Inside the house: indoor elements and their opposition to the outside spaces

The third section of the chapter looks further at the interior of the house, established already to some extent through an element of the dwelling namely the window which is ‘the perfect symbol, bringing together inside and outside, dream and reality, self and non-self, and the spectacle, thus perceived, becomes for the poet a means of self-exploration’.468 In addition, a general description of the city as a metaphorical lazzaretto469 will provide a better understanding of the opposition between the inside and the outside spaces.

The poem ‘I morti e i veri’470 continues to blur the boundary between present and past, as we have seen with the example of a guillotine, but this time inside the house, rather than in the open space of an urban square. The poem refers to the past, but also illustrates the topic of children and ancestors. Here the birth of a child happens in the evening in darkness, accompanied by threatening weather conditions,’il temporale’. The situation is reminiscent of the image from the poem ‘Compleanno’. Raboni felt guilty because he was unable to fulfil the role of father. One can also read about this painful topic in the poem ‘La guerra’ (1986), which focuses on Raboni’s own father, the gratitude and veneration Raboni feels for him and for his bravery and heroism during the war,471 _{as well as comparisons with his own role as an absentee father.}472

The poem ‘I morti e i veri’ starts with a description of the domestic space:

Nella casa umida, il poco

ch’è asciutto sembra più asciutto ancora: nelle stanze da letto al primo piano il pavimento d’assi quasi bianche

1 2 3 4

468 _{Hiddleston, Baudelaire and Le Spleen de Paris, cit., p.29.}

469 _{Raboni considered all modern cities as ‘lazzaretti’: ‘oggi che tutte le città sono immensi} lazzaretti’ in Mura, ‘La ricerca di Raboni: “Milano è emozione”’, p. 7.

470 _{The first version is from Le case della Vetra (1966) and the second, slightly shorter revised} version is from A tanto caro sangue (1988).

471 _{For example, Raboni points out ‘la fulminea efficienza di mio padre’ in the prose piece} without title, from his last collection, about his time spent in Sant'Ambrogio. See Giovanni Raboni, Barlumi di storia, pp. 44–50 (p. 47).

472 _{Cf. ‘vorrei tanto sapere | se anche i miei figli, qualche volta, pregano per me’, the poem ‘La} guerra’, lines 21-22. Raboni, L’opera poetica, pp.740–741(p.740).

non lucidate con la cera e un po’ distanti; sotto, nella sala del bigliardo, l’avorio dei birilli

messi in croce... (Prima o dopo ci torno a vedere la casa degli amici […])

5 6 7 8 9-27

The house’s internal space in lines 1-8 triggers in the protagonist thoughts of living ancestors (‘i nostri veri, gente | distratta, malinconica’) as well as dead ones, in lines 8-27 (‘Smorti | lungo i muri, con facce da lenoni | o da tartufi, oscuri | antenati lombardi’). It is interesting to note that the description of the house (first the floorboards in the first floor bedroom and then the billiard balls in the living room) and the thoughts it triggers, are separated syntactically. The first sentence – the description (lines 1-8) – ends with ellipses, while the remaining part of the poem (lines 8-27) – the protagonist’s memories and thoughts – are enclosed in brackets.

The house is described in the present tense (‘sembra’) repeated at the end of line 8 in the sentence in brackets, when the protagonist explains the situation: he is now in the house, which seems abandoned (the floor has not been waxed for so long that the floorboards have shrunk and no one plays billiards). The house’s humidity evokes a negative feeling. Then in brackets (lines 8-27) the protagonist tells us what used to happen in this house: first, he describes an evening when one of his friends nearly gave birth two days prematurely, and when the weather was also humid owing to a storm. The protagonist and his friend were waiting for something new, a new life, which is compared to the fresher air following the storm. The white colour of the floor and the similar ivory colour of the billiard balls highlight the pale faces of ancestors, people who used to live in this house, with their sinister characteristics: educated liars (‘con facce da lenoni | o da tartufi’, line 14) and merchants. Two kinds of ancestors are juxtaposed: the obscure ancestors and the real ones. The latter were not ideal owing to their ‘small vices’ (Zucco links these to gambling referring to the poem ‘Il giocatore’:473 ‘Ma ecco, quasi | ho paura di pensarci: che sarà | qualche vizio più

squallido, o segreto, | o cupo – da non riderne, da avere | un altro nome, altri nomi in certe bocche…’)474 _{The problem here lay in the fact that the son about to} be born might not realize who his real ancestors were,475 but might continue to laugh at hypocritical people from the past.

