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ABSTRACT
This article undertakes a comparative reading of Pozzi’s and Shepherd’s poetic and ecological relationship with mountain environments, combining affect theory and ecocriticism. The threefold structure follows a conceptual refrain borrowed from Zen philosophy. The first section, ‘First There Is a Mountain’, addresses sensual perceptions in the authors' poems through the lenses of new materialism, delineating the potential of an embodied knowledge of the landscape as it relates to appreciation of the dynamics of deep time, the sense of an ever-renewing life, and loving relationships with beings of all kinds. The second part, ‘Then There Is No Mountain’, focuses on how the autonomy of affect emerges in the works analysed as a pre-personal intensity that moves between and through human and other-than-human bodies. The final section, ‘Then There Is’, addresses the distinct outcomes of Pozzi’s and Shepherd’s affective relations with the mountain, respectively and differently influenced by Roman Catholicism and Buddhism.
SOMMARIO
Questo articolo propone una lettura comparata della relazione poetica e ecologica di Pozzi e Shepherd con gli ambienti montani, combinando teoria dell'affettività e ecocritica. La struttura tripartita segue un motivo concettuale preso in prestito dalla filosofia Zen. La prima sezione, ‘Prima c'è una montagna', affronta le percezioni sensuali nelle poesie delle autrici attraverso il filtro del nuovo materialismo, delineando il potenziale di una conoscenza incarnata, corporea del paesaggio, parallela all'apprezzamento delle dinamiche del tempo profondo, del senso di una vita che si rinnova di continuo, e di relazioni affettive con esseri di ogni specie. La seconda parte, ‘Poi non c'è alcuna montagna', esplora l'autonomia dell'affetto come un'intensità pre-personale che si muove tra e attraverso corpi umani e più-che-umani. La sezione finale, ‘Infine c'è la montagna’, investiga le specificità delle relazioni affettive di Pozzi e Shepherd con la montagna, rispettivamente e diversamente influenzate dal Cattolicesimo e dal Buddismo.
Acknowledgments
I gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Irish Research Council and of University College Dublin.
Notes
1 D. Teitaro Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism (First Series) (London: Rider & Company, 1949), p. 24.
2 See in particular C. Williams, ‘Affective Processes without a Subject: Rethinking the Relation between Subjectivity and Affect with Spinoza’, Subjectivity, 3 (2010), 245–62; and J. Bennett, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2010).
3 For a thorough analysis of the relationship between Pozzi and the Alps, see M. Dalla Torre, Antonia Pozzi e la montagna (Milan: Ancora, 2022).
4 I am referring here to the stringent vetoes imposed by Roberto Pozzi on his daughter’s loves: first Antonio Cervi because of his older age, then Dino Formaggio on the grounds of his social status.
5 As far as Pozzi’s letters are concerned, see L’età delle parole è finita: Lettere 1923–1938, ed. by A. Cenni and O. Dino (Milan: Archinto, 2002).
6 C. Glori, Le madri montagne: Antonia Pozzi, Poesie 1933–1938 (Foggia: Bastogi Editrice Italiana, 2009), p. 225.
7 After the first 1939 edition, Parole was re-issued in 1948 in Mondadori’s ‘Lo Specchio’ series, with a preface penned by Eugenio Montale. A further edition of Parole, edited by Vittorio Sereni, appeared from Mondadori in 1964. In 1986, Alessandra Cenni and Onorina Dino prepared for publication La vita sognata e altre poesie, which was followed in 1989 by a new edition of Parole. Cenni also edited Tutte le opere, appeared from Garzanti in 2009, as well as the most recent revised edition of Pozzi’s Poesie, lettere e altri scritti, published by Mondadori in 2021. For the editorial history of Pozzi’s poems, see also P. Robinson, ‘Introduction’, in A. Pozzi, Poems (Richmond: Alma Classics, 2015), pp. xi–xxiii. In this article, I will quote mainly from this 2015 Italo–English edition of Pozzi’s Poems, referenced as P; in a few cases, I will also refer to the previous bilingual edition published in 1955 by John Calder, with translations by Nora Wydenbruck, as p; the poem ‘Dolomiti’, which does not appear in either of these bilingual editions, is taken from Poesie, prefaced by Antonella Anedda (Milan: Garzanti, 2021), referenced as P.
8 The definition of ‘poesia in re’ was first advanced by L. Baffoni-Licata in ‘La meteora esistenziale e poetica di Antonia Pozzi’, Italian Culture, 9.1 (1991), 355–69 (p. 358).
9 C. Sassi, ‘A Quest for a (Geo)poetics of Relation: Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain’, in Re-visioning Scotland: New Readings in the Cultural Canon, ed. by K. MacDonald and C. Sassi (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2008), pp. 68–80 (p. 73).
