Dario Bellezza
Encyclopedia
Dario Bellezza was an Italian
gay poet, author and playwright. He won the Viareggio
, Gatto, and Montale prizes.
on September 5, 1944. After his studies at a liceo classico
in his native city, from which he graduated in 1962, he worked for several Italian literary and poetry magazines: Paragone, Carte segrete, Bimestre, Periferia, and Il Policordo.
Bellezza entered the Roman intellectual world in the mid-1960s when, thanks to literary critic and writer Enzo Siciliano
, he became increasingly close to Sandro Penna
, Aldo Palazzeschi
, Attilio Bertolucci
, Alberto Moravia
, and Elsa Morante
, who eventually became a confidant
.
The decade from 1950-1960 was a period in which the working class, the Italian Communist Party
, the trade union
s, and all their hopes for radical cultural change were dramatically defeated. The political and economic growth of the Christian Democrat
middle class and the new, changed Freemasonries
prevailed.
Bellezza, thus, lived in a political-cultural era convulsed by the ideological confrontations of the 1960s and the subversive ideological line of the aggressive neoavant-garde that struggled against conventional linguistic codes.
From the early 1960s on, Bellezza collaborated with the magazine Nuovi argomenti, becoming associate director shortly before his death.
When Invettive e licenze (Invectives and Licenses) appeared in 1971, it was hailed by Pier Paolo Pasolini
in his introduction: "Here is the best poet of the new generation."
Invettive e licenze, notable for its technical rigor, depicts people overwhelmed by bitterness, shame, feelings of guilt, alienation, scandal, and sexual perversions. The poems also express a constant, thinly veiled desire for death.
Since 1978 has began a productive collaboration with Pellicanolibri, with the series "Inediti rari e diversi", publishing texts by Alberto Moravia
, Renzo Paris, Gianfranco Rossi, Goliarda Sapienza and Anna Maria Ortese, for her with Beppe Costa
and Adele Cambria he will manage to enforce for the first time the Bacchelli’s law, an annuity which is intended to poets and writers in need.
Bellezza was a bourgeois, as were many other intellectuals, but differed from them, according to Pasolini, in being "the first poet bourgeois to judge himself".
Pasolini had a profound affection for Bellezza's work and his artistic experience. The young poet reciprocated this feeling, and also was deeply grateful to Elsa Morante for what he called his poetic apprenticeship.
In 1981, enraged by the publication of the "obscene" photographs of the dead Pasolini "in tutta la loro gelida, disarmante crudezza... nudo, esposto, con tutte le macrabe ferite esibite del suo 'sacro' martirio" (in their icy, disarming rawness... naked, exposed, with all the grisly wounds exhibited of his 'sacred' martyrdom), Bellezza wrote the biographical essay Morte di Pasolini (Death of Pasolini).
In 1983, he published io (me), the lack of capital letters intentional. In this work, Bellezza lightly but concretely describes his everyday life and the mediocre desperation of his loves in ample detail. The poet associates life with insomnia, a curse that constantly pursues him:
In the book, he describes suffering from insomnia because, as a highly educated bourgeois and homosexual bigot, he feels tortured by a feeling of guilt and driven by the many contradictions that struggle against each other. Such contradictions are the quintessence of his existence:
In his guilt-ridden insomniac persona, he anticipated the poetry that would be too often adopted in the 1980s, that of the artist-outcast.
Bellezza was consumed by anguish and by the relics of (a now mocking) sense of hope:
"E se l'orecchio poso al rumore solo
delle scale battute dal rimorso
sento la tua discesa corrosa
dalla speranza"
(And if the ear I place to the noise only
of staircases beaten by remorse
I hear your descent corroded
by hope)
He is reduced to corrosive accounts of his own social condition:
The difficulty of homosexual life in Rome, particularly the requirements of secrecy and clandestinity of the love act, is a staple of Bellezza's poetic and prosaic writing. In Bellezza's first novel, L'innocenza (Innocence, 1971), Nino, the protagonist, consciously chooses the perdition and corruption of a living homosexual hell. In Bellezza's infernal world, homosexuality can be nothing else but prostitution and neurotically masochistic obsessions: in Lettere da Sodoma (Letters from Sodom
, 1972), his conclusion is that everything is Hell and that the only salvation is the systematic refusal of the self.
