Conglomerates

Adele Bardazzi and Roberto Binetti (eds)

Conglomerates

Andrea Zanzotto’s Poetic Clusters

Oxford · Berlin · Bruxelles · Chennai · Lausanne · New York

Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bardazzi, Adele, 1991- editor. | Binetti, Roberto, 1994- editor.

Title: Conglomerates : Andrea Zanzotto’s poetic clusters / [edited by] Adele Bardazzi, Roberto Binetti.

Description: Oxford ; New York : Peter Lang, 2025. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2024058819 (print) | LCCN 2024058820 (ebook) | ISBN 9781803740522 (paperback) | ISBN 9781803740539 (ebook) | ISBN 9781803740546 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Zanzotto, Andrea, 1921-2011--Criticism and interpretation.

Classification: LCC PQ4851.A74 Z625 2025 (print) | LCC PQ4851.A74 (ebook) | DDC 851/.914--dc23/eng/20241210

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024058819

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024058820

Grateful acknowledgement is made for permission to reproduce the following copyright material: Andrea Zanzotto, Le poesie e prose scelte, ed. Stefano Dal Bianco and Gian Mario Villalta (Milan: Mondadori, 1999), and Andrea Zanzotto, Haiku for a season (Milan: Mondadori, 2019) © Mondadori Libri SpA, Milano, Andrea Zanzotto Estate, Published by arrangement with The Italian Literary Agency.

Cover image: Photograph by Nicolò Panzeri for Atelier Terre.

Cover design by Peter Lang Group AG

ISBN 978-1-80374-052-2 (Print)

ISBN 978-1-80374-053-9 (E-PDF)

ISBN 978-1-80374-054-6 (E-PUB)

DOI 10.3726/b20342

© 2025 Peter Lang Group AG, Lausanne

Published by Peter Lang Ltd, Oxford, United Kingdom

info@peterlang.com

Adele Bardazzi and Roberto Binetti have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors of this Work.

All rights reserved.

All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems.

This publication has been peer reviewed.

www.peterlang.com

To Konrad Eisenbichler

Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Acknowledgements

A Note on Translations

ADELE BARDAZZI AND ROBERTO BINETTI

This Global Language That Will Pass: Conglomerates of Meaning

CONGLOMERATE 1: FORM

NICOLA GARDINI

1 Figura: A Word by Andrea Zanzotto

GIULIA MARTINI

2 A, b, c, d, e, Polifemo: On IX Ecloghe’s Dialogism

ANDREA DI SEREGO ALIGHIERI

3 ‘Diffidare il corpo far svenire di fame ogni gesto’: Tracing Andrea Zanzotto’s Poetics of Delivery

CONGLOMERATE 2: THOUGHT

STEFANO DAL BIANCO

4 Andrea Zanzotto’s Archetypical Symbolism

FRANCESCO VENTURI

5 The ‘Rotating Field’ of Andrea Zanzotto’s Trilogy

EMANUELE ZOPPELLARI

6 ‘Rune forse lunari’: Andrea Zanzotto’s vecio parlar and Venetic mythology

CONGLOMERATE 3: WOUND

GIAN MARIA ANNOVI

7 Trembling Lines: Drawing, Trauma and Writing in Andrea Zanzotto’s Conglomerati

ADELE BARDAZZI

8 ‘Rivolgersi agli ossari’: Zanzotto’s Poetics of Mourning Against Humanity

ROBERTO BINETTI

9 The Exhausted Language of Poetry: Reading Zanzotto with Deleuze Through Beckett

CONGLOMERATE 4: NATURE

MATILDE MANARA

10 Outraging Nature: Zanzotto’s and Tarkovsky’s Nonplaces Between Wasted Arcadia and Landscape’s Revenge

FRANCESCA SANTUCCI

11 Zanzotto’s Bestiary and the Post-Human

DARIA CATULINI

12 The Haiku’s Seasons: A Path to Understanding Zanzotto’s Late Poetry

Notes on Contributors

Index

Acknowledgements

This edited volume stems from the conference held in 2021, Conglomerati: Andrea Zanzotto’s Poetic Clusters (<https://zanzottoconglomerati.altervista.org>). The year was particularly significant for those interested in Andrea Zanzotto, as it marked the centenary of the poet’s birth, leading to numerous events within and outside of Italy. Within this busy year, we settled on the 18th and 19th November 2021 – one of the few dates where the ‘pillars’ of scholarship on Zanzotto were not already committed to other conferences on the poet.¹ Our gratitude goes, thus, to them, but first and foremost to Stefano Dal Bianco – perhaps the busiest of all on this occasion – and rightly so.

