California Italian Studies

This study is an exploration of Carmelo Bene through the critical writings of Ruggero Jacobbi. An analysis of Jacobbi’s writings reveals that the poetic production of Vittorio Bodini has been the main inspiration and propeller for Bene’s theatrical work. Bodini’s Baroque visions of his native Salento, his engagement with San Giuseppe Desa da Cupertino, and the ironic portrayal of the South as provincial microcosm are more influential for Bene than the theories of Deridda and Deleuze. Thanks to his theatrical and literary background, Jacobbi provides an original analysis of Bene’s work. In the end, however, his point of view remains grounded in that of the generation of the 1920s, whose achievement was the creation of the institution of the regia critica; while Bene is representative of the phenomenon of the actor-poet that characterized the latter thirty years of the last century. In this sense, my study also offers a chance to think in retrospect about the complex relationship between these two generations of Italian artists.