Bellezza won the Viareggio prize in 1976 for Morte segreta, the Gatto prize in 1991 for Invettive e licenze, the Montale prize in 1994 for L'avversario, and for the play Ordalia della croce he received the Fondi la Postora prize in 1994.
He died of AIDS
in Rome on March 31, 1996. That year, a poetry prize was established in his name.
The collected works were published as:
Italian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...
gay poet, author and playwright. He won the Viareggio
Viareggio Prize
The Viareggio Literary Prize is a prestigious Italian literary award, whose first edition was in 1930, and is named after the Tuscan city of Viareggio...
, Gatto, and Montale prizes.
Biography
Dario Bellezza was born in RomeRome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
on September 5, 1944. After his studies at a liceo classico
Liceo classico
Liceo classico is a secondary school type in Italy. The educational curriculum lasts five years, and students are generally about 14 to 19 years of age....
in his native city, from which he graduated in 1962, he worked for several Italian literary and poetry magazines: Paragone, Carte segrete, Bimestre, Periferia, and Il Policordo.
Bellezza entered the Roman intellectual world in the mid-1960s when, thanks to literary critic and writer Enzo Siciliano
Enzo Siciliano
Enzo Siciliano was an Italian writer, playwright, literary critic and intellectual.Siciliano was born in Rome. He was collaborator of Alberto Moravia, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Elsa Morante and many other famous writers in the 1950s and 1960s.From 1996 to 1998 he was President of RAI...
, he became increasingly close to Sandro Penna
Sandro Penna
Sandro Penna was an Italian poet.-Biography:Born in Perugia, Penna lived in Rome for most of his life....
, Aldo Palazzeschi
Aldo Palazzeschi
Aldo Palazzeschi was the pen name of Aldo Giurlani, an Italian novelist, poet, journalist and essayist.-Biography:...
, Attilio Bertolucci
Attilio Bertolucci
Attilio Bertolucci was an Italian poet and writer. He is father to film directors Bernardo and Giuseppe Bertolucci.-Biography:...
, Alberto Moravia
Alberto Moravia
Alberto Moravia, born Alberto Pincherle was an Italian novelist and journalist. His novels explored matters of modern sexuality, social alienation, and existentialism....
, and Elsa Morante
Elsa Morante
Elsa Morante was an Italian novelist, perhaps best known for her novel La storia .-Biography:...
, who eventually became a confidant
Confidant
The confidant is a character in a story that the lead character confides in and trusts. Typically, these consist of the best friend, relative, doctor or boss.- Role :...
.
The decade from 1950-1960 was a period in which the working class, the Italian Communist Party
Italian Communist Party
The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy.The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party . Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. Outlawed during the Fascist regime, the party played...
, the trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
s, and all their hopes for radical cultural change were dramatically defeated. The political and economic growth of the Christian Democrat
Christian Democracy (Italy)
Christian Democracy was a Christian democratic party in Italy. It was founded in 1943 as the ideological successor of the historical Italian People's Party, which had the same symbol, a crossed shield ....
middle class and the new, changed Freemasonries
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
prevailed.
Bellezza, thus, lived in a political-cultural era convulsed by the ideological confrontations of the 1960s and the subversive ideological line of the aggressive neoavant-garde that struggled against conventional linguistic codes.
From the early 1960s on, Bellezza collaborated with the magazine Nuovi argomenti, becoming associate director shortly before his death.
When Invettive e licenze (Invectives and Licenses) appeared in 1971, it was hailed by Pier Paolo Pasolini
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Pier Paolo Pasolini was an Italian film director, poet, writer, and intellectual. Pasolini distinguished himself as a poet, journalist, philosopher, linguist, novelist, playwright, filmmaker, newspaper and magazine columnist, actor, painter and political figure...
in his introduction: "Here is the best poet of the new generation."