A point of interest is that the author refers to the stock theme of Milan in line 13 of the poem ‘I morti e i veri’, which is one of the rare instances that the city’s name is mentioned: ‘e s’aspettava, | di sera, che il temporale portasse | un po’ di fresco anche a Milano [my emphasis]’. However, when considering the body of Raboni’s work we find many references to Milan in other poems: Navigli in the poem ‘La discussione sul ponte’; some street names such as Via Mulino delle Armi, Via Senato, and the hippodrome San Siro of Milan in the aforementioned ‘Il giocatore’; other street references in ‘Il catalogo è questo’ such as Via Lazzaretto, Ponte Vetero, Arena, Cinque vie; in the poem ‘Compleanno’ the poet mentions the Cerchio del Vigorelli; a cemetery of Milan Masuccio features in the poem ‘L’album dei ricordi di guerra’ etc.

Apart from Milan, which dominates Raboni’s cityscape, other cities appear in Raboni’s poetic production. These include the aforementioned Lucca (‘Città dall’alto’, ‘Celeste’), but also Bergamo (‘Annata cattiva’, ‘Una volta’), Brianza (‘L’estate nella villa di Brianza’), Geneva (‘Au bord du lac’), Sant’Ambrogio (‘Dilazione’), Camogli (‘Anima’), Venice (‘La moria’), Rome (‘Sogno di via dei Serpenti’), Moscow (‘Il più freddo anno di grazia’) etc.

I now want to turn to the poem ‘Appartamento’ (for the full text see Appendix 3A) set in another city, taken from Raboni’s travels, and where once more the protagonist is inside the house. This poem is important for the further understanding of Raboni’s conception of the house and home. He continues with the theme of the opposition of internal and external spaces, adding more details related to the main character and corporeality highlighted in the Introduction in

474 _{Ibid., p. 38.}

475 _{Here we can infer some autobiographical details that Raboni revealed in one of his interviews} – his regret that he never knew his own grandparents: ‘Se passo per via Andegari penso che lì abitavano i miei nonni che non ho mai conosciuto. Nessuno dei quattro ho conosciuto, tutti morti prima che nascessi. Questo fatto di non aver mai vissuto con i vecchi scombussola un po’, non si hanno istruzioni per la vecchiaia. E sono già nonno’. See Mura, ‘La ricerca di Raboni: “Milano è emozione”’, p. 7.

the poem ‘Posto’, and refers again to the symbol of the river (though not solely as a symbol, as it was in relation to Corso Buenos Aires, since here Raboni depicts a real river).

‘Appartamento’ (1978 or 1980) was inspired by Raboni’s meeting with a Czech poet Vladimír Holan (1905-1980), a legendary recluse who lived with his wife and daughter Katja in a flat on Kampa island.476 In Serena Vitale’s interview to Zucco, (Raboni’s second wife and companion during his travels to Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Soviet Union) the flat where Holan lived was dark, enclosed by blinds through which the sounds of the Moldova river could be heard:

Gli portavamo in dono stecche di Camel senza filtro, ne fumava una dopo l’altra. Abitava in una casa sulla Moldova, all’isola Kampa: penombra, le imposte chiuse, era aperta soltanto (ma dietro pesanti tende scure) la porta-finestra che dava sul fiume. Non vedevamo quasi mai la moglie. Di Katja, l’unica sua figlia, affetta dalla sindrome di Down, sentivamo soltanto una nenia, come un prolungato e melodico ‘ahhh…’. È la cosa che più colpì Giovanni: il buio, il rumore dell’acqua che scorreva invisibile dietro le tende, la dolce cantilena della ragazza malata.477

The poem ‘Appartamento’ reflects the atmosphere recalled by Vitale and includes Raboni’s favoured topics: the opposition between inside and outside, the protected interior space, the window as eye to the world, darkness and dangerous weather conditions.