Our thanks go to those without who made this book possible. This includes the speakers at the conference, the keynotes, members of the scientific committee, and colleagues who contributed upon invitation. Within this group, there are inevitably several absences – some due to practical reasons and others occurring during the process leading to this book publication. We also extend our thanks to Giorgia Bongiorno, Andrea Cortellessa, and Laura Toppan who invited us to participate to their Zanzotto europeo in Paris as well as to Zanzotto europeo: la sua poesia in movimento, Franco Cesati Editore, 2023). Some of the contributions in Paris have been germinal in our thinking on Zanzotto: we are particularly grateful to the following: Antonella Anedda, Valerio Magrelli, Andrea Cortellessa, and Manuele Gragnolati. We would like to take the opportunity to express our gratitude, not despite of, but even in their absences, to two scholars who have extensively contributed on Zanzotto, and even more, our Zanzotto: Peter Hainsworth and John P. Welle. Additionally, we extend our thanks to Giovanni Zanzotto, who has received and will undoubtedly continue to receive generous acknowledgments for his invaluable contributions from so many scholars who venture into the gnessunluogo of Zanzotto.

We are grateful to our institutions for their support over the past years: Trinity College Dublin – particularly to Clodagh Brook – Utrecht University, University of Toronto, and University of Padua – particularly to Emanuele Zinato. Before any of these, we extend our heartfelt thanks to our small community within the University of Oxford, where this project was initiated. Special thanks go to the Sub-Faculty of Italian, especially Nicola Gardini, who supported this project enormously. A special thank you also goes to Guido Bonsaver, who generously supported us when we initially planned to host this project at Pembroke College. We are also thankful for the funding support provided by the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, Italian Studies at Oxford (ISO), the Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA), and the Society for Italian Studies (SIS).

This book emerges after several in-depth revisions following careful peer reviews by two anonymous readers. We are immensely grateful for their numerous corrections and suggestions. This, as well as all other stages at Peter Lang are the result of the masterful work of our editor, Laurel Plapp, whose guidance and dedication were invaluable throughout this process.

We dedicate this book to Konrad Eisenbichler. His generosity, extending far beyond an intellectual one, has been fundamental for making this book – and much more – possible. His Art of Editing has inspired us, though we can only strive to emulate his mastery. Nevertheless, we have made the attempt, guided by his example. His work as editor has taught us that the labour involved in editing collective volumes is essential for fostering a scholarship that endures precisely in its being a lasting conglomerate.

Adele Bardazzi and Roberto Binetti
Utrecht, 15 July 2024

A Note on Translations

Andrea Zanzotto’s poetry has often been referred to as ‘difficult’ as a result of its continuous working through language(s). This view is debatable, but surely there is consensus that if translation is always a difficult exercise, translating Zanzotto is far from an easy and straightforward enterprise. When working on these translations, we have encountered more than once the question of untranslatability. Our position is that every-thing is translatable precisely for its not-being-translatable. Poetry is that no-places that reveals this at its best.

We are deeply grateful to Jonny Wiles who has generously and attentively helped Roberto Binetti in translating Zanzotto’s poetry into English. We are also very grateful to the authors who have worked on some of the translations too as well as the meticulous and attentive suggestions and corrections by the anonymous reader in the revising stage of this manuscript. The making of these translations has preserved the fundamental motivation behind this project: not simply producing an edited volume on Zanzotto, but extending Zanzotto’s work beyond the linguistic and geographical boundaries where criticism of his extensive oeuvre is often restricted – boundaries that his work inherently challenges and seeks to undo. This endeavour serves to elevate Zanzotto’s position within the Western lyric canon, and these translations have been crucial in this effort a più mani.