Vision, Metaphor and the Metaphysical Horizons of Twentieth-Century Hermeticism

This essay represents an attempt to clarify the nature of hermetic metaphor by looking to those moments in the poems of the terza generazione (Piero Bigongiari, Alfonso Gatto, Mario Luzi, and Alessandro Parronchi, among others) that dramatize the work of metaphor itself. Rarely if ever addressed by scholars of hermeticism, these reflexive moments not only shed light on the understanding of the work of metaphor among hermetic poets, but also suggest that we reconsider certain critical assumptions regarding their poetic project. After a discussion of the problem of metaphor and its relationship to metaphysics, I consider specific poems that demonstrate an attitude toward figuration—in broad terms, an impulse to resist “metaphoric fullness” and a consistent skepticism with regard to the ability of figuration to provide transcendence—that, together with a number of other qualities, justifies our speaking of the category of Italian hermeticism.