Eugenia Paulicelli (CUNY/Queens College)

 

 

ANNA MALFAIERA’S DRAMATIQUE MONOLOGUES

 

 I. Anna Malfaiera’s position in the Italian poetry landscape of this last quarter of the century is quite singular.

 

In her writings, she makes use of different levels of language within the poetic text, which is typically composed of pieces that I would call dramatic monologues. Malfaiera’s poetry is, in fact, not lyrical in the traditional sense; she employs language with a very innovative and personal charge, similar to that of the neo— avangarde poets who were called “I Novissimi”.

 

Almost all her poems lack punctuation except f or full stops; the verses are mostly hendecasyllabic, and at times polysyllabic (thirteen or more).

 

They play with caesuras, forming internal rhymes that give the poems a very original rhythm. As well as several volumes of poetry, Anna Malfaiera has also written two texts for theatre.

 

 

Born in Fabriano in 1926, Anna Malfaiera studied at the University of Urbino (Facoltà di Magistero).

 

Her early creative works were paintings and watercolors; it was only later that she moved toward poetry, publishing her first poems when she was twenty in the journal Letteratura.

 

Her first book, Fermo Davanzale (Still Window—sill) Rebellato 1961, was written between the ages of eighteen and twenty four. Already in this book we perceive her sensibility toward a contemporary language free from the constraints of the past lyrical tradition, such as the “false and consolatory lyricism” or “the confessionalism of pure sentiments”.¹ Considering the male— dominated Italian poetic tradition, Anna Maifaiera’s poetry, in this respect, is more interesting and “anomalous”.

 

Before turning to her major themes it is useful to review her published works. After Fermo Davanzale she published Il Vantaggio privato (Private Advantage), Salvatore Sciascia Ed.,l967 (second edition, 1970), whose title is taken from one of the poems of the earlier book. This will constitute a sort of techinque, a device, in all of Malfaiera’s books. Lo stato d’emergenza (Thg State of Emergency) La Nuova Foglio Editore, 1971 for example, includes the title of her following book Verso l’imperfetto (Towards the Imperfect), Tam Tam 37/b. In his introduction to Verso l’imperfetto, Alfredo Giuliani defines Malfaiera’s poetics as “petrosa e disincantata” — stony and disenchanted — and that she “Scrive versi senza immagini e senza colori, sordi ai richiami delle sirene” ( “she writes verses without images or colors, seemingly unresponsive to the mermaids’lure”.)

 

Her latest collection of poems is E intanto dire (Meantime Saying) Il Ventaglio, Roma 1991. In an afterward in the form of a letter, Giulia Niccolai has written of Anna Malfaiera’s “rovello interiore” and her way of meditating about life. This recurs in her poetics and is developed differently in each book. She cites a verse from her first collection of poems (Still window-sill) “Having left my home behind I will feel in the wind” (“Lasciata la mia casa mi sentirò nel vento” ) linking up with “The Moving” (“Il Trasloco”) the last poem of “Meantime Saying. “ The house will be demolished. We shall see/ its devastation and having grown not in vain / all of us without memory to rebuild ourselves “ (“La casa sarà demolita. Noi vedremo / la sua devastazione e non invano ormai cresciuti/tutti senza memoria per rifarci nuovi”. In this way a “narrative project” is established in Malfaiera’s poetry, which functions as a rethorical device.

 

In the years 1987-1989 Anna Malfaiera partecipates in the “Progetto Fabula” ( a local theatrical initiative) with a monologue and a project called “Carmen.” In 1989 two of her productions were staged, “Love effect” (“Effetto Amore”) at the Duse Theatre, and “The Last Carmen” (“L’ultima Carmen”) at the “Teatro dell’orologio” and at the “In” both in Rome. 27, Rue de Fleurus, (Il Ventaglio, 1992) is the title of her interpretation and adaptation of Gertrude Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice Toklas.

 

This text is divided into four acts, and has not yet been staged.

 

II. Still window-sill establishes the first step in Malfaiera’s poetic career.

 

The title evokes a contemplative phase in which the poet is searching for her own space, her own voice. The act of contemplation in this context does not mean a passive acceptance of external reality.

 

In a way it contradicts the volume title, which alludes to what one could see or imagine through the window—sill.

 

The observations and meditations of a poet still rooted in the province still prevail in this collection, though there are elements that manifest a very distintive movement that alternates between inactivity and motion.

 

The act of observation is never static, but is complex and twofold.