Invettive e licenze, notable for its technical rigor, depicts people overwhelmed by bitterness, shame, feelings of guilt, alienation, scandal, and sexual perversions. The poems also express a constant, thinly veiled desire for death.
Since 1978 has began a productive collaboration with Pellicanolibri, with the series "Inediti rari e diversi", publishing texts by Alberto Moravia
Alberto Moravia
Alberto Moravia, born Alberto Pincherle was an Italian novelist and journalist. His novels explored matters of modern sexuality, social alienation, and existentialism....
, Renzo Paris, Gianfranco Rossi, Goliarda Sapienza and Anna Maria Ortese, for her with Beppe Costa
Beppe Costa
Beppe Costa, born Concetto Costa, on , Catania, Italy, nationality: Italian. Poet and novelist.-Biography:Born into a poor family, Beppe Costa grew up in an environment rich in books because his mother, divorced, lived with the publisher Dante Muglia...
and Adele Cambria he will manage to enforce for the first time the Bacchelli’s law, an annuity which is intended to poets and writers in need.
Bellezza was a bourgeois, as were many other intellectuals, but differed from them, according to Pasolini, in being "the first poet bourgeois to judge himself".
Pasolini had a profound affection for Bellezza's work and his artistic experience. The young poet reciprocated this feeling, and also was deeply grateful to Elsa Morante for what he called his poetic apprenticeship.
In 1981, enraged by the publication of the "obscene" photographs of the dead Pasolini "in tutta la loro gelida, disarmante crudezza... nudo, esposto, con tutte le macrabe ferite esibite del suo 'sacro' martirio" (in their icy, disarming rawness... naked, exposed, with all the grisly wounds exhibited of his 'sacred' martyrdom), Bellezza wrote the biographical essay Morte di Pasolini (Death of Pasolini).
In 1983, he published io (me), the lack of capital letters intentional. In this work, Bellezza lightly but concretely describes his everyday life and the mediocre desperation of his loves in ample detail. The poet associates life with insomnia, a curse that constantly pursues him:
"mi imprigioni, o insonnia"
(you imprison me, o insomnia)
In the book, he describes suffering from insomnia because, as a highly educated bourgeois and homosexual bigot, he feels tortured by a feeling of guilt and driven by the many contradictions that struggle against each other. Such contradictions are the quintessence of his existence:
"l'insonnia viene solo ai bugiardi,
a chi disobbedisce"
(insomnia comes only to liars,
to those who disobey)
In his guilt-ridden insomniac persona, he anticipated the poetry that would be too often adopted in the 1980s, that of the artist-outcast.
Bellezza was consumed by anguish and by the relics of (a now mocking) sense of hope:
"E se l'orecchio poso al rumore solo
delle scale battute dal rimorso
sento la tua discesa corrosa
dalla speranza"
(And if the ear I place to the noise only
of staircases beaten by remorse
I hear your descent corroded
by hope)
He is reduced to corrosive accounts of his own social condition:
"Io
dimenticato relitto di una civiltà
passata sono il solo che piango i defunti
miraggi di un'età morta."
(I
forgotten wreckage of a civilization
from the past I am the only one crying the dead
mirages of an age gone.)
The difficulty of homosexual life in Rome, particularly the requirements of secrecy and clandestinity of the love act, is a staple of Bellezza's poetic and prosaic writing. In Bellezza's first novel, L'innocenza (Innocence, 1971), Nino, the protagonist, consciously chooses the perdition and corruption of a living homosexual hell. In Bellezza's infernal world, homosexuality can be nothing else but prostitution and neurotically masochistic obsessions: in Lettere da Sodoma (Letters from Sodom
Sodom and Gomorrah
Sodom and Gomorrah were cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis and later expounded upon throughout the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and Deuterocanonical sources....
, 1972), his conclusion is that everything is Hell and that the only salvation is the systematic refusal of the self.
Bellezza won the Viareggio prize in 1976 for Morte segreta, the Gatto prize in 1991 for Invettive e licenze, the Montale prize in 1994 for L'avversario, and for the play Ordalia della croce he received the Fondi la Postora prize in 1994.
He died of AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
in Rome on March 31, 1996. That year, a poetry prize was established in his name.