10 For a contextualisation of Shepherd’s life, see the ‘Introduction’ to S. Walton, The Living World: Nan Shepherd and Environmental Thought (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020), pp. 1–28 (pp. 3–8).
11 With respect to the editorial history of Shepherd’s works, see also R. Macfarlane’s ‘Introduction’ to The Living Mountain (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2014), pp. vii–xxxiv (pp. viii–xii), as well as Macfarlane’s ‘Foreword’ to In the Cairngorms and Other Poems (Cambridge: Galileo Publishers, 2020), pp. ix–xiv (p. ix). Considering that more critical attention has been devoted to The Living Mountain over the years, the present article shifts the focus somewhat towards In the Cairngorms, while referring also to Shepherd’s prose where necessary. These books will be referenced respectively as LM and C.
12 G. Carter, ‘“Domestic Geography” and the Politics of Scottish Landscape in Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain’, Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, 8.1 (2001), 25–36.
13 G. Deleuze, Spinoza: Practical Philosophy (San Francisco: City Lights, 1988), p. 124. See also T. Roberts, ‘In Pursuit of Necessary Joys: Deleuze, Spinoza, and the Ethics of Becoming Active’, GeoHumanities, 5.1 (2019), 124–38.
14 Williams, p. 246.
15 R. Grusin, ‘Introduction’, in The Nonhuman Turn (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015), pp. vii–xxix.
16 B. Massumi, ‘Notes on the Translation and Acknowledgments’, in G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), pp. xvi–xix (p. xvi).
17 Williams, pp. 251–52.
18 Walton, p. 141.
19 Williams, p. 257.
20 A. Cenni, In riva alla vita: Storia di Antonia Pozzi poetessa (Milan: Rizzoli, 2002), p. 32; A. R. Godey, Sister Souls: The Power of Personal Narrative in the Poetic Works of Antonia Pozzi and Vittorio Sereni (Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2011), p. 21.
21 The Linea lombarda, or Lombard line, is understood – after an anthology edited in 1952 by Luciano Anceschi – as a poetic tradition, developed by Lombard poets devoted to a sober lyrical representation of everyday, often marginal things, usually pervaded by a disenchanted, anti-idealistic undertone. See also D. De Camilli, ‘Linea Lombarda trent’anni dopo’, Italianistica: Rivista di letteratura italiana, 14.2 (1985), 289–96. Walton defines the Scottish Literary Renaissance as ‘an interwar modernist movement which rejected sentimental stereotypes of Scottish rural life and embraced international avant-garde aesthetics’. The movement was ‘largely committed to Scots and Gaelic revival as a means of recovering lost cultural practices and countering the cultural colonialism of the English tradition’. See Walton, p. 1; pp. 21–27.
22 Walton, p. 113.
23 A. Armenta, ‘Estranged Flowers: Plant Symbolism in Antonia Pozzi’s and Krystyna Krahelska’s Poems’, Language and Literary Studies of Warsaw, 9 (2019), 13–26 (p. 15).
24 Sounds: ‘Per voi taccion le strade | e tace il bosco d’abeti’ (P, 38) [‘For you the roads grow silent | and silent the fir-wood’ (P, 39)]; P, 48–49; 50–51; 64–65; 72–73; 82–83; 96–97; 114–15; 120–21; ‘So quick, so clear, a hundred year | Singing one song alone’ (C, 1); C, 3; 8; 12; 15; 16–17; 23.
25 Scents: ‘Odor di verde – | mia infanzia perduta – | […] || odor di boschi d’agosto – al meriggio – | […] || odor di terra’ (P, 56) [‘Scent of green – | my lost childhood – | […] || scent of August woods – at midday – | […] || scent of earth’ (P, 57)]; ‘breathe that blue serene’ (C, 6).
26 Colours: ‘col sole in viso | – il cervello penetrato di rosso | traverso le palpebre chiuse’ (P, 14) [‘with sun on my face | – the brain pierced by red | through eyelids closed’ (P, 15)]; P, 36–37; 38–39; 40–41; 42–43; 50–51; 52–53; 76–77; 86–87; 96–97; 136–37; ‘The pool, black as peat’ (C, 3); C, 4; 8; 10; 18; 24.
27 Haptic consistencies: ‘l’erba gelida e affilata | mi sfiorava i polpacci’ (P, 12) [‘the sharp and frozen grass | was grazing my calves’ (P, 13)]; P, 52–53; 56–57; ‘The steep rock-path, alongside which, from under | Snow-caves, sharp-corniced, tumble the ice-cold waters’ (C, 18).
