Rebellious Poetry in post-Risorgimento Italy (1870-1900)

The paper aims at analysing the relationship between poetry and politics in the first decades following Italian unification. It focuses, in particular, on the left side of the political spectrum, populated by militant artists, expressing through verses their revolt against the monarchical and bourgeois order – or simply against a political life that seemed to them mediocre and corrupt. Starting with Carducci, who was the beloved voice of youth rebellion until at least the end of the Seventies (his Inno a Satana has been the war cry of a whole generation), this paper will move on to the Garibaldinian and leader of the democratic left Felice Cavallotti, master in using poetry to mobilize large public support for democratic campaigns. Finally, my analysis will focus on the poet Lorenzo Stecchetti, alias Olindo Guerrini: nowadays almost forgotten, he experienced in his time an outstanding popularity. “Stecchetti was our poet”, claimed the anarchist Armando Borghi: many political rebellions were ignited by his verses, that seemed brilliantly challenge bourgeois moral, political, and linguistic conventions.