The poem is divided into three parts with six lines (two sentences), seven lines (one sentence) and four lines (one sentence). First the author introduces the protagonist, an old man who refuses to leave his house and wears pyjamas or a bathrobe, reflecting the peaceful and relaxing atmosphere of the house: ‘Passa, dicono, le giornate | con addosso un pigiama, una vestaglia. A chi | gli consiglia d’uscire, di muoversi, altrimenti | i muscoli, alla sua età, si atrofizzano, le giunture | si bloccano, risponde | con un dolce, lento sorriso.’

The second part of the poem describes the internal space and the apartment where he lives, reads, dusts, and arranges books: ‘Caverna, bunker, mucosa, | spolverati libri che nessuno | leggerà né scompiglia, | grande schermo millimetrato della concentrazione, | dell’introiezione – e dovrebbe | spegnerlo, vestirsi, arrischiare le ossa | nell’aria confusa, piena di pòlline?’

476 _{Raboni contributed to a verse translation into Italian of Holan’s poetry. See Vladimír Holan, A}

tutto silenzio. Poesie (1961-1967), trans. by Vlasta Fesslová, ed. by Giovanni Raboni and Marco

Ceriani (Milan: Mondadori, 2005).

The protective function of the apartment is emphasised by the words ‘caverna’ (used also in PPT to describe a cinema, dark and protective, but a relic from the past), and ‘bunker’ (denoting a defensive function, a space with a military connotation, relating perhaps to Raboni’s war experience). The internal space is protected by a mucus membrane (line 1).478 Corporeality and corporeal metaphors are often found in Raboni’s lyrical style, usually referring to the urban cityscape. In ‘Appartamento’, the mucus membrane continues the theme of physicality seen in the first part of the poem, where there are references to the muscles and joints of the old man (‘A chi | gli consiglia d’uscire, di muoversi, altrimenti | i muscoli, alla sua età, si atrofizzano, le giunture | si bloccano’). The sense of order in the house, with its dusted arranged books, providing a comfortable and safe space for the protagonist, is contrasted with the dangerous outside environment and the messy pollen-laden air (‘nell’aria confusa, piena di pòlline’, line 7). Often we say ‘fresh air’ when referring to outdoors, and books could be associated with dust. Yet here we see the concepts reversed (similar to the poor people who are being fed prior to being killed): the books are cleaner than the air outside. The third part of the poem focuses mostly on the outside and it is dangerous. So the snow in the darkness comes to represent the madness of nature and the world outside: ‘Va piano piano alla finestra | a vedere se nevica ancora, se continua | nel buio luminoso, là fuori | l’infantile disastro del mondo [my emphasis]’. Furthermore, in Milan where there is much less snow than in the Czech Republic, Raboni was not used to seeing snow, and the rare occasions when he saw it in Milan, can be evidenced in the aforementioned quotation. Further evidence could be drawn from his interview, where he links the act of snowing with chemicals, which are not part of the natural order:

L’altro giorno sono uscito di casa e cadeva una specie di nevischio. Ho subito pensato

che fosse neve finta, una cosa chimica. Non si può vivere veramente bene in questo stato

di sospetto, io non sento gli effetti dell’inquinamento, o m’illudo di non sentirli, ma basta l’idea per mettere a disagio. Detto questo, non saprei fare a meno di questa città,

478 _{‘Mucous membranes are the moist linings of the orifices and internal parts of the body that are} in continuity with the external surface. They cover, protect, and provide secretory and absorptive functions in the channels and extended pockets of the outside world that are incorporated in the body’. The Oxford Companion to the Body, ed. by Colin Blakemore and Sheila Jennett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) <http://0-

www.oxfordreference.com.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/view/10.1093/acref/9780198524038.001. 0001/acref-9780198524038> [accessed 7 July 2016].

potrei accettare l’idea di vivere a Parigi, oppure un po’ a Milano un po’ a Roma’[my emphasis].479

In the third part the protagonist approaches the window and looks through it at the world (maybe it is the ‘porta-finestra’ mentioned by Vitale). The description by Vitale and the poetic situation in ‘Appartamento’ have intertextual links with the poem analysed earlier ‘Come cieco con ansia…’ (section 3.1). Furthermore, the unhealthy air outside connects with the metaphorical plague and ‘gli untori’ the poem ‘Una città come questa’.

