Capuana, Luigi (1839–1915), Italian writer, dramatist, and journalist. He was born to a wealthy bourgeois family outside of Catania, in Sicily, and as a young man abandoned his law studies to dedicate himself to writing and journalism. He is known, together with Giovanni Verga, as one of the foremost exponents of the verismo literary movement. Among his many novels are Giacinta (1879), Profumo (Perfume, 1890), and his most famous work, Il marchese di Roccaverdina (The Marquis of Roccaverdina, 1901); he also published 19 volumes of short prose. Following Verga's example, Capuana recognized the artistic and expressive value of folkloric material, and often incorporated it into his work; indeed, the ‘impersonal’ style advocated by verismo found a natural correlate in folk and fairy tales.
Capuana also contributed significantly to the canon of children's literature that was being created during the late 19th century in Italy by Carlo Collodi and others. His children's works include the novels Scurpiddo (1898), a realistic tale of an orphan, Re Bracalone (King Bracalone, 1905), an extended fairy tale, and Cardello (1907), the story of a marionette theatre; numerous volumes of fairy tales, among which C'era una volta (Once Upon a Time, 1882), Il regno delle fate (The Kingdom of Fairies, 1883), La reginotta (The Princess, 1883), Il Raccontafiabe (The Fairy Tale‐Teller, 1894), Chi vuol fiabe, chi vuole? (Who Wants Fairy Tales, Who Wants Them?, 1908), and Le ultime fiabe (The Last Fairy Tales, 1919); as well as the theatrical fairy tales Rospus (Toad, 1887), Spera di sole: Commedia per burattini (Sunbeam: A Comedy for Marionettes, 1898), and Milda (1913). He was also editor of several children's journals, such as Cenerentola.
A number of critics maintain that Capuana's best prose is to be found in his fairy tales. Capuana used his familiarity with Sicilian folklore and with the work of folklorists such as Giuseppe Pitré to create tales that often evoked, in tone and in structure, the formulaic oral tales of tradition. But it is his elaboration of these materials through the use of irony, humour, and whimsical fantasy that gives his tales their true flavour, and that makes for the creation of a fairy‐tale world that is entirely and originally his own. This world is best represented in Once Upon a Time, Capuana's most famous collection of fairy tales, which in its enlarged version of 1889 contained 19 tales: ‘Spera di sole’ (‘Sunbeam’), ‘Le arance d'oro’ (‘The Golden Oranges’), ‘Ranocchino’ (‘Little Froggy’), ‘Senza‐orecchie’ (‘No‐Ears’), Il lupo mannaro' (‘The Werewolf’), ‘Cecina’ (‘Little Chick‐Pea’), ‘L'albero che parla’ (‘The Talking Tree’), ‘I tre anelli’ (‘The Three Rings’), ‘La vecchina’ (‘The Little Old Woman’), ‘La fontana della bellezza’ (‘The Fountain of Beauty’), ‘Il cavallo di bronzo’ (‘The Bronze Horse’), ‘L'uovo nero’ (‘The Black Egg’), ‘La figlia del Re’ (‘The King's Daughter’), ‘Serpentina’ (‘Little Snake‐Girl’), ‘Il soldo bucato’ (‘The Coin with a Hole in It’), ‘Tì, tìriti, tì’, ‘Testa di rospo’ (‘Toad‐Head’), ‘Topolino’ (‘Little Mousy’), and ‘Il racconta‐fiabe’ (‘The Fairy Tale‐Teller’). In these tales we find the typical elements of princes and princesses engaged in challenging adventures and battles with fierce antagonists, enchanted objects and magic formulas that save the day, fantastic creatures like flying horses and steel giants, and above all marvellous metamorphoses. The bipolar oppositions characteristic of the fairy tale are evident in Capuana's tales, where kings and queens rule tyrannically, and the ruled—artisans, farmers, beggars, and other members of the lower classes—are consumed by their primary needs of food, shelter, and good health. But the tales also abound in more realistic details. Sicilian landscapes and domestic scenes are lovingly depicted, and even the most fantastic characters have surprisingly earthy characteristics. In particular, magic helpers tend to be of humble and familiar appearance, seeming more like benevolent grandparents than fairies and wizards, and kings and queens are depicted in their everyday routines. Capuana's satirical humour is often directed at, if not royal figures themselves, the courtiers and ministers that attend to their needs, and in the triumph of the simple virtues of perseverance, goodness of heart, and humility that his lower‐class heroes possess, we may glimpse his own allegiances. The later collections, such as Who Wants Fairy Tales, Who Wants Them?, are increasingly coloured by an idealistic optimism, offering the explicit message that kindness, hard work, and innocence will ultimately triumph over evil.
Capuana's most poignant reflection on fairy tales is perhaps to be found in ‘The Fairy Tale‐Teller’, the final tale of Once Upon a Time. In this tale, a storyteller who is tired of the same old Cinderellas and Sleeping Beauties wanders into a forest in search of new material, where he meets some fairies who direct him to the wizard Tre‐pi (a transparent reference to the folklorist Pitré). But Tre‐pi, although he has drawers full of fairy tales, wants to keep them all for himself, and tells the storyteller to consult an old fairy named Fairy Fantasy. She in turn gives him a number of objects (a golden orange, a black egg, and other items that are the subjects of Capuana's own tales), and from then on whenever he opens his mouth new tales magically come out. Soon, however, the children with whom he shares his tales tire of them, too, and he goes back to Tre‐pi and offers to contribute them to his collection. But as the storyteller is handing them over, he discovers that he is holding a ‘handful of flies’. The storyteller loses interest in his art, concluding that ‘there are no more new fairy tales; we've lost the seed’. This tale neatly illuminates the nature of the polemic between Capuana and rigorous folklorists like Pitré, who were intent on storing up traditional tales for posterity. Even more, it is a tribute to the powers of the human imagination to create new tales, guided by ‘Fairy Fantasy’. Only its pessimistic ending does not ring true, for Capuana's tales are as delightful today as they were a hundred years ago, and we would be hard pressed to agree with his storyteller that since then the fairy‐tale tradition has borne no new fruit.
Bibliography
- Cocchiara, Giuseppe, Popolo e letteratura in Italia (1959).
- Marchese, Giuseppe, Capuana poeta della vita (1964).
- Robuschi, Giuseppina, Luigi Capuana, scrittore per l'infanzia (1969).
- Zangara, Mario, Luigi Capuana (1964).
— Nancy Canepa
