“In sé da simulacro a fiamma vera / errando:” Ungaretti’s Poetry from Bergson to Plato

[...] tutta la mia poesia e un modo platonico di sentire le cose, ed essa ha del resto due maestri nel campo dello spirito, da una parte Platone e i Platonici, e dall'altra Bergson: sono i due maestri che mi hanno sempre accompagnato quando io ho dovuto pensare [...]. This is an important statement that Ungaretti writes regarding the philosophical thought grounding his poetic work: it is a precise and final statement, even though offered parenthetically in the context of his fourth and last lecture delivered at Columbia University in May 1964. (1) Making this statement at the end of his poetic parabola, Ungaretti organizes his entire "life of a man," following the teachings of Vico, around a specific trend of Western thought. This trend may be defined by its specific interest in metaphysics especially in relation to the question of time from a spiritualistic perspective. (2) Ungaretti's statement coherently places itself not only in the realm of a poetics of memory, which is one of the distinctive marks of Ungaretti's poetry, but it also introduces the two thinkers who, within the history of philosophy according to our poet, represent the terminus a quo and the terminus ad quem: Plato and Bergson. In fact, it is between these two masters that Ungaretti unfolds his intellectual history, a history that comprises some of the greatest poetic voices of the tradition up to Ungaretti's time: Saint Augustine, Petrarch, Gongora (next to whom one must place Tasso on the one hand and Vico on the other, through the Metaphysical poets), Leopardi, Mallarme, Valery. In the commentary to the Canzone the idea of memory, through which Ungaretti nurtures so much of his poetry, at least from L'Allegria to La Terra Promessa, evolves into at least three fundamental concepts: the opposition between "effimero" and "eterno" (inherited through Baudelaire); "reminiscenza;" and "prima imagine." All three concepts immediately reveal the Platonic mark. (3) However, the idea of memory in Ungaretti's poetry shapes itself autonomously vis-a-vis the chronology of philosophical thought, although it is true that the poet officially begins writing poetry only after listening to Bergson lecturing in Paris between 1912 and 1914. (4) The outcome of the critical reflection provoked by that experience percolates for more than ten years. Then, in 1924 Ungaretti publishes the two short essays "L'estetica di Bergson" and "Lo stile di Bergson," which in turn are followed two years later by the three-folded crafting of the fundamental "Innocenza e memoria." (5) It seems that the writings on Bergson enable the poet to free himself from that presence which by now, as the elaboration of Innocenza e memoria shows, has become burdensome. In that short number of years Ungaretti pays homage to a thought, which had been until then guidance for his reflection, and he starts distancing himself from Bergson. At the same time Ungaretti gets closer to some principles of Platonic philosophy mediated through the Neo-Platonists and the Pre-Socratics, as the poet himself states. (6) In this respect, the lecture on Plato assumes emblematic value, especially when Ungaretti briefly lists those approaches, proposed by philosophers and poets alike, to the very concept of idea, which was crucial to him: (7) Quando si dice idea, si da a questa parola un contenuto che non pub essere sempre lo stesso. La parola idea per il Petrarca ha un significato diverso da quello che aveva per Platone, per Hegel ha un significato diverso da quello che aveva per il Petrarca, per il Leopardi ha un significato diverso da quello che aveva per Hegel, per Bergson ha un significato diverso da quello che aveva per Leopardi ed io stesso, per esempio, nella mia poesia, le ho dato un contenuto diverso da quello che le aveva dato Bergson. This is a rare recognition on Ungaretti's part of the conceptual distance separating his poetry from Bergson's philosophy, even though he does not venture to specify the difference in content to which he aspires, nor to date his emancipation from the French philosopher's thought. …