The range of lexis includes words from different registers: a colloquial style in contrast to medical and technical terms. Relative speed is important in contrasting the interior and exterior world. We now read of the slow smile of the protagonist and how slowly he approaches the window. The interior world of the house has slow motion and a relaxed and unhurried environment, while the world outside is depicted with the verbs ‘muoversi’ and ‘nevica’.

Moving from the house in Prague, on Kampa island, back to Milan, I will continue to explore the relationship between internal and external space in the poem that is (not by accident) entitled ‘Interno esterno’ from the same collection

Nel grave sogno (1982). This poem of nineteen lines consists solely of one

compound sentence, where the two subjects, ‘la poltrona’ and ‘la brace’ (lines 1 and 4), are separated from their verbs ‘si ferma’ and ‘si spegne’ (lines 18, 19) by the whole body of the poem.

The title suggests the opposition of two spaces, but this misleads the reader because in fact the poem refers to three spaces: the inside of the house in lines 1- 5 (‘La poltrona di faggio e canna d’India | lasciata a dondolare | tra pianoforte verticale e muro, | la brace che si vede e non si vede | nel suo povero loculo di ghisa’) including the staircase in lines 6-7 (‘e fuori ripide le scale, nera | la balaustra’), the external space through the streets, and again the internal space, not of a private house but the public place of an Italian cantina with its marginal characters. Once again, as in the poem ‘Città dall’alto’, this poem has a vertical perspective as the protagonist is shown going down the stairs. Speed here is

important, as the time dimension does not correspond to reality: in the several seconds from the moment the protagonist stood up from the rocking chair until it stopped rocking, we see many events happening. The rocking chair creates a circular composition in the poem while the extension of time is contracted to a shortened, real-time version.

The poem starts with the description of the house: someone has just stood up from the rocking chair and left the living room with its piano and fireplace. In fact, the subjects of the poem-sentence are the objects of this room: the rocking chair and the embers. In the first edition of the poem there was an even more precise picture with the negative, ‘suffocating’ adjective in line 3: ‘in uno spazio angusto’. The narrow living room is left without people, the rocking chair slowly ceases and the embers die. A further detail, in addition to the cessation of the rocking chair and, which connects the first internal private space to death, is the fireplace, which is seen as a burial niche (‘povero loculo di ghisa’, line 5).

The action then shifts from the room to the staircase: similar to a fast-paced film,480 Raboni presents details of the staircase making us think that we are a part of the action and that we are going with the protagonist (or maybe the reader himself/herself, as in NOOC) first down to street level, then through the street that was transformed in the mid-1930s undergoing major urban development (Laghetto, Pasquirolo). The outside also has negative connotations owing to its description as ‘greve la nebbia in questo grumo di stradine’: it seems dark and one cannot see because of the fog, the streets are also as narrow as the space in the room. The only one ‘happy’ place in the poem is the cantina where police officers drink and play cards because they are pretending to enjoy themselves, although this does not reflect their true feelings. However their description, and also the actions in lines 15-17 (‘intenti a fingersi intenti | al tressette, al calice, alle grazie sfiorite | della padrona’), verify that they are marginal characters. In addition, the cantina has epithets related to death: ‘livide, fumose’.

480 _{Cardilli analyses the types of figural elements in a poetic text. See Cardilli, Lorenzo,} ‘L’immagine nel verso: per uno studio della sintassi figurale del testo poetico’, Elephant &

Castle, 15 (2016)

<http://cav.unibg.it/elephant_castle/web/uploads/saggi/90eed9f242893ba7eb90d24bdac581cce7e d0d09.pdf> [accessed 1 December 2016].

In this way all three spaces in the poem – starting from the private space, going through the common open street area and ending up at the shared public closed space of a cantina – all these three different types of an urban space are connected to death and are depicted oppressively.

3.4. Outdoor cityscape with its marginal characters: ‘non-places’