Graduate-Student Papers on Cultural Politics
Date and Time
Location
“'He Sing the Resistance in Different Voices'”: Cultural Survival within Greek and Italian Resistance Poetry"
Speaker:
Ilana Freedman, PhD Candidate, Department of Comparative Literature, Harvard University.
Contact:
Heather Conrad
hconrad@wcfia.harvard.edu
Chair:
Panagiotis Roilos, Faculty Associate. George Seferis Professor of Modern Greek Studies and Professor of Comparative Literature, Harvard University.
Abstract:
Italian critic Giancarlo Ferretti asked whether Italy's poets ever “sang the Resistance,” and I reframe his question by comparing Italian and Greek Resistance poetry. This paper first places poetic tropes of Christian imagery in Italian sulla Resistance poetry in relation to Greek poet Yannis Ritsos’ poetics of “the vitality of the dead.” Next it considers the disparity between the two poetries concerning issues of homeland, autochthony, and the abstracted spirit of Resistance. Finally my analysis investigates marked differences in post-war attitudes to national history, political revisionism, and cultural memory. Discussed are Italian partisan poets such as Franco Fortini and Alfonso Gatto, which I place in dialogue with several Greek poets, such as Tasos Leivaditis and Yannis Ritsos.