The Neoavanguardia ("New Vanguard") was an

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

literary movement Literary movements are a way to divide literature into categories of similar philosophical, topical, or aesthetic features, as opposed to divisions by genre or period. Like other categorizations, literary movements provide language for comparing ...

oriented towards radical forms of experimentation with language. Some of its most prominent members include

Nanni Balestrini Nanni Balestrini (2 July 1935 – 19 May 2019) was an Italian experimental poet, author and visual artist of the Neoavanguardia movement. Context Nanni Balestrini is associated with the Italian writers' movement Neoavanguardia. He wrote for th ...

Edoardo Sanguineti Edoardo Sanguineti (9 December 1930 – 18 May 2010) was a Genoa, Genoese poet, writer and academic, universally considered one of the major Italian authors of the second half of the twentieth century. Biography During the 1960s he was a leader ...

Umberto Eco Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel ''The Name of the ...

Antonio Porta Antonio Alejandro Porta Pernigotti (born 28 October 1983) is a former Argentine-Italian professional basketball player, who lasted played with the Svendborg Rabbits in the Danish Basketball League. He played at both the point guard and shooti ...

, Elio Pagliarani, Alfredo Giuliani,

Giorgio Manganelli Giorgio Manganelli (15 November 1922 – 28 May 1990) was an Italian journalist, avant-garde writer, translator and literary critic. A native of Milan, he was one of the leaders of the avant-garde literary movement in Italy in the 1960s, Gruppo 6 ...

Luigi Malerba Luigi Malerba (11 November 1927 – 8 May 2008), born Luigi Bonardi, was an Italian author of short stories, historical novels, and screenplays. He has been part of the Neoavanguardia and co-founded ''Gruppo 63'', a literary movement inspired by M ...

, Germano Lombardi,

Francesco Leonetti Francesco Leonetti (27 January 1924 – 17 December 2017) was an Italian poet, novelist, art critic, teacher and political activist. Biography Leonetti was born in Cosenza in Calabria. In 1955 he moved to Bologna to study philosophy. There he met ...

, Alberto Gozzi, Massimo Ferretti, Franco Lucentini,

Amelia Rosselli Amelia Rosselli (28 March 1930 – 11 February 1996) was an Italian poet. She was the daughter of Marion Catherine Cave, an English political activist, and Carlo Rosselli, who was a hero of the Italian anti-Fascist Resistance—founder, wit ...

Sebastiano Vassalli Sebastiano Vassalli (24 October 1941 – 26 July 2015) was an Italian author. He wrote the 2007 novel ''The Italian (L'italiano)''. Vassalli was born in Genoa, Italy in 1941. His mother are from Tuscany and father were from Lombardy. At a ver ...

, Patrizia Vicinelli and

Lello Voce Lello Voce (born in Naples, Italy, in 1957) is an Italian poet, writer, and journalist. He was among the founders of Gruppo 93 and of the six-monthly literary magazine ''Baldus''. He lives and works in Treviso, Veneto. Career Written work and po ...

. The movement originated as Gruppo '63, during a meeting of contributors to the literary magazine '' Il Verri'' in a hotel at

Solunto Soluntum or Solus was an ancient city on the Tyrrhenian coast of Sicily near present-day in the comune of Santa Flavia, Italy. In antiquity, it was originally one of the three chief Phoenician settlements in the island and later flourished in ...

, near

Palermo Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...

. A second meeting would be held three years later in

La Spezia La Spezia (, or , ; in the local Spezzino dialect) is the capital city of the province of La Spezia and is located at the head of the Gulf of La Spezia in the southern part of the Liguria region of Italy. La Spezia is the second largest city ...

. Neoavanguardia poets and writers were mostly inspired by modernist English language writers such as

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...

and

TS Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biogr ...

and the Italian poet and iconoclast

Emilio Villa Emilio Villa (Milan, 21 September 1914 – Rieti, 14 January 2003) was an Italian poet, visual artist, translator, art critic and Bible scholar.p. ii, Siracusa, Dominic Edward. 2014. ''Emilio Villa: Poet of Biblical Proportions: A Dissertation and ...

. They were opposed to the ''

crepuscolarismo The Crepusculars (Italian: Poeti Crepuscolari "twilight poets") were a group of Italian post-decadent poets whose work is notable for its use of musical and mood-conveying language and its general tone of despondency. The group's metaphorical name, ...

'' (intimistic view) which had characterized Italian poetry in the 20th century, and, above all, to what they defined as "neo-capitalistic" language. The appearance of the movement generated fierce polemics in the Italian literary world. Neovanguardia artists were accused of being "irrational formalists", "dangerous Marxist revolutionaries", "late

Futurists Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abou ...

" and the creators of a "renewed

Arcadia Arcadia may refer to: Places Australia * Arcadia, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney * Arcadia, Queensland * Arcadia, Victoria Greece * Arcadia (region), a region in the central Peloponnese * Arcadia (regional unit), a modern administrative un ...

". Art historian and curator

Achille Bonito Oliva Achille Bonito Oliva (born 1939) is an Italian art critic and historian of contemporary art. Since 1968 he has taught history of contemporary art at La Sapienza, the university of Rome. He has written extensively on contemporary art and contempo ...

was initially part of the group and published two collections of poems (''Made in Mater'', 1967, and in ''Fiction Poems'', 1968) before turning to art criticism.

Bibliography

* Eugenio Gazzola, ''Parole sui muri: L'estate delle avanguardie a Fiumalbo'', Diabasis, Reggio Emilia, 2003. * VV. AA., ''Il Gruppo 63 quarant'anni dopo'', Edizioni Pendragon, Bologna, 2005. * Giorgio Celli, ''I sette peccati capitali degli animali'', Mursia, Milan, 2006. * Eugenio Gazzola, ''Al miglior mugnaio: Adriano Spatola e i poeti del Mulino di Bazzano'', Diabasis, Reggio Emilia, 2008. * Umberto Eco, ''Costruire il nemico e altri scritti occasionali'', Bompiani, Milan, 2011. * * Nanni Balestrini (ed.), ''Gruppo 63: L'Antologia Critica e Teoria'', Bompiani, Milano, 2013. Italian literary movements 20th-century Italian literature {{lit-mov-stub

See also

Bibliography