The memory of adventurous and tumultuous youth: Days of war, by Giovanni Comisso

Abstract

The article proposes a reading of the work of the Italian writer Giovanni Comisso (1895-1969), with special emphasis on his memoirs as a World War I veteran. To achieve this goal, the article offers an analysis of Days of War, published by Comisso in 1930, placing the work in a broad context of early twentieth-century Italian literature (with authors like Renato Serra, Scipio Slataper, Piero Jahier, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Ardengo Soffici and Emilio Lassu). The analysis of the book Days of War proposed in this article takes into account in a privileged way the relationship between the published work and the veteran's direct experience. Using the letters written by the Commission and cross-reading with other moments of his work, the article seeks to delineate the genealogy of the writing of his memoirs and the relationship of this publication with a broad set of other efforts of memory of the experiences of the Italian combatants in the First World War.