 

These observations are couched in a circular rhythm, the passage of time through the four seasons — starting with spring — and the consequent change in nature and landscape. “Ho ingrandito l’infinito / per non toccare orizzonti, / ma in questa mano / ho un pegno che mi lega. / In grembo alla mia fede mi cancello e tengo l’universo per la mano.” (“I have magnified infinity / so as not to touch the horizon, / but in my hand / I bear a pledge that binds me. / I erase myself in the bosom of my faith and I hold the universe by the hand”.

 

The poems in this book are full of colors and images evoking nature with at times a Leopardian atmosphere.

 

“Ora che i rami tutti perdono le foglie / e restano gli ulivi in contrasto col tempo / nella candida attesa.”“Now that all the branches lose their foliage / and the olive trees stay in contrast with time / in their candid waiting”. Since they never lose their leaves, the olive trees are an unchangeble presence in opposition to the cyclical course of nature and the alternation of seasons.

 

The presence of images and their metaphoric charge will be absent in Malfaiera’s later poems, in which a deep and clear philosophical dimension is acquired. In these poems, the landscape is absent or more precisely, nature as landscape disappears, substituted by the landscape of the mind with its labyrinthine paths. In particular, what disappears is the “Marche” countryside, her native region, the place she decided to leave. It is not by chance that the last poem in the collection is entitled “Un’Ansia Nuova” (A New Longing”) in which the change has already taken place. “Lontananza ai miei luoghi / sei città, eppure fatta verde /... In te mi pare più facile apparire, / mi pare più semplice sapere. / Un’ansia nuova fa radice in me / più che gli anni non possano. (...) Ora muovi questo assedio di voci / e provvida disponi altro tempo per me.”“Distance from my places / you are city, and yet turned green/... In you it seems easier to appear, / it seems to me that it is simpler to know. / A new anxiety takes root in me / more than years might do.(...) Now move this siege of voices / and providentially set a different time for me.”

 

 

The Private Advantage consists of three sections: “La prova dei giorni” (“The Trial of the Days”), composed of seven long poems, one for each day of the week; “In fase di constatazione” (“In the Phase of Ascertaining”); and “In fase di contestazione (“In the phase of protesting”).

 

Though the book was published in 1967, the poems were written mostly during the years 1963-64, when as a result of the economic boom Italy became a consumer society. Therefore the title Il vantaggio privato is sarcastic, as clearly shown in the following verses: “Un luogo dove immaginare / che il resto della vita sia sorpresa / dove la pazienza può interrompersi / contro l’adesione pletorica / contro chi l’accetta / contro il vantaggio privato / contro il ristagno di sfiducia / rischiando di espatriare dalla terra.” “ A place to imagine / that the rest of life may be a surprise / where patience can be interrupted /against overbearing consumers / against those who accept / against mass acceptance/ against any private advantage / against the stagnation of distrust / with the risk of expatriating from the earth”. All the poems of this collection are a strenuous and restless symbolic excavation into the inner and external world.

 

Microhistory and macrohistory intermingle through the dialogic relationship established by the poetic persona. The analysis of reality is lucid, harboring no illusions engraved in a lapidary style in paratactic constructions.

 

As Giulia Niccolai says in her insightful essay on Anna Maifaiera’s poetry, it is “impossible to detect moments of pessimism or optmism” — although “only awareness saves her from alienation”. Malfaiera’s awareness is both of language and of a multifaceted reality, in which the ego feels distant, out of place, and consequently displays a sense of alienation.

 

The third poem of “In the Phase of Protesting” includes the title of her next book The State of Emergency “Per noi e lo scempio la violenza / lo stato d’emergenza gli ordigni/di cui non conosciamo che l’uso distruttore.”

 

“Far us it havoc is violence/ the state of emergency devices/ of which we know only the destructive use.” In the anticipation of the title of her next book there is also a progressive narrative chain that connects the unraveling of the ego as it inscribes her own poetics. Lo Stato d’Emergenza includes ten poems together with drawings by the artist Valeriano Trubbiani.

 

These poems have a very strong visual impact on the reader and the language that the poet uses here is as sharp as a “Samurai’s sword”.

 

These are poems written in the seventies, the socalled “anni di piombo”, when terrorism in Italy reached its most tragic and violent phase.

 

Because of the constant threats and fear in those years —— especially in the late seventies after Moro’s kidnapping —— some political parties talked about imposing the state of emergency in order to allow the “state” to survive.

 

Once again Anna Malfaiera is here ahead of her time in foreseeing this state of emergency as displaying many different levels of signification, from the individual on to the political and the ethical in much broader terms. Therefore the language and the style of these poems are very much attuned to these themes.

