Enrico Thovez
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Enrico Thovez (10 November 1869 – 16 February 1925) was an Italian artist-polymath best known for his contributions as a
poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...
and
literary critic A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature' ...
.


Biography

Enrico Thovez was born in
Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...
less than ten years after unification. He was his parents' second son: his brother, Ettore, was five years older than he. Cesare Thovez, his father, was a hydraulics engineer of Savoyard provenance. His mother, Maria Angela Berlinguer, was from
Sardinia Sardinia ( ; ; ) is the Mediterranean islands#By area, second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, and one of the Regions of Italy, twenty regions of Italy. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, north of Tunisia an ...
, but could trace her own family back to
Catalonia Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...
from where her ancestors had emigrated at the end of the sixteenth century. Thovez would later assert that he had inherited his love of poetry from his mother's aristocratic Spanish ancestors. Between 1881 and 1886 Thovez attended
secondary schools A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...
, choosing the "technical" rather than the "gymnasium" route. He graduated from school successfully and moved on to enrol at the Sciences Faculty of the university. After just two months he abandoned these studies, however, in order to study the classics. By 1892 he had mastered
Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
and
Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...
and acquired a thorough basic knowledge of classical literature. That was the year in which he obtained his "licenza liceale", the school completion qualification that opened the way to a university place as a student of classics. When he was around 20 he suffered from a nervous malady. This was cured by undertaking a trip to
Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...
, accompanied by his brother, Ettore. He enrolled again at the university, this time at the "Faculty of Letters", obtaining his degree in 1896. His graduation dissertation concerned "The Medieval Doric and the style of the
Dipylon The Dipylon (, "Two-Gated") was the main gate in the Themistoclean Walls, city wall of Classical Athens. Located in the modern suburb of Kerameikos, it led to the namesake ancient cemetery, and to the roads connecting Athens with the rest of Greec ...
" (''"Il Medioevo dorico e lo stile del Dipylon"''): it was published six years later, in 1903. Thovez wrote his first known
idyll An idyll (, ; ; occasionally spelled ''idyl'' in American English) is a short poem, descriptive of rustic life, written in the style of Theocritus's short pastoral poems, the ''Idylls'' (Εἰδύλλια). Unlike Homer, Theocritus did not engag ...
s in 1887 in loose
hendecasyllable In poetry, a hendecasyllable (as an adjective, hendecasyllabic) is a line of eleven syllables. The term may refer to several different poetic meters, the older of which are quantitative and used chiefly in classical (Ancient Greek and Latin) poe ...
s. They appeared in the "Gazzetta letteraria" (''"Literary Gazette"'') in 1891 and 1892, and subsequently in anthologies. In 1895 he came to wider prominence with readers of "Gazzetta letteraria" when he started to denounce plagiarism of the poems of D'Annunzio, whose work at this stage was more widely appreciated in
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
than in Italy, chiefly on account of some superb translations produced by Georges Hérelle. It did indeed appear that it was the
francophone The Francophonie or Francophone world is the whole body of people and organisations around the world who use the French language regularly for private or public purposes. The term was coined by Onésime Reclus in 1880 and became important a ...
poems that were being used by then plagiarist(s) who were then translating the works back into Italian and passing them off for publication as original pieces. Having established his credentials within the literary establishment, Enrico Thovez now became a regular contributor on literary topics to several mass circulation daily newspapers, including the Gazzetta del Popolo (
Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...
), the
Corriere della Sera (; ) is an Italian daily newspaper published in Milan with an average circulation of 246,278 copies in May 2023. First published on 5 March 1876, is one of Italy's oldest newspapers and is Italy's most read newspaper. Its masthead has remain ...
(
Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...
) and Il Resto del Carlino (
Bologna Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...
). He did not restrict himself to literature, but also contributed extensively on the visual arts and on costumery. He joined the staff of
La Stampa (English: "The Press") is an Italian daily newspaper published in Turin with an average circulation of 87,143 copies in May 2023. Distributed in Italy and other European nations, it is one of the oldest newspapers in Italy. Until the late 1970 ...
(
Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...
) as a contributing editor in 1904 or 1905. His contributions were published under the pseudonym "Simplicissimus", which was a respectful reference to the
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
satirical Satire is a genre of the visual arts, visual, literature, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently Nonfiction, non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ...
magazine of that name. In 1902, following an extended trip to Germany the previous year, Thovez teamed up with Leonardo Bistolfi, Giorgio Ceragioli, Enrico Reycend and
Davide Calandra Davide Calandra (21 October 1856 – 8 September 1915) was an Italian sculptor and cabinet maker. Biography Davide Calandra was born in Turin into a wealthy family. His father, besides his professional activities of lawyer and hydraulic enginee ...
to establish the periodical magazine ''L'arte decorativa moderna'', which was devoted to
decorative arts ] The decorative arts are arts or crafts whose aim is the design and manufacture of objects that are both beautiful and functional. This includes most of the objects for the interiors of buildings, as well as interior design, but typically excl ...
. It was also in 1902 that he began working with the Siena, Senese periodical that became "Vita d'Arte". In 1901 he transferred his poetic insights into his "Ritratto della madre" (''"Painting of the Mother"'') which was exhibited by the "Società Promotrice delle Belle Arti" in
Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...
. Later that same year a Thovez painting was exhibited at the
Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...
. It shows the figure of a man, with the hills outside Turin in the background: the artist Felice Carena is believed to have posed for the painting, though it does not purport to be a portrait. Several sources indicate that there were actually two years in which Enrico Thovez exhibited one or more paintings at the
Biennale In the art world, a biennale ( , ; ), is a large-scale international contemporary art exhibition. The term was popularised by the Venice Biennale, which was first held in 1895, but the concept of such a large scale, and intentionally internationa ...
. In addition, he served between 1913 and 1921 as the director of the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporane di Torino (''"... Civic Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art"''). Much of the poetry of Enrico Thovez was written during his adolescence. During his lifetime he was better known as a critic and commentator than as a poet. However, in May 1924 he took the opportunity of a stay on Giannutri to subject his 1887 work, "La casa degli avi" (''loosely, "The house of the ancestors"''), to what a biographer describes approvingly as a "careful lexical revision" (''"... un’assennata revisione lessicale"''), following which he had it republished. There are indications in sources that Thovez never enjoyed particularly robust health. Towards the end of his life he fell victim to a malignant cancer, from which on 25 February 1925 he died at the family home in the Torinese suburb of
Moncalieri Moncalieri (; ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) of 56,134 inhabitants (31 January 2022) about directly south of downtown Turin (to whose Metropolitan City of Turin, Metropolitan City it belongs), in Piedmont, Italy. It is the most populous suburb ...
.


