FILIPPO TOMMASO MARINETTI: BIOGRAPHY AND WORK - LITERATURE - 2024

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti was a writer, poet and playwright who created Futurism, an avant-garde artistic movement of the early 20th century. He was born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1876; and died in Bellagio, Italy, in 1944. He studied in Alexandria, France and Italy. He obtained a law degree from the University of Pavia, but never practiced law.

Marinetti devoted himself exclusively to literature and on February 20, 1909, he published his famous Manifeste du Futurisme, in the Le Figaro newspaper in Paris. His literary training was almost exclusively French. In Milan, where he also lived, he collaborated with the French magazine Antologie revue.

It was in this magazine where he had his initial contacts with avant-garde expressions. In addition to his three futurist manifestos, his main works are: The 5 stars, The old sailors, La conquete des étoiles, Destruction and Poemi simultanei futuristi.

He is also the author of the plays Elettricità sessuale and Le roi Bombance, and of the books Mafarka il futurista, La battaglia di Tripoli and Parole in libertá, among others.

Biography

Early years

The first years of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's life were spent in Alexandria with his parents Enrico Marinetti and Amalia Grolli. There he completed his first studies and part of the baccalaureate, which ended in Paris.

He graduated in law from the University of Pavia in 1899, but instead of practicing law he devoted himself entirely to literature.

Literary beginnings

It was during his university studies that his love for literature emerged in him. But before, at the age of 17, he had already founded the student magazine Papyrus at his school, where he publishes the works of Émile Zola, considered scandalous.

This earned him a threat of expulsion from the Jesuit fathers who ran the institution. So his family decided to send him to Paris where he will finish high school in 1893.

Deaths in the family

He then enrolled at the University of Pavia Faculty of Law together with his older brother Leone. Soon after, he died at just 21 years of age, which was a hard blow for Marinetti.

The writer continues to experiment in various fields of literature (poetry, theater, narrative, free words). It won't be long after he mourns his brother when his mother dies, who always supported him in his literary career.

Poetry

Marinetti wrote several books of free verse poetry in French, which predate the literary concept of "words in freedom." He also wrote several works in Italian and developed the mystique of the superman, which is inspired by the poet Gabriele D'Annunzio.

One of his famous poems, Les vieux marins (The old sailors - 1897), was much commented on and celebrated by other famous poets of the time, such as Gustave Kahn and Catulle Mendés.

With this little poem he won the prize of the Samedis populaires. In 1898 the Italian poet began a cycle of writing symbolist poems that he published in several important magazines.

He published the poem La conquete des étoiles in 1902 and the verse volume Destruction in 1904. It is during this same period that he wrote the play Le roi Bombance. That same year (1905) he founded the Poetry magazine in Milan, together with the Italian symbolist poet Sem Benelli.

Appearance of robots and futurism

In 1909 Marinetti published Elettricità sessuale, one of his first theatrical works. In this work the mention of robots appeared for the first time (under another name, of course). Ten years later, the Czech novelist Karel Čapek called these machines by that term.

This same year, in full creative phase, he published the Manifesto of Futurism in the French newspaper Le Figaro. In 1910, he published the second manifesto in that same newspaper. The third technical manifesto of Futurism was written in 1912.

The manifestos describe a new civilization run by machines and speed. In these, Marinetti defends the use of violence and justifies war, as he considers them elements of individual affirmation.

New expressiveness

The writer conceives a new expressiveness that breaks with the syntax and eliminates the adjective, the adverb and the punctuation marks. In this way you want to capture the reader's attention and express your perception of modern life.

Marinetti conceived the manifesto as an original literary genre and it will be considered among his best works.

For several years he toured Europe and America to spread the futurist current, offering lectures and poetic readings. With this he managed to hook many followers in many countries.

Literary expressions

Through numerous works, poems and essays, he exhibited his literary genres. He even explored the novelistic genre with works such as Mafarka il futurista (1910). A year later he published La battaglia di Tripoli, and in 1912 he published Parole in libertá.

In the theater he presented the "synthetic" works; Zang Tumb Tumb (1914) stands out from this genre, among others of an experimental nature. In this poem he describes the battle of Adrianople, which Marinetti covered as a war correspondent.

Its content is gory and crude, with descriptions of bomb explosions and machine gun bursts. But he manages to convey these sensations through typographic resources and the way the pages are laid out.

He was the head of the Futurist movement, which he developed and promoted in various works, anthologies, essays, etc. Around 1920 the fury that Futurism initially aroused as a literary trend is fading.

Official poet of Italian fascism

With the appearance of new avant-garde movements, Marinetti began to sympathize with the ideas of fascism, to the point that he came to be considered the official poet of the Benito Mussolini regime.

The writer defended the use of force and military actions and came to occupy important positions within the dictatorial regime of Mussolini. He was a member of the Academy of Italy, coincidentally founded by the fascists.

During this period he wrote and published the works Democrazia futurista (1919) and, later, Futurismo e fascismo. Later in 1927 he published the dramas Prigionieri e Vulcani and the short story Scatole d'amore in conser, and in 1933 he published Poemi simultanei futuristi (1933).

All his literary success and prestige declined during the resistance to the regime in Italy and he died in oblivion in 1944, but he remained faithful to fascism.

Some of his main works

References

1. Gómez, Llanos (2008), The futurist dramaturgy of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Vigo, Editorial Academia del Hispanismo. Retrieved on February 28, 2018 from academiaeditorial.com
2. Rosalía Torrent. Jaume I. Castelló University. One hundred years of futurism. Consulted of repositori.uji.es
3. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. Consulted of museodellarte.it
4. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. Consulted of biografiasyvidas.com
5. The Futurist Manifesto. Consulted of bbc.com
6. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. Consulted of es.wikipedia.org