28 Tastes: ‘amari | rododendri’ (P, 48) [‘bitter | rhododendrons’ (P, 49)]; P, 12–13; 14–15; 124–25; ‘Caul’, caul’ as the wall | […] And fierce, and bricht, | This water’s nae for ilka mou’, | But him that’s had a waucht or noo, | Nae wersh auld waters o’ the plain | Can sloke again’ (C, 21).
29 Joy: ‘Come | chi avanti l’alba | da un rifugio montano esca | nell’ombra fredda – e si metta per l’erta | […] fin che in cima alle ghiaie | la guida sciolga | dalla spalla la corda ed additi | sulla roccia – l’attacco – || gioia e sgomento | allora – ed il sole che sorge | lo colgono insieme’ (p, 78) [‘Like one | Who emerges | From a mountain shelter before sunrise | Into the chill darkness – and begins to climb | […] till, at the top of the bluff, | The guide lifts the rope from his shoulders | And both prepare | For the assault on the rocks – || And he is seized | By joy and terror – and the splendour | Of the rising sun’ (p, 79)]; ‘But still I must remember how the sound | Of waters echoed in my ear all night, | How fitfully I slumbered, waked, and found | The singing burns, the cataracts, the might || Of tumults drunken with the melting snow, | Filling the starry darkness with their joy’ (C, 23).
30 Grace: ‘Chi ti dice | bontà | della mia montagna? – | così bianca | sui boschi già biondi | d’autunno – || […] || Bontà | a cui beve il suo canto | il cuore | e di cantare non può più finire’ (p, 84–86) [Who can describe you | Grace | Of my mountain – | So white | Above the woods which autumn | Already is gilding – || […] || Grace, | Fountain from which the heart | Drinks in its song | And cannot cease to sing’ (p, 85–87)].
31 Ecstasy: ‘In that pure ecstasy of light | The bush is burning bright’ (C, 11); C, 18.
32 Desire: ‘Giuncheto lieve biondo | come un campo di spighe | presso il lago celeste || […] || Desiderio di cose leggere’ (P, 46) [‘Blond light rush-bed | like a field of wheat | near the sky-blue lake || […] || Desire for light things’ (P, 47)]; ‘The morning star within my shaken brain, | My world a-tremble with a new desire, | Dwelt-in by life I may not fully know’ (C, 22).
33 Beatitude and goodness: ‘mentre le rocce, in alto, | sui grandi libri rosei del tramonto | leggono ai boschi e alle case | le parole della pace – || […] || ed il silenzio allarga, | impallidendo, le braccia – | trae nel suo manto le cose | e persuade | la quiete’ (p, 90) [‘While the rocks on the summit | Are reading from the great rose-hued books | Of the sunset | The words of peace to the woods and the houses – || […] || Then the silence grows paler | And holds out its arms, | Drawing all things under its mantle | And invoking | Tranquillity’ (p, 91)]; ‘Form as of boughs, but boughs of fire, | That flicker and aspire, | Or stand in stilled beatitude | And shine, which is their good’ (C, 11).
34 Pleasure: ‘Strange gifts of pleasure has the mind’ (C, 14).
35 Loveliness: ‘a golden hour | Of magical and lovely light’ (C, 6).
36 Wonder: ‘Si spalancano laghi di stupore | a sera ne’ tuoi occhi | […] a specchio | della gran cima coronata di nuvole … ’ (p, 174) [‘Lakes of amazement open out | In your eyes at night | […] that mirror | The great peak crowned with clouds … ’ (p, 175)]; P, 50–51; ‘The flooded meads! I gazed on them with wonder’ (C, 23).
37 Feyness: ‘But aye he clim’s the weary heicht | To fin’ the wall that loups like licht, | Caulder than mou’ can thole, and aye | The warld cries oot on him for fey’ (C, 21).
38 See also G. Burdon, ‘On Being Affected: Desire, Passion, and the Question of Conatus after Spinoza and Deleuze’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 47 (2022), 682–94 (pp. 688–89).
39 Macfarlane, ‘Introduction’, p. xxvi.
40 In the ‘Preface’ to Vibrant Matter, Jane Bennett invokes Spinoza’s ‘idea of conative bodies that strive to enhance their power of activity by forming alliances with other bodies’. See Bennett, p. x.
41 G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, ‘Treatise on Nomadology’, in A Thousand Plateaus, pp. 351–423.
42 B. Spinoza, Ethics, trans. by G. Eliot, ed. by C. Carlisle (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press). From now on referenced as E. New materialism appreciates the world as absolutely material, at the same time aiming to investigate the properties and behaviour of matter and reveal its directedness and self-transformation.