 

The first page of the collection has a very interesting typographical aspect; the single letters are organized in a non—symmetrical order on the page and do not compose words, but break them.

 

The title is hardly readable and the viewer/reader has to jump, with his/her gaze from one letter to the other, one space to the other in order to reconstruct the title. The drawings and the visual aspects of this collection of poems say and comment in another language or medium on what the poems express.

 

 

Cosi è meglio cosi non equivoco

 non garantisco di rendere cosa la cosa

 pongo la mia dipendenza al panico degli atti comuni il mio rovescio autopunitivo

 finché una forma

 elevata di coscienza al punto in cui

 le ideologie si sostengono una all’altra

 in tempo di ingiustizia insaziabile.

  

 

It is better in this way that I do not equivocate

 I don’t guarantee to make the thing a thing

 I place my dependence upon the panic of everyday

 gestures, my self-punishing other side

 as long as I live I shall be offended by everything

 until I wonder whether the void is not an elevated

 form of conscoiusness to the point in which

 ideologies support one another

 in a time of insatiable injustice.

 

 

 

Towards the imperfect consists of seventy poems that are divided into four sections; they have no titles but they are separated by a blank page and an asterisk.

 

These poems are a deep exploration into the two worlds of the conscious and the unconscious, as well as between the Ego and the other that at some point become fused into an “us”.

 

Between these different universes an intense dialogue is established which constitute at the same time a long and multifaceted narration of both the poet and the poetic persona.

 

Through the journey of both introspection and analysis a new level of awareness is achieved at the end, after the experience of pain.

 

 

Lavora lavora e guardati intorno

 guarda il macchinoso corredo

 che ci viene trasmesso guarda

 quale gente si ritiene che conti

 il repertorio dei profitti i comodi

 riferimenti l’atroce cronaca guarda

 chi nella vita ha lavorato duramente.

 Se accerti che tutto il disponibile

 e’ scadente le azioni volenterose

 saranno sempre meno. Eppure

 se un movimento spregiudicato usando

 la magia raggiungesse l’impensabile

 allora sarebbero vani i temi dello scoraggiamento.

 Va’ a elencare le componenti del rifiuto

 come si mantiene i suoi precedenti....

 

  

Work work and look around yourself

 look at the complicated system

 transmitted to us look

 at the people thought to count

 the repertory of profits the convenient references the atrocious news look

 at those who in life have worked hard. If you see everything available

 is second-rate willing actions will be fewer and fewer. Yet

 if an unprejudiced movement making use

 of magic were to achieve the unthinkable then the themes of discouragement would be in vain.

 Go and list the components of refusal

 how it maintains its precedents...

 

 

Seven years after the publication of Towards the Imperfect, Anna Malfaiera’s latest book of poetry is entitled Meantime Saying 1991.

 

 This collection consists of three parts “E intanto dire”, “Un adesso cosi” (“A now like this”) , “I Luoghi della parola” (“The places of the word”). At the end of the last section there are three poems with titles: “Una resistenza inamovibile”, “A firm resistance”, “Il fatto crudo”, “ The hard facts”, “Il Trasloco” — “The Moving”.

 

 

The title of the book evokes and establishes a certain interval in which the poetic word defines itself seeking its own meaning, followed by the movement implied in the title of the previous collection Towards the Imperfect.

 

In E Intanto dire we notice a metapoetic and a metalinguistic level.

 

There is a meditation in these verses on the function of verbal language in interpreting the world, an urgency and a need to call feelings by their name and then describe them.

 

Moreover, the very act of writing is also taken into consideration in these meditations, but in order to be affirmed without pretending to explain it solely in rational terms. The act of writing here becomes or represents the creative experience itself, a process not completely explainable within a reassuring taxonomy, not even for the poet.

 

 

“Non ho mai saputo perché mi ostino a scrivere./ Determinata. Mai rinunciare a correggermi/ migliorare./ (...)

  

Amo la tregua dello scrivere non considero/ le ragioni che lo provocano.

 

Non ho veri / strumenti. Soppeso lo stupore che mi causano/ le regole e i loro artifici. (...)

 

Una pratica che non so definire se di fede/ o finzione. Pudore e farsene gioco. / Un equivoco l’indagare. Meglio non sostare/ riflettere non presagire e intanto dire.”

 

“I have never known why I insist on writing. / Determined. Never renouncing in correcting myself / improving./ (...)

