Chapter 10 - Italian Literature of Puccini’s Day

Summary

This chapter describes the literary milieu of nineteenth-century Italy and considers the influence of a range of different literary schools on Puccini’s artistic practice. It endeavours to understand exactly what is meant by operatic verismo – a contested term – and to trace the term’s relationship to literary verismo. Some of the key Italian literary movements of the nineteenth century, such as neo-classicism, had little impact on Puccini’s oeuvre; others were far more influential, such as the Scapigliatura movement, which appeared in northern Italy in the 1860s. Key figures involved in this movement were connected with the circles in which Puccini moved. The literary verismo movement – centred on the Italian south – is discussed in detail and direct connections are drawn between this movement and Puccini’s style in works such as Il tabarro. The author also traces the relevance for a consideration of Puccini’s oeuvre with such movements as decadentism, crepuscolarismo, hermeticism, modernism, and futurism.