19 Dec 2023

Writers In Love 5 literary Love Stories You Should Know

If there is one thing that everyone has in common - regardless of generations, experiences, personalities - it is love. You don't have to be a romantic to recognize that this is exactly the fundamental ingredient of many stories: whether it's a song, a film or a bedtime story.

In literature we could cite various examples: who could ever forget the tragic story of Romeo and Juliet? Who has never dreamed of dancing in the arms of Mr. Rochester?

Today, however, we don't want to talk to you about novels, but about writers, retracing five stories of men and women who experienced love firsthand and told it through poems and letters that continue - even after some time - to move us .

Natalia Ginzburg e Leone Ginzburg
Only a short time has passed since January 27, the day in which the terrible carnage committed under the Nazi regime was remembered. This story deals exactly with that devastating period. Leone Ginzburg – who is one of the protagonists of our story – was, in fact, Jewish. