Gabriele D'Annunzio: Poet, Seducer, and Preacher of War

by Lucy Hughes-Hallett

Overview

Winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction
Winner of the Costa Biography Award
**Washington Post Best Books of 2013**
**Economist Best Books of 2013**

This fascinating life of Gabriele d’Annunzio—the charismatic poet, bon vivant, and virulent nationalist who prefigured Mussolini—traces the early twentieth century’s trajectory from Romantic idealism to Fascist thuggery.
 
D’Annunzio was Italy’s premier poet at a time when poetry could trigger riots. A brilliant self-publicist, he used his fame to sell his work, seduce women, and promote his extreme nationalism. At once an aesthete and a militarist, he enjoyed risking death no less than making love, and he wrote with equal enthusiasm about Fortuny gowns and torpedoes. In 1915 his incendiary oratory helped drive Italy into the First World War, and in 1919 he led a troop of mutineers into the Croatian port of Fiume, where he established a delinquent utopia. Futurists, anarchists, communists and proto-fascists descended on the place, along with literati and thrill-seekers, drug dealers and prostitutes. Three years later, when the fascists marched on Rome, they belted out anthems they’d learned in Fiume, while Mussolini consciously modeled himself on the great poet. Lucy Hughes-Hallett’s compelling biography is a revelation both of d’Annunzio’s flamboyant life and of the dramatic times he helped to shape.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307276551
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/06/2014
Pages:	608
Sales rank:	492,460
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Lucy Hughes-Hallett is an award-winning cultural historian and critic. She is the author of Heroes: A History of Hero Worship and Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams, and Distortions. She has written on books, theater, and television for most of the leading British newspapers. For five years she was the television critic for the Evening Standard and has long been a regular contributor to The Sunday Times (London) Books Section. She has judged a number of literary prizes, and she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She lives in London.

Read an Excerpt

Excerpted from the Hardcover Edition
(Continues…)

---

Excerpted from "Gabriele D'Annunzio"
by .
Copyright © 2014 Lucy Hughes-Hallett.
Excerpted by permission of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

I Ecce Homo

The Pike 3

Sightings 17

Six Months 39

II Streams

Worship 69

Glory 79

Liebestod 90

Homeland 100

Youth 107

Nobility in Beauty 122

Elitism 129

Martyrdom 132

Sickness 138

The Sea 144

Decadence 149

Blood 155

Fame 158

Superman 161

Virility 180

Eloquence 187

Cruelty 193

Life 201

Drama 208

Scenes from a Life 211

Speed 241

Kaleidoscope 272

The Dogs of War 299

III War and Peace

War 317

Peace 379

The City of the Holocaust 409

The Fifth Season 442

Clausura 481

Notes 547

Select Bibliography 555

Acknowledgements 559

Illustration Credits 561

Index 563

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Remarkable . . . a terrific piece of work—as audacious as it is gripping, as thorough as it is insightful and as stirring as it is shocking.”
—John Preston, The Daily Mail
 
“Deeply evocative . . . It is not easy to make sense of the life of a man who was a silk-swathed aesthete, prophetic versifier, manic aviator and martial demagogue all in one. But in telling the story of his life, Ms Hughes-Hallett deftly unpicks the strands that compose and ultimately resolve these incongruities. She is a strong match for her subject, something that so many of the women in d’Annunzio’s life were lamentably not. Her style is rich, ironic and pugnacious; she jousts willingly with him and the reader becomes a spectator of this subtle and fascinating contest.”
—The Economist
 
“Exceptional.”
—Stuart Kelly, scotsman.com

Editorial Reviews

A stunning portrait of a . . . decadent poet and proto-Fascist firebrand. . . . Reads like a picaresque novel.” —The New Yorker 
 
“A richly detailed portrait of an eminently civilized sociopath. . . . Appalling but, as Hughes-Hallett presents him, completely enthralling.” —Booklist   

“Compulsively readable. . . . D’Annunzio was arguably the finest Italian writer of his time, an aesthete who made Oscar Wilde look like a bourgeois, a sexual charmer of Casanovan suavity and appetite . . . a political zealot and spellbinding orator.” –The Washington Post (Best Books of 2013)

"A wonderful biography. . . . Although himself the least empathetic of men, [d'Annunzio] has attracted a biographer of rare sensibility who has set out not to condemn but to understand. The result is a magnificent and beautifully written book that makes readers feel they have really come to know d’Annunzio, his many faults, his fewer virtues, and his enormous talent for life." —New York Review of Books
 
“Deeply evocative . . . It is not easy to make sense of the life of a man who was a silk-swathed aesthete, prophetic versifier, manic aviator and martial demagogue all in one. . . . Hughes-Hallett is a strong match for her subject. . . . Her style is rich, ironic and pugnacious; she jousts willingly with him and the reader becomes a spectator of this subtle and fascinating contest.” —The Economist

“Dazzling. . . . A shrewd, challenging analysis that links his sadomasochistic psyche to his pitiless ideology. The result is a resonant study of the themes of power, masculinity, violence, and desire that made D’Annunzio such a striking emblem of his age.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Hughes-Hallett crafts an appealing combination of genres, blending elements of biography, fiction, and cultural, social, and military history to create about as complete an image as possible of this most protean personality. . . . Readers will delight in touring the deep, tangled wood of a most astonishing life with a most engaging and learned guide.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

 “A splendid subject for a biography . . . Hughes-Hallett dances her way through this extraordinary life in a style that is playful, punchy and generally pleasing. . . . In death, as in life, the amazing story of D’Annunzio is painted in primary colours, but with the darkest shadows.” —The Observer (London)

“As gripping a page-turner as the most sensationalist novel—and infinitely more rewarding. . . . It is an amazing story [told] with the vivid narrative thrust of a novel. . . . The book is a revelation, an insight into a murky but significant segment of history.” —The Telegraph (UK)

“Hugely enjoyable. . . .  Hughes-Hallett has a great talent for encapsulating an era or an attitude . . . Pleasurable and readable.” —Sunday Times (London)

“A magnificent portrait of a preposterous character. . . . D’Annunzio was deplorable, brilliant, ludicrous, tragic, but above all irresistible. . . . His biographer has done him full justice.” —The Mail on Sunday (London)

“Beautiful, strange, and original. . . . An extraordinarily intimate portrait. . . . If you want to understand fascism, you must start with d’Annunzio; and if you wish to understand him, then here is your book.” —New Statesman (UK)

“How a rather diminutive poet, novelist and dramatist, with a compulsive urge to transgress, priapic sexual instincts, and a fascination with cruelty, blood and death came to be Italy’s most celebrated man of action and a precursor of Fascism is the subject of Lucy Hughes-Hallett’s engrossing and superbly written biography.” —Times Literary Supplement (London)

“Remarkable . . . a terrific piece of work—as audacious as it is gripping, as thorough as it is insightful and as stirring as it is shocking.” —The Daily Mail (UK)

From the Publisher

The Italian modernist writer and demagogue embodies some of the most dynamic—and sinister—impulses of the early 20th century, according to this dazzling biography. Historian and critic Hughes-Hallett (Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams, and Distortions) delves into D’Annunzio’s lurid contradictions: he was a brilliant, scandalous literary celebrity whose works embraced medieval archaisms and machine-age futurism; a ruthless seducer of women; an avowed Nietzschean superman and an effeminate voluptuary who loved fashion, furnishings, and flowers; and a blood-thirsty militarist who helped propel Italy into World War I with his pro-war oratory and reveled in the carnage he witnessed at the front. The book climaxes with a captivating account of D’Annunzio’s 1919 seizure of power in the city of Fiume, a febrile episode part Summer of Love and part Nuremberg rally that pioneered the politics and aesthetics of later Fascist regimes. Hughes-Hallet tells the story through vignettes that unfold in intimate, novelistic detail; her patchwork narrative spotlights the raucously entertaining soap opera of D’Annunzio’s life, but gels into a shrewd, challenging analysis that links his sadomasochistic psyche to his pitiless ideology. The result is a resonant study of the themes of power, masculinity, violence, and desire that made D’Annunzio such a striking emblem of his age. 53 illus. & 1 map. Agent: Felicity Rubenstein, Lutyens & Rubenstein. (Aug. 20)

Publishers Weekly

A dexterous delineation of the celebrated Italian writer Gabriele D'Annunzio (1863–1938), who mastered poetry, drama, fiction, nonfiction, women and war but stumbled elsewhere. A journalist, critic, cultural historian and biographer, Hughes-Hallett (Heroes: A History of Hero Worship, 2004, etc.) crafts an appealing combination of genres, blending elements of biography, fiction, and cultural, social and military history to create about as complete an image as possible of this most protean personality. The more we read of this man's accomplishments, failures, ambitions, weaknesses and obsessions, the more remarkable it is that he can be imprisoned in print. But the author manages to simultaneously incarcerate and liberate him in her pages. She begins with a 1919 military mutiny led by D'Annunzio (she returns to these events 400 pages later for a more thorough treatment): He and his followers took over and occupied the city of Fiume (now the Croatian seaport Rijeka). It didn't last. At times, the author's narrative technique resembles a photo album: She continually pauses to offer snapshots of her subject's life, career and enormous sexual appetite. Moreover, she grasps time by the throat, bends it to her purposes, often advancing thematically rather than chronologically. By the end, however, we have learned about her subject's background, his writing career (some have called him the greatest Italian writer since Dante), his war exploits (he was a fearless pilot in World War I, earning citations for bravery), his choreography with the fascists (he met several times with Mussolini), his profligacy (in every sense) and his astonishing literary productivity. Due to the volume's design, some will not find it useful as a standard reference book (we must search for dates), but most readers will delight in touring the deep, tangled wood of a most astonishing life with a most engaging and learned guide.

Kirkus Reviews