sua arte,” Leonardo (Feb. 1939), pp. 41–47.
3 Only toward the first quarter of the sixteenth century did the villanelle insert the settenari among the endecasillabi verses.
4 Eyes that are dreamy and dark and loving the sweetness of honey thus revealing, why do you with glances as I perceive a burning brazier in my heart foment? Without words you silently speak to me, without tears you often tearful appear, of this white, pretty face its soul you are, you beautiful, you sweet, you charming eyes! You who unfold with the blooming flowers, and with these flowers you enclose your lids, like passionflowers you appear to me. You who are of lovers loving caress, you have hurt me deeply and knowingly, eyes that are dreamy and dark and loving.
5 A recent song (1964) heard on the radio is “Occhi neri,” an old subject returning five centuries later.
6 Di Giacomo's sixth verse may not seem at first reading to be similar to Poliziano's “E senza man mi tenete in dolore,” but note the contrast brought about by the word “senza,” found in both verses.
7 Varia romanica (Firenze: La “Nuova Italia” Editrice, 1932), pp. 338, et passim.
8 “El madrigal de Cetina,” Revue hispanique, lvii (1923), 108–114.
9 I have further research in progress concerning the influence of Poliziano on Cetina and their poems on the eyes.
10 E.g., Croce, Monti, Consiglio, and his later fellow poets, Ferdinando Russo and Di Giacomo. For a fuller treatment of Cortese see F. D. Maurino, Salvatore Di Giacomo and Neapolitan Dialectal Literature (New York: Vanni, 1951), pp. 31–41.
11 I wouldn't want to die unless I did so seeing only your eyes before my eyes, your eyes so beautiful, your eyes so dark, that have cast in prison this soul of mine.
12 It is true that Cortese speaks of “ss'uocchie de farcone,” literally, falcon's or hawk's eyes. However, as often in popular parlance or dialect, a thing or an animal may stand for a color or have some other significance. Here falcon's eyes are synonymous with dark eyes; similarly Di Giacomo writes in one of his later poems, “uocchie nire cchiù assaie d”o gravone!“ (”Eyes much blacker than coal!“).
13 Massimiliano Vajro, La canzone napoletana dalle origini all'Ottocento (Napoli: Vajro, 1957), pp. 47–48, et passim, shows that the poems or songs which began with truly Neapolitan characteristics underwent some changes. Therefore, these poems, no longer strictly Neapolitan, were later called (villanelle) alla napoletana.
14 Di Giacomo often recalled the past he loved so much. Flora noticed it (Mondadori edition of the poet's works) in reference to the poem
15 Those dark eyes of yours are my real desire, Those dark eyes of yours which I loved so much; For those dark eyes at times I think I'll die, For those dark eyes my breath one day will stop; Those dark eyes whenever I don't see them The whole day long I feel sorry and blue; Those dark eyes become my only comfort, If it wasn't for those dark eyes I'd be dead.
16 G. M. Monti, Le villanelle alla napoletana (Città di Castello: Il Solco, 1925), p. 321. See p. 316 for the poem's probable date. Monti found it in a collection of Neapolitan poems.
17 I personally have heard such forms, but they are used mainly by older people, especially women, and are disappearing.
18 Vajro (p. 58) reports a very late Neapolitan villanella (about 1630–40) by Girolamo Scotto, “Quiss'occhi quessa bocca vasariella” (“Those eyes of yours, that mouth so cute to kiss”). The first two words are identical with those of the original villanella, except that occhi has now a double c attesting to a later date.
19 Notice Di Giacomo's imitation of Cortese's poem.
20 Di Giacomo also uses antitheses, perhaps to the displeasure of his great admirers, Croce, Nicolini, Russo, and Flora, who do not mention this feature at all.
21 Some of Di Giacomo's poetry has been translated into English (Mrs. Arthur Harter, Ruth Phelps), into French (Jean Dornis, Jean Ajalbert, Benjamin Crémieux), and into German (Karl Vossler). However, Uocchie de suonno, nire here appears in English for the first time. K. Vossler, S. Di Giacomo ein neapolitanischer Volkdichter (Heidelberg, 1908), p. 28, warns us relative to translating Di Giacomo that “Diese Gesänge sind von ihrer Melodie nicht wieder zu trennen, sind ganz Musik, Gefühl und Lyrik, Meine Übersetzung versagt.” I share this opinion.
22 See his Viaggio di Parnaso, Canto i, “Le Muse vanno dove so chiammate” (“Muses go wherever they are called”). For a study of Cortese's Viaggio see my article, “Cervantes, Cortese, Caporali, and Their Journeys to Parnassus,” MLQ, xix (March 1958), 43–46.
23 La lelteratura delta nuova Italia (Bari: Laterza, 1922), iii, 98.
24 G. Borgese, La vita e il libro, Prima Serie (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1923), p. 123.
25 Among the critics who recognize in Di Giacomo some Greek traits and Petrarchan or Leopardian qualities are Serra, Borgese, Flora, Russo, Ojetti, Artieri.
26 From Velardiniello and Sgruttendio to Di Giacomo himself, the reader encounters situations in which a housewife is cooking—baking or frying.
27 “Salvatore Di Giacomo,” Quaderni della critica (Dec. 1945), pp. 63–68.