 

 

I love the respite of writing I do not consider/ the reasons that provoke it. I do not have / real tools. I weigh in my hand the amazement that the rules and / their artifices produce in me. (...) A practice that I do not know if I can define in terms of faith/ or fiction. Modesty and making fun of it. / A misunderstanding the investigation of it. Better not to pose! meditating not predicting and for a while saying.”

 

These verses demonstrate very clearly that the act of writing is important by itself, we may say selfreferential and what Is meaningful Is not explainig why it occurs but acknowledging its existence as un uncontrollable need for the poet, taking the risk of not reaching, at the end, any solution or an easy recipe or remedy for eternal happiness. Neither for the poet nor for the reader.

 

“Sento d’essere simile ad un progetto / narrativo che non ha certezza di realizzo / ma ne finge la possibilità in un tempo / indefinito. Elaboro l’intreccio.”

 

“I think I am similar to a narrative / project that does not have the certainty of succeeding / but pretends it has that possibility in an indefinite / time. I elaborate the plot.

 

Language for Anna Malfaiera is action and it coincides with the ongoing process of experimentation of doing and creating poetry. But this act is “never defined and definitive” once and for all as she affirms in Zeta² a special issue dedicated to a survey of contemporary Italian poetry. From the beginning, her work is, alone and beyond the different stages it has gone through, a coherent and restless attempt to combine the making of the poem with the living of a life. In so doing she explores the possibilities open to words in narrating the tension towards life, which although certainly “imperfect”, nonetheless is to be lived till the end. A life that needs to be gone through and to be interpreted via the laboratory of signs and tools that the poet has and chooses.

 

27, Rue de Fleurus and “The Last Carmen” are very interesting texts for many reasons.

 

First because these are works written and conceived for the stage, which implies a different relationship and function of the written word. Moreover the theatrical dimension of Malfaiera’s language is present also in her poetry, where an ongoing dialogue can be perceived between the various parts of the ego and the hypothetical spectator/listener/reader. In addition to this, it is important to note that the characters of these two texts are all females, mythical figures from life and literature. Gertrude Stein was a legendary character and prominent intellectual in Parisian life of the early decades of the century, the years of “the movable feast” to use Hemingway’s definition. Carmen represents a myth produced by male phantasy and imagination. In other words, Gertrude Stein speaks for herself, she is a subject, Carmen on the other hand is spoken, is an object of discourse. Very intriguing in this respect is the way Malfaiera reworked these female characters, bringing new life to them.

 

The title 27, Rue de Fleurus refers to the address where Gertrude Stein and her life companion Alice Toklas lived. Their house in Paris became one of the most important cultural centres for French and international artists, writers and poets. Divided into four acts, Malfaiera’s play has only two characters, Gertrude and Alice. Their relationship is pictured in a domestic environment where the spectator can trace the way the two different universes, the two women, interact and organize their lives. Their own space inside the house becomes a strong metaphor for the world in general. What emerges from the play is that the two women are completely different and yet they do not have a power relationship, which is the norm in a “family” or in a “couple”. As Mario Lunetta says in the introduction to the play “Due personaggi in scena, che sono — per scelta e ottica dell' autrice — due paradigmi di personaggi: quindi, due situazioni orizzontali il cui spessore e, più che drammaturgico, discorsivo.”³ “Two characters on stage who are — according to the author’s choice and opinion — two examples of characters. Thus they are two horizontal situations whose depth is more colloqial than dramaturgic.” At the end of the play the two women, first Gertrude and then Alice, declare to the audience their own diversity, and at the same time their love and affection beyond these differences of character and their respective roles in the economy of their house and in their relationship.

 

Alice: Is our relationship a love story or an extraordinary adventure?

 

Gertrude: Anyone might think that a love story or an adventure are the same thing... No, they are not... The adventure has something to do with small things that are bigger and with big things that are smaller. . .Well, a love story has nothing to do with anything that is smaller or bigger. The adventure means bringing what is far, closer. A love story means having what is close far... and a little bit here..."

 

Alice: la nostra è una storia d’amore o una straordinaria avventura?

 

Gertrude: Chiunque potrebbe pensare che una storia d’amore o un’avventura siano la stessa cosa.. No, che non lo sono. . .L’avventura ha a che fare con le cose grandi che sono più piccole.. Beh! una storia d’amore non ha niente a che fare con qualsiasi cosa che sia più grande o più piccola. L’avventura è portare il lontano vicino.

 

La storia d’amore è avere il vicino lontano e un pochino qui...

