The Smart Wizard: Literature as a Lie, Theatre as a Rite (Giorgio Manganelli reads W.B. Yeats)

Abstract

The present essay investigates the relationship between the literary critic and writer Giorgio Manganelli, and W.B. Yeats. It is composed of two parts. The first deals with the idea of literature as a lie presented by Manganelli in his famous book collecting several essays on literary figures, La letteratura come menzogna (1985) and focuses on the articles written by Manganelli on Yeats over the years, explaining why the Italian writer was so fond of the Irish poet. Whereas in his first essays Manganelli proposed an introductory reading of Yeats, though centered on peculiar aspects of his poetry, later he concentrated on the idea which lies beneath the conception of Yeats’s poetics. Yeats’s poetry suggests to Manganelli the deep meaning of literature providing the most correct interpretation for all fictional work. In the second part of this essay focus shifts from literature in generalf to the idea of theatre expressed by the two writers. The attempt is to find the similarities between their conceptions of the theatrical work and their experimental plays, considering Yeats’s plays as a fundamental model for Manganelli’s theatre. The keyword which joins together their poetics is the return to the rituals of the primitive stage and the ceremonial aspects of ancient times.