This book examines how Gabriele D'Annunzio (18631938) reimagined the Renaissance as a metaphor for Italy's national rebirth. Rather than a nostalgic revival, the Renaissance became, in his hands, a future-oriented ideological project that served as the backbone of his ethnonationalist worldview. Tracing how modernist temporality intersects with historical mythmaking and nationalist discourse, the book positions D'Annunzio within broader European debates on decadence, modernity, and regeneration. It also reconsiders his role as a public intellectual whose mythmaking shaped Italy's cultural identity and modern ambitions. By highlighting the strategic mobilization of tradition, this study assesses the significance of D'Annunzio's Renaissance ideology within the cultural politics of European modernism. In an era of resurgent far-right ideologies and nationalist imaginaries across Europe and beyond, revisiting figures like D'Annunzio is essential to understanding how historical myths have shaped past political narratives and continue to influence those of the present.

Uses D'Annunzio as a case study of how intellectuals invoked the Renaissance to address a crisis of authority Positions D'Annunzio as a key figure shaping debates on modernity and the construction of Italy's national identity Cross-disciplinary and transnational focus, positioning D'Annunzio within Europe-wide modernist discourses

Autorentext

Guylian Nemegeer is an FWO-funded postdoctoral fellow in Literary Studies at Ghent University, Belgium. His research focuses on the discourses and ideologies that shaped Italian and French literature and culture between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Klappentext

This book examines how Gabriele D’Annunzio (1863–1938) reimagined the Renaissance as a metaphor for Italy’s national rebirth. Rather than a nostalgic revival, the Renaissance became, in his hands, a future-oriented ideological project that served as the backbone of his ethnonationalist worldview. Tracing how modernist temporality intersects with historical mythmaking and nationalist discourse, the book positions D’Annunzio within broader European debates on decadence, modernity, and regeneration. It also reconsiders his role as a public intellectual whose mythmaking shaped Italy’s cultural identity and modern ambitions. By highlighting the strategic mobilization of tradition, this study assesses the significance of D’Annunzio’s Renaissance ideology within the cultural politics of European modernism. In an era of resurgent far-right ideologies and nationalist imaginaries across Europe and beyond, revisiting figures like D’Annunzio is essential to understanding how historical myths have shaped past political narratives and continue to influence those of the present.

Inhalt

Chapter 1: Introduction D'Annunzio's Renaissance.- Chapter 2: Decadence and 'Renaissance' in D'Annunzio's Fin-de-Siècle Reception.- Chapter 3: Contesting Modernity in the Fin-de-Siècle: A New Literature For A New Secular Morality.- Chapter 4: D'Annunzio's Cult of Expectation and The Ethnonationalist Politics of 'Renaissance'.- Chapter 5: A New Europe? Programmatic Modernism, Anthropopoiesis, and Italy's Renaissance.- Chapter 6: A New Europe? Programmatic Modernism, Anthropopoiesis, and Italy's Renaissance.