Gabriele D'Annunzio

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22343, 5 March 1938, Page 16

Gabriele D'Annunzio

The death of Gabriele D'Annunzio, Prince of Monte Nevoso, was touched with ironical commonplace. He had yearned for a spectacular end. Last October, it was reported that he wished to be taken to the North Pole in an aeroplane, when death was near, and there left to die in the frozen solitude. Earlier in his career he had thought it might satisfy him to step into an acid bath, for rapid and cleanly dissolution. But he died from cerebral haemorrhage, and presumably died in bed. There are few figures in the history of any national literature who can be compared with Gabriele D'Annunzio. He was an extraordinary compound of artist and adventurer, hard to match in the past, perhaps never to be matched in future ages. In Italy he was a naming figure about whom popular opinion was divided. The sharpness of the division is shown by two facts. In 1911, all his works were placed on the Index Expurgatorius, the list of works forbidden by the Roman Catholic Church. In 1927, the Italian Government undertook the publication of his collected writings. This official honour was the climax of a resounding literary career. At the age of 20 D'Annunzio was known throughout Italy for five volumes of poetry which the conservative held tb be a menace to public morals. It was the kind of beginning that must have delighted the flamboyant young poet. As a dramatist he had the honour of writing plays specially for Bernhardt and Duse, the greatest actresses of their time, and among the greatest in the history of the theatre. He became Duse's lover, and he may be said to have started the fashion of the literary telltales by writing " The Flame of Life," a novel founded on this affair. Duse did not protest; she was content to have been the inspiration of a masterpiece. During the Great War he fought with the Italian Army. He joined the air force and lost one eye in an aerial combat. His reckless courage seems to have inspired his companions. He once flew over Vienna and dropped pamphlets, having declared beforehand that his explosive writings would be more effective than bombs. In Italy itself he was the counterpart of Horatio Bottomley and others who claimed, or came very near to claiming, that they were djvinely authorised to sustain the nation's patriotism through difficult days. D'Annunzio had the advantage of these Englishmen. He was a war hero. He was the greatest living Italian writer. He was a superlative orator. Duranty, the famous European correspondent of the " New York Times," wrote the following description of one of D'Annunzio's patriotic meetings: Imagine that you are sitting, one of crowded thousands, in a great amphi-theatre. Every seat, every aisle, every point of standing room is occupied. There are women with deep mourning and women bright with colours.

There is the olive-drab of soldiers with the colour splash of honour ribbons on their leit breasts. There are students' organisations witri blazing insignia, and everywhere, too, there are flags—the tri-colour of Italy and city standards of Trieste and.Fiume and Zara and Spalato, with their brilliant coats of arms. Far below you on the stage is the figure of a man in the uniform of a soldier. For the last half-hour he has been speaking, and you have seen the crowd around thrill in harmony with passionate interest as they listen to the story ot Cavour's first steps to build up their national unit. Sometimes their eyes flash with scorn of foreigners and foreign financial intrigue. Then there comes a look of profound, anxious, and mystical devotion as the speaker tells how their friends and brothers fought and died. By now they are caught in the spell of D Annunzio s magic. The divine fire of the poet ntelts and moulds them as he wills. In history, the name of Gabriele D'Annunzio will always be remembered for the Fiume adventure df 1919. The Armistice terms had not pleased the poet-airman-patriot; and when the Italian garrison at Fiume was reduced because of anti-French riots, he raised a military expedition which entered the town. He created a new State, proclaimed himself ruler, and reigned for more than a year. The Italian Government, bound as it was by the Treaty of Rapallo, was finally compelled to take action against him,'.and he had the wisdom to surrender at the beginning of 1921 and save bloodshed. He retained the favour of the Government, for in 1924 he was created Prince of Monte Nevoso in recognition of his efforts to secure Italy's new eastern frontier, of which Monte Nevoso was the highest point. For Gabriele D'Annunzio, the Great War was a glorious accident which enabled him to win world fame a second time. In 1914 he was already known throughout Europe as a writer; in the next five years the blaze of glory was about the man of action. His fame remains such that Mussolini himself has led the procession of mourners past his catafalque.