La Ronda (review)

La Ronda (review)
Title	La Ronda (review)

La Ronda (review) is a literary review that prompted extensive debate among European literary criticism circles, intersecting with movements such as Symbolism, Futurism, and Decadence while engaging personalities from Benedetto Croce to Gabriele D'Annunzio. Originating amid the cultural politics of the early twentieth century, the review connected networks around institutions like the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, the British Library, and salons associated with Carlo Alberto Biggini, shaping dialogues also involving journals such as La Voce, Lacerba, and Il Convegno.

Background and Publication History

The review emerged in a milieu influenced by the aftermath of events like the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), reactions to the First World War, and the circulation of texts from figures including Giovanni Gentile, Antonio Gramsci, and Benedetto Croce. Founding personalities traced intellectual lineages to universities such as Sapienza University of Rome, University of Bologna, and University of Florence, and to publishing houses comparable to Treves and Mondadori. Early issues reflected editorial strategies analogous to The Criterion, The New Age, and The Dial, and corresponded with cultural institutions like the Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele II and the Museum of Modern Art. Distribution networks linked metropolitan centers including Rome, Milan, Florence, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, London, and New York City.

Content and Structure of the Review

Issues typically combined essays, poetry, manifestos, and reviews, resembling formats used by Poetry (magazine), The Little Review, and Nouvelle Revue Française. Contributors engaged with aesthetic debates surrounding authors such as Gabriele D'Annunzio, Giosuè Carducci, Ugo Foscolo, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Eugenio Montale, and international figures like T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Rainer Maria Rilke, Arthur Rimbaud, and Marcel Proust. The review's structure featured departments similar to those in The Times Literary Supplement, Le Figaro Littéraire, and The Spectator, and interspersed critical notes with translations of works by Friedrich Nietzsche, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, and Henrik Ibsen. Graphic and typographic choices echoed contemporaneous designs from De Stijl, Futurist manifestos, and publications associated with Vorticism.

Contributors and Editorial Stance

The magazine assembled writers, critics, and intellectuals who were in conversation with figures such as Curzio Malaparte, Italo Svevo, Giuseppe Prezzolini, Enrico Corradini, Alessandro Bonsanti, and Vittorio Alfieri (in historical reference). Its editorial line negotiated positions between the theoretical frameworks proposed by Benedetto Croce and programmatic claims made by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti; it referenced ideological models from Antonio Gramsci and debates involving Benito Mussolini and Vittorio Emanuele III without aligning neatly with any single political movement. The editorial collective mirrored collegial practices found at Edizioni di Comunità and echoed the curatorial ambitions of institutions such as the Istituto Italiano di Cultura.

Reception and Critical Response

Contemporary reactions ranged from approbation in circles affiliated with Accademia dei Lincei and the Royal Society of Literature to censure by critics in outlets like Il Popolo d'Italia and Avanti!. Reviews compared its contributions with those published in La Voce, Lacerba, The New Republic, and Harper's Magazine, and commentators invoked debates around authors such as Gabriele D'Annunzio, Giovanni Pascoli, Shakespeare translations, and criticism of classical philology associated with figures like Giovanni Battista Vico. The review's reception intersected with literary prizes and institutions including the Premio Strega, the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the Feltrinelli Prize.

Influence and Legacy

The review influenced subsequent periodicals, academic curricula at universities such as Sapienza University of Rome and University of Oxford, and collections produced by publishers like Mondadori, Einaudi, and Feltrinelli. Its debates informed later scholarship on modernists including Eugenio Montale, Umberto Saba, Italo Calvino, and Primo Levi, and shaped archival holdings in institutions like the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, the British Library, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France. The review's stylistic and theoretical interventions can be traced through movements such as Neorealism, Hermeticism, and literary historiography in works by Sergio Quinzio and Giorgio Agamben.

Controversies and Criticism

The review provoked disputes over affiliations with political currents tied to personalities like Benito Mussolini and Gabriele D'Annunzio, polemics with rival journals including La Voce and Lacerba, and scholarly rebuttals from historians connected to Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and critics linked to Francesco De Sanctis's legacy. Debates involved accusations of elitism raised by contributors to Avanti! and Il Popolo d'Italia and methodological criticisms by academics at University of Bologna and University of Padua. Legal and public controversies engaged magistrates and cultural policymakers in municipal councils of Rome and Milan and elicited responses from international forums such as panels at the International PEN.

Category:Literary reviews