Poetry
- Invettive e licenze ("Invectives and licenses", 1971)
- Morte segreta ("Secret death", 1976)
- Libro d'amore ("Book of love, 1982)
- io (me) ("I (me)", 1983)
- Piccolo canzoniere (small collection of lyrics, 1986)
- Undici erotiche ("Eleven erotic pieces", 1986)
- Serpenta (Lo specchio) (1987) ISBN 8-804-30065-5, ISBN 978-8-804-30065-6.
- Libro di poesia ("Book of poetry", 1990) ISBN 8-811-63022-3, ISBN 978-8-811-63022-3.
- Testamento di sangue ("Testament of blood", 1992) ISBN 8-811-64006-7, ISBN 978-8-811-64006-6.
- Gatti e altro ("Cats etc.", 1993)
- L'avversario ("The adversary", 1994) ISBN 8-804-37942-1, ISBN 978-8-804-37942-1.
- Proclama sul fascino ("Manifest of glamour", 1996) ISBN 8-804-41751-4, ISBN 978-8-804-41751-4.
The collected works were published as:
- Poesie 1971-1996 (2002)
Prose
- L'innocenza ("Innocence", 1970) ISBN 8-885-88179-3, ISBN 978-8-885-88179-2., Pellicanolibri, 1992
- Lettere da Sodoma ("Letters from Sodom", 1972)
- Il carnefice ("The executioner", 1973)
- Angelo ("Angel", 1979)
- Morte di Pasolini ("Pasolini's death", 1981, also published as Il poeta assassinato: Una riflessione, un'ipotesi, una sfida sulla morte di Pier Paolo Pasolini (Gli specchi della memoria), 1996) ISBN 8-831-76386-5, ISBN 978-8-831-76386-5.
- Storia di Nino De Donato ("The History of Nino", a new edition of L'innocenza) 1983.
- Turbamento ("Disturbance", 1984)
- L'amore felice: Romanzo ("Happy love: a novel", 1986) ISBN 8-818-06023-6, ISBN 978-8-818-06023-2.
- Nozze col diavolo: Romanzi e racconti ("Marriage with the devil", 1995) ISBN 8-831-76064-5, ISBN 978-8-831-76064-5.
Theatre
- Testamento di sangue ("Testament of blood", 1992)
- Apologia di teatro - Colosseo ("Apology of theatre", 1983, Pellicanolibri, 1985
- Salomé (1991)
- Morte funesta ("Woeful death", 1993)
- Ordalia della croce ("Ordeal of the cross", 1994)
English
- Renzo Paris in Bloody Europe! Racconti, Playground, Rome, 2004.
- Canadian Journal of Italian Studies, vol. 20, 1997. DeSoto Press.
Italian
- Battisti, S. and M. Bettarini. Chi è il poeta?. Milan: Gammalibri, 1980.
- Cavallaro, F. (ed.). L'arcano fascino dell'amore tradito, Giulio Perrone Editore, Roma 2006.
- Cordelli, F. Il poeta postumo. Consenza: Lerici, 1978.
- Cristallo, M. Uscir fuori Dieci anni di lotte omosessuali in Italia: 1971/1981, Teti, Milano 1996, pp. 36–38.
- Cucchi, M. and S. Giovanardi. Poeti italiani del secondo novecento 1945-1995. Milan: Mondadori, 1996.
- Esposito, V. L'altro Novecento nella poesia italiana: critica e testi. Bastogi, 1999.
- Gnerre, F. L'eroe negato. Omosessualità e letteratura nel Novecento italiano, Baldini & Castoldi, Milano 2000.
- Gregorini, M. Il male di Dario Bellezza: vita e morte di un poeta. Stampa alternativa/ Nuovi equilibri, 2006, ISBN 8-872-26915-6, ISBN 978-8-872-26915-2, 208 pages.
- Gregorini, M. Morte di Bellezza: storia di una verità nascosta. Castelvecchi, 1997, ISBN 8882100022, ISBN 978-8-882-10002-5, 143 pages.
- Priori, D. Diario di un mostro. Omaggio insolito a Dario Bellezza, 2006.