This PhD research project in the field of Italian literature explores the thematic and ideological links between two authors – Arrigo Boito (1842-1918) and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944).
Boito was a poet, short-story writer and a composer who is most noted for his collaborations with Giuseppe Verdi on the operas Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893). During the 1860s, he was a prominent member of the anti-conformist, revolutionary Scapigliatura movement.
In 1909, Marinetti founded Futurism, the first European avant-garde literary and artistic movement. The movement decried tradition and those who loved the past, exalting instead modern technology, speed, war and violence. Futurism infiltrated all aspects of art and life - painting, sculpture, poetry, music, dance, theatre, film, politics, fashion and cuisine.
This research project examines the hitherto unacknowledged influence that Boito exerted upon the formation of Marinetti’s Futurist world-vision.
