The «cognitive wound» and the challenge of witnessing. War and mass media in Italian poetry during the 1990s

Abstract

The conflicts breaking out in the 1990s inaugurate a new typology of war, global and televised, now totally devoid of spatial and political boundaries. The contradictory essence of the medium of television, which at once shows and hides the horrors of the wars to the western public, sharpens a sort of ‘cognitive wound’ in the Italian poet, who feels torn between the sensation of being involved in the reality of the conflicts and the impossibility of witnessing them directly. The article outlines a comparison between two poetry collections that both try – even though in a different manner – to bear witness to the current wars: Sette canzonette del Golfo (1994) by Franco Fortini and Notti di pace occidentale (1999) by Antonella Anedda. The aim of this comparison is to highlight the opportunities for poetry to counter the inauthenticity of the mediatic language and to redeem the Italian poet from its passivity towards the violence of history.