 

“The last Carmen” is a very powerful text not only for its style but also f or the way Anna Malfaiera treats the myth of Carmen in the long tradition of the femme fatale the “opposite” of the woman as angel. Carmen, here, has an autonomous voice and by her monologue she shows how her role was in fact played and produced in order to respond to and satisfy male desires. In this monologue she speaks sarcastically about her destructive power because of her not fitting in the traditional role expected from women. Moreover she talks about her femininity, asserting her freedom of choosing her own life or her lovers, making fun of fears derived from passion.

 

I am the last Carmen of history, I am a

 voracious mechanism of other’s devotion I am

 a conscious and a responsible game of my

 destiny as a myth.... I am aware of being a

 woman in the full powers of her mystery.. . . Only

 the lack of freedom might scare me.. . .I have

 upset the male imaginary with the tricks I have

 arranged in advance. . . .The dream that the

 “other half of the sky” was truly protected has

 never fooled me.

  

 [Sono l’ultima Carmen della storia sono un congegno vorace dell’altrui dedizione sono un gioco cosciente responsabile del mio destino di mito... . Ho coscienza di donna nei pieni poteri del suo mistero. . . . Solo la mancanza di libertà può spaventarmi... Ho scombinato l’immaginario maschile con gli incastri da me predisposti... .Il sogno che “l’altra metà del cielo fosse veramente difesa nei suoi diritti non mi ha mai illusa....]

 

In Malfaiera’s interpretation, Carmen is at the same time “vittima e carnefice”—— victim and executioner —— of her own destiny. In other words, Carmen in her text is finally speaking for herself, making fun of all the stereotypes that she has embodied in history. In so doing, she acquires her own voice, becoming subject of her own discourse.

 

After having examined Malfaiera’s work one can notice a very clear intellectual strength that leads her towards a profound originality and a singular style in the recent history of Italian poetry and literature. Moreover, with her wit Anna Malfaiera with her wit undermines from within the commonplaces which belong to both “ the femmine universe” and a certain “feminism” which she finally destroys, bringing to life new and diverse figures about which to think and rethink.

 

 

REFERENCES

 

Giorgio Barberi-Squarotti, in Letteratura n.93, 1968, Ed. De Luca.

 Francesco Paolo Merlo(?), in Galleria n.5—6 1974.

 Alfredo Giuliani, in Repubblica — 13 luglio 1984.

 preface/introduction to Verso l’Imperfetto.

 Mario Lunetta, in Poesie d’Amore , Newton Compton, 1986.

 “Una poesia disseminata e compatta” in Isabella Vincentini (a cura di) Le ultime tendenze — Colloqui sulla poesia , Ed. ERI — RAI.

 ____ Introduction to Anna Malfaiera 27, Rue de Fleurus

 Roma: Il Ventaglio 1992.

 Giulia Niccolai, “On the work of Anna Malfaiera” in Differentia n.I, 1986.

 Adria Profili, “Anna Malfaiera: Una poetessa” in Il Progresso n.3, 1992.

 

 

Works by Anna Malfaiera

 

Poetry

 

Fermo Davanzale. Padova: Rebellato, 1961.

 Il Vantaggio Privato. Caltanissetta — Roma : Edizioni Salvatore

 Sciascia, 1970.

 Lo Stato d’Emergenza . Pollenza di Macerata: La Nuova Foglio, 1971.

 Verso l’Imperfetto . TamTam 37/b , 1984.

 E Intanto Dire . Roma: Il Ventaglio, 1991.

 Poems have also appeared in anthologies and and literary reviews:

 Bianca Maria Frabotta ed.by. Donna in Poesia. Roma: Savelli, 1977.

 Cavallo, Franco.,Lunetta, Mario, ed. by. Poesia italiana della

 contraddizione. Roma: Newton Compton 19..

 Bettini, Filippo. Lunetta, Marioo. ed.by. Letteratura degli anni

 ottanta - Scrittori nelle scuole, 1983-84. Roma: Bastogi, 1985.

 Lunetta, Mario. ed.by. Verso Roma — Roma in versi . Roma: Lucarini,  1986.

 Three poems Trasparenza 1989

 Galleria n.2, Maggio-Agosto 1991.

 

  

THEATRE

 

L’ultima Carmen 1988 (staged in Rome but not. published yet)

27, Rue de Fleurus. Roma: Il Ventaglio, 1992.

 

  

Translations of Anna Malfaiera

 

Cervo Volante n.9, Novembre 1981.

The Literary Review . Winter 1985, Vol, 28 n.2.

1 Cfr. Giulia Niccolai, “On the Work of Anna Malfaiera” in Differentia , n.1, Autumn 1986.

3 Cfr.Mario Lunetta, p.8.