The fight Club of the poets
The first rule of fight club … don’t talk about fight club, Brad Pitt would have said. A forerunner to this thought comes from the Sicilian writer Luigi Pirandello, who on August 8, 1926, hosted a real duel in his Roman villa near the church of Sant’ Agnese, complete with swords and gushing blood. You got it right, that Pirandello, our reasoned Pirandello, winner of the Nobel prize for literature, the one who, while looking for six characters, set up, in addition to the theatres, a small arena for cultured gladiators wearing ties. Panem et circenses! The contenders: in the right corner, the poet Giuseppe Ungaretti, brief and belligerent, and in the left corner, Massimo Bontempelli, writer of the fantastic and metaphysical. In short, two very different patriarchs of Italian literature. I’ll be concise, having finished the civil words, they set out to resolve a dispute, a controversy, a gossip born in the Roman newspaper “Il Tevere”, where an article by Ungaretti, titled Le disgrazie di Bontempelli, had appeared. The content? A series of criticisms and polemical attacks, ridden in irony, that the poet had launched against his colleague. Imagine more or less the Trojan scene in which Achilles calls Hector outside the city walls. “Where is Ungaretti? Where is Ungaretti? Where is he?” The shouts of Massimo Bontempelli resounded throughout the halls of Rome’s famous Caffè Aragno. It was here that the cultural elite of the time, painters, musicians, and poets, met to discuss art, and sometimes, to gossip. Blinded by anger, Bontempelli made his way through those present until they pointed out his rival. Such was his anger that he slapped Ungaretti, who, more heated than a pressure cooker, exploded, demanding a public duel. In our studies, bored at school, this succulent piece of news was hidden from us and probably, having known it before, it would have made these authors, seen in a bellicose guise, more marveliani and decidedly more likeable. In any case, at the time, duels were forbidden but one turned a blind eye if done in private, away from prying eyes. This clash had a different nature, it had been created ad hoc, complete with photographers, journalists, and even the prince of fencers, Agesilao Greco, had been chosen as the referee. Was the duel intended to create the first heroic poem of the twentieth century? Was such an intention even possible? And who won in the end? A masterful jab from Bontempelli pierced Ungaretti’s forearm, rendering him victorious. The tip penetrated the flesh for a good three centimetres, making Signor M’illumino d’immenso bleed immensely. A nice bandage and the matter was put to bed in the garden. So much for reasoned dialogue, diplomacy and civilization: quanno ce vo ce vo. What did we learn? Is the pen (the tongue) more incisive than the sword? Sometimes the blue ink runs out and red ink is needed. Who would you have cheered? All my life Ungaretti, but chapò Pirandello, because in one way or another, he always ends up being the Charles Xavier of Italian writers, the topic of conversation while remaining on the sidelines.
Written by Emanuele Piva
Translation of Max Fletcher
