The days I feel my heart aching for Italy, it’s not only the food, people, and land I miss, but what the German philosophers called Weltanshauung. This is often translated a worldview. In my Italian Sociology department, we translated it as Spirito di popolo- the Spirit of the people. Worldview is more the view of a people. As I see it, worldview is more intellectual, while Weltanshauung is embodied, the way our views, perceptions and history translate into our daily choices, insights, and culture. It makes our big life choices and our small word choices. Culture is an extremely complex affair. So what I miss most about our Weltanshauung are the side jokes, the colorful expressions, the invitations to sloooooow down. It’s the spirit of the people. I would call our culture–not that of all of Southern Italy, but the area surrounding Benevento, in the region of Campania, the same region as Naples. We are shaped in some way, by the rich culture of Naples, which is our regional capital and the historical and cultural giant, just 50 miles away, our dialects have some affinity, yet be being in the interior, of much smaller towns, and more agricultural, we are very distinct in other ways.
Music is the easiest way I can share this complex hodgepodge of contrasts that makes up our Weltanshauung: nostalgic, defiant, satirical, and loving. Here is a song for each trait that may give you an overall feel of our Weltanshauung.
Nostalgia. I believe there is a low level nostalgia that, permeates our whole lives and view of life. The song that I feel exemplifies this more than any other, is this one by the Sancto Ianne Nuje Ca Nun Stamm’ Vicino O’ Mare–We who don’t live by the sea. This song says, our nostalgia is how we feel an alien and ambivalent sense of belonging to a country that seems to have forgotten us. We are connected yet disconnected from the grandiose parts of Italy’s culture and history:
“Nui ca nun stammo vicino a o mare, l’addore e l’onna a sentimm’ a lontano..
simm’ na terra di passaggio, simm na fermata in miezz’ a nu viaggio,
tesoro senza ricchezza, preta lucente ca nun s’apprezza, tieatro da certa storia che n’coppa i libri nun tene memoria ”
“We are are the people away from the sea, we feel and smell the sea from far away.
We are a land where people just pass through, we’re a simple stop on a longer journey. We’re a treasure that brings no riches, a theatre of a history the books don’t remember.”
I love how Nuje Ca Nun Stamm’ Vicino O’ Mare captures the sense of resignation, grief, and sadness that is an integral part of our culture. At the same time, the resignation and grief are often just undertones.
Defiance. What meets the eye is a stronger way is our defiance. Je So Pazzo–I’m Crazy, by Pino Daniele gives voice to this defiance. While it’s couched in the scenario of a random person walking down the street, he’s actually talking for all of us, and the misrepresentation, abuse, and corruption by politicians that has pissed us all off for centuries–yet we’ve learned to live with. Here are some lyrics:
“non mi date sempre ragione
io lo so che sono un errore
nella vita voglio vivere
almeno un giorno da leone
e lo Stato questa volta
non mi deve condannare
peccè so’ pazzo je so’ pazzo
ed oggi voglio parlare.”
“Don’t tell me I’m right,
I know I’m wrong,
but in my life I want to live
at least one day as a lion.
And the government
for once won’t get me
cause I’m crazy–
and today I want to speak my mind.”
If nostalgia and defiance, are almost always present, in some degree, two other traits are prominent and larger than life: satire and love.
Satire. Tu vuò fà l’americano written by Renato Carosone in 1956 highlighting the contradictions of Neapolitan men who took on everything Americans seemed to do just to seem cool and then mocking them for being mammoni–living at home with mommy.
Love. Lastly, I cannot forget love. My people love fiercely. Our National music festival Sanremo, nearly every song is a love song. Neapolitan songs are also mostly love songs. Like this song, by Lucio Dalla, written in honor of the Neapolitan-born and internationally renown tenor Enrico Caruso. The song is written in Italian, except for the poignant chorus, which shares a common expression in Neapolitan dialect for the intensity of a feeling–when your blood melts in your vains.
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/node/68187
We are people of defiant satire and nostalgic and heart-wrenching love. Yes, we are people of intense, strong emotions. We live close to a vulcano–the Vesuvius. I wonder if that is what makes us volcanic, as well. Those who know me in from my travels, may recognize these aspects of me as peculiarly mine….they aren’t. They are my people, in me. My ancestors and my living half of my life in Italy, that come alive, through me.