California Italian Studies

Several studies have already highlighted the importance of D’Annunzio’s biography and work in the context of Italian colonialism and military interventionism. This article seeks to relate D’Annunzio’s interventionist thought to the national and international debate on latinità and Mediterranean-ness, demonstrating its dependence on the collapsed duality life / art, which permeates the entire opus of the poet. Departing from the analysis of Merope, and analyzing the articles published by D’Annunzio in the French press in favor of Italy’s intervention in the Great War all the way to the pasquinate against the “barbarian” Hitler, the author argues that notwithstanding the influence of elements derived from both the French and Italian cultural milieux, D’Annunzio’s approach was fundamentally “personal” and based on the original combination of hagiography and mythography typical of his poetics. The poet utilized the poetic figures of Latinità and Italian Mediterranean destiny to re-elaborate and actualize Myth in a poetic-cultural perspective.