43 E. Fromm, To Have or To Be? (London and New York: Continuum, 2008), pp. 37–39.
44 Armenta, p. 16.
45 S. Oppermann, ‘From Ecological Postmodernism to Material Ecocriticism: Creative Materiality and Narrative Agency’, in Material Ecocriticism, ed. by S. Iovino and S. Oppermann (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014), pp. 21–36 (p. 21).
46 M. Gallagher, ‘Sound as Affect: Difference, Power and Spatiality’, Emotion, Space and Society, 20 (2016), 42–48 (p. 43).
47 Williams, pp. 247–48.
48 G. Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, trans. by Martin Joughin (New York: Zone Books, 1992), p. 218.
49 B. Massumi, ‘The Autonomy of Affect’, Cultural Critique, 31 (1995), 83–109.
50 Bennett, p. 112.
51 F. Lordon, Willing Slaves of Capital: Spinoza and Marx on Desire, trans. by G. Ash (London: Verso, 2014), p. 61.
52 Bennett, p. 99.
53 W. Schrimshaw, ‘Non-cochlear Sound: On Affect and Exteriority’, in Sound, Music, Affect: Theorizing Sonic Experience, ed. by M. Thompson and I. Biddle (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013), pp. 27–43 (p. 31).
54 J. Ash, ‘Technology and Affect: Towards a Theory of Inorganically Organised Objects’, Emotion, Space and Society, 14 (2015), 84–90 (p. 85).
55 Bennett, p. xiii.
56 K. Barad, Meeting the Universe Half-Way: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2006), p. 151.
57 V. Despret and M. Meuret, ‘Cosmoecological Sheep and the Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet’, Environmental Humanities, 8.1 (2016), 24–36 (p. 35).
58 T. P. Kasulis, ‘Spirituality and Culture in Japanese Philosophy’, paper presented at the conference on Spirituality in Japan (Honolulu: East-West Center, 1992), p. 5.
59 Roberts, p. 134.
60 Macfarlane, ‘Foreword’, p. xiii.
61 Walton, pp. 11–13.
62 Armenta, p. 19. See also G. Strazzeri, ‘Il ciclo fecondazione-produzione-morte nella poesia di Antonia Pozzi’, Acme: Annali della Facoltà di Lettere, Università degli Studi di Milano, 48.2 (1994), 15–27; and G. Bernabò, Per troppa vita che ho nel sangue: Antonia Pozzi e la sua poesia (Milan: Ancora, 2012).
63 Dalla Torre, ch. II. For the translation I followed Amy Newman’s lexical choices in her translation of ‘Dolomiti’ [‘The Dolomites’] appeared on The Ilanot Review: <http://www.ilanotreview.com/earth/poems-antonia-pozzi/> [accessed 2 November 2022].
64 Poems set in the mountains: ‘Mi ritrovo | nell’aria che si leva | puntuale al meriggio | e volge foglie e rami | alla montagna. || Potessero così | sollevarsi | i miei pensieri un poco ogni giorno’ (p, 166) [‘I find myself again | In the breeze that rises | Punctually at noon | And turns the leaves and the branches | Towards the mountain. || If only my thoughts | Could rise | A little every day’ (p, 167)]; p, 82–83; P, 48–49. Poems set in flatland: ‘Certe sere vorrei salire | sui campanili della pianura, | veder le grandi nuvole rosa | lente sull’orizzonte | come montagne intessute | di raggi’ (P, 52) [‘Some evenings I’d like to climb | up the bell towers in the plain, | to see the great pink clouds | slow on the horizon | like mountains interwoven | with rays’ (P, 53)]; P, 32–33.
65 P. P. Pasolini, Le Ceneri di Gramsci (Milan: Garzanti, 1957), p. 82; The Ashes of Gramsci, trans. by N. MacAfee (London: John Calder, 1984), p. 19.
66 E. Bell, ‘Into the Centre of Things: Poetic Travel Narratives in the Work of Kathleen Jamie and Nan Shepherd’, in Kathleen Jamie: Essays and Poems on Her Work, ed. by R. Falconer (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014), pp. 126–34 (p. 127).
67 Translation by Amy Newman (see note 63).
68 Together with ‘Tramonto’ [‘Sunset’] and ‘Tristezza dei colchici’ [‘Sadness of the Autumn Crocus’], see also ‘Morte di una stagione’ [‘Death of a Season’].
69 G. Leopardi, Canti, ed. by N. Gallo and C. Garboli (Turin: Einaudi, 1969), p. 280; The Canti, trans. by J. G. Nichols (Manchester: Carcanet, 1994), p. 144.
70 Pozzi, L’età delle parole è finita, p. 271.
71 Williams, p. 251.
72 A. Comparini, Geocritica e poesia dell’esistenza (Milan: Mimesis, 2018), p. 152.
73 Suzuki, p. 24.