The Representation of the Metropolis in Scipio Slataper's Il mio Carso

Abstract

Of the members of "the great generation of Triestine writers," 1 Scipio Slataper is the most difficult to interpret fully. 2 Part of this difficulty arises from the fact that Slataper's intellectual and cultural positions fluctuated in the years in which he was active as a writer and a critic. Furthermore, his premature death in 1915, at the age of 27, did not allow him to investigate thoroughly the possibilities inherent in the existential crisis that he witnessed in his time and thematized in his texts, especially in Il mio Carso, published for the Quaderni della Voce in 1912. 3 What makes Scipio Slataper's work particularly interesting and sets it apart from the works of other Triestine authors of the time [End Page 153] (such as Italo Svevo or Umberto Saba) is the fact that in his texts he contemplates the complex urban reality of Trieste but in interpreting such reality he reveals his inability to accept its intrinsic contradictions. Whereas Umberto Saba's poetry and Italo Svevo's prose embrace the multifaceted existence of the modern city, Slataper still strives to find a coherent and unifying meaning in the urban environment of Trieste, and in his prose he gives voice to the sense of alienation and anxiety that the individual feels in facing a world that seems increasingly governed by centrifugal forces. 4