Under Arturo's Star: The Cultural Legacies of Elsa Morante

Elsa Morante and Pier Paolo Pasolini

268 Walter Siti Elsa Morante and Pier Paolo Pasolini This article traces the intense, reciprocal, fertile, and troubled relationship between Elsa Morante and Pier Paolo Pasolini.1 In analyzing the several aspects of Morante’s presence in the work of Pasolini, I have deliberately enmeshed three elements: (1) the level of empirical people, (2) the level of psychic “self-images ,” and (3) the level of literary characters. This last item should subsequently be divided into (a) characters appearing with the same name as their empirical referent and requiring an immediate comparison with the extra-textual world, and (b) autonomous characters, in which the reference to empirical persons is cryptic and of little bearing for the comprehension of the text. The first mention of Elsa Morante in the work of Pier Paolo Pasolini is to be found in his letters. In a letter dated June 22, 1954 (Lettere 1940–1954 667),2 Pasolini recommends Morante’s Lo scialle andaluso to Leonardo Sciascia, for a series that was also to include the works of Giorgio Bassani and Natalia Ginzburg; Pasolini had first read Lo scialle andaluso when it appeared in Botteghe Oscure in 1953. During these years, Pasolini was seeking entry into the influential literary circles of Rome, attempting to insert himself into the “cultural politics” of the day. To recommend Lo scialle andaluso to the high-profile Sicilian writer Sciascia, however , transcended such politics, while Pasolini’s reading of Morante’s work also suggests a deepening understanding between the two artists. Writing from Bari on January 18, 1955, Pasolini announces his intention to invite Alberto Moravia and Elsa Morante to dinner at his parents’ house: “Prima di tutto la mamma faccia l’esame di coscienza e veda se si sente di affrontare con calma Elsa Morante and Pier Paolo Pasolini 269 il nuovo tour de force. Poi, il babbo dovrebbe telefonare subito a Elsa Morante e chiederle se per domenica sera lei e Moravia sono liberi e disponibili” (Lettere 1955–1975 13; “first of all, Mother should take a good look at herself and see if she feels up to facing this new tour de force comfortably. Then, Dad should quickly phone Elsa Morante and ask her if she and Moravia are free for dinner on Sunday”). The tone of the letter suggests that the planned dinner was somewhat formal, making it likely that Pasolini’s personal acquaintance with Moravia and Morante was still a recent one. On an intellectual level, a hint of textual coincidence between the incipit of Morante’s poem “Alibi,” “Solo chi ama conosce” (Morante, Opere 1: 1392–95; “Only who loves knows”), and the incipit of Pasolini’s “Il pianto della scavatrice ,” “Solo l’amare, solo il conoscere / conta” (Pasolini, Tutte le poesie 1: 833; “Only loving, only the knowing / Counts”), appears to offer further confirmation of the blossoming relationship between the authors. The suspicion becomes almost a certainty when we compare this line from “Alibi,” “povero come il gatto dei vicoli napoletani” (Morante, Opere 1: 1394; “poor as a cat from the back streets of Naples”), with the line “povero come un gatto del Colosseo” in Pasolini’s “Il pianto della scavatrice” (Tutte le poesie 1: 836; “poor as a cat from the Coliseum”). The dates claim “Alibi” to be prior3 to “Il pianto della scavatrice,” while Pasolini seems to have engaged in a private micro-allusion bordering on homage. The image of the cat will soon, in fact, become a recurring pattern of symbolic recognition between the two artists. On December 21, 1957, Pasolini published a review of Morante’s second novel, L’isola di Arturo (Arturo’s Island) in Vie nuove. While he comments very favorably on the novel, he also criticized some formal elements of the work. He believes, for instance, that Morante could easily have cut half of the first 150 pages; she should have drawn only a general picture of the period preceding the arrival of Nunziatella on the island of Procida, omitting the descriptions of the islanders and the island . For Pasolini, the image of the island rendered in these pages becomes too superficial and sketchy. In his review, the artist stresses how Morante’s writing should have focused, rather, on Arturo’s life. The experimentalist Pasolini appears 270 Walter Siti uneasy with Morante’s “slow pace,” choosing to use her novel as a means of honing his own views on Neorealistic polemics...