Works


Poems of adolescence

The first known poems of Thovez date from 1887, after which he continued to be prolific as a poet throughout the 1890s, his works becoming progressively more ordered and structured through that time. Most surviving editions of his poetry are from the second edition, which appeared in 1924 and which incorporated significant further changes by the author. His choice of prosastic verse, achieved through the use of paired ottonari to reproduce a form of classical hexameter, avoids the comfortable musicality of conventionally rhythmic verse and substitutes an imposed urgency in the poetic content. In his (posthumously published) diary he writes, "It cheers me that I have reduced my poetry to a minimum of syllabic ligaments: I am persuaded that if I had written my poems in prose I would never have been taken seriously s a writerin this land of guitars and mandolins". He also writes that he is unable to "write anything unless I am profoundly moved by it ... this pocket-full of a few hundred verses ... which has cost me so many tears and so much torment ... I still cannot trust purely cerebral creations".Enrico Thovez, Diario e lettere inedite (1887-1901), a cura di A. Torasso, Milano, Garzanti, 1939.


Literary criticism

"Il pastore, il gregge e la zampogna" (''"The shepherd, the flock and the bagpipes"'') is a polemical analysis of the language of
Italian poetry Italian poetry is a category of Italian literature. Italian poetry has its origins in the thirteenth century and has heavily influenced the poetic traditions of many European languages, including that of English. Features * Italian prosody is ...
, in which only
Dante Alighieri Dante Alighieri (; most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri; – September 14, 1321), widely known mononymously as Dante, was an Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer, and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called ...
and
Giacomo Leopardi Count Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi (29 June 1798 – 14 June 1837) was an Italian philosopher, poet, essayist, and philologist. Considered the greatest Italian poet of the 19th century and one of the greatest a ...
emerge with their reputations spared from attack. More recent celebrity poets such as Giosuè Carducci and D'Annunzio are attacked for a perceived lack of originality. It is hard to decide whether the book, which itself runs to around 500 pages, is to be considered a piece of wide-ranging scholarly criticism or more as a work of art in its own right. It certainly caught the attention of the reading classes, and stirred up the admirers of Italy's contemporary poets. Both the virtues and the limitations of the literary criticism produced by Thovez lie in the originating primacy that he ascribes to
Greek lyric Greek lyric is the body of lyric poetry written in dialects of Ancient Greek. Lyric poetry is, in short, poetry to be sung accompanied by music, traditionally a lyre. It is primarily associated with the early 7th to the early 5th centuries BC, s ...
, and the theory, apparently unknown in Italy, of poetry as lyrical purity in the immediacy of its expression of poetic sentiment, without cultural or technical mediation. There is a ruthless analysis of the backwardness of contemporary Italian culture, at one time Arcadian, yet now academicized and aestheticized to a fault, reflecting the moral bankruptcy of the nation, without acknowledging that same backwardness which the problems of contemporary poetry have their origin. His own distinction between "poetry of form" and "poetry of content" invites the reply the "poetry of form" also has its own content: the poet's moral indifference, his inner emptiness and his underlying cynicism. "Il pastore ..." is certainly an enjoyable read, set out clearly in lively and ironic prose. Although its publication scandalised some, there were others, such as Arturo Graf, who welcomed its message and delivery. Critics condemned it as the rant of a man disappointed and annoyed by the commercial failure of his own juvenile poetry, and his theses was increasingly marginalised by senior members of literary establishment. It should be remembered that as a prolific literary critic in major newspapers ever since then 1890s, Thovez himself was not universally loved by his fellow-writers.


Output (selection)


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thovez, Enrico Writers from Turin Italian literary critics 19th-century Italian poets 19th-century Italian male writers 20th-century Italian poets 19th-century Italian painters 1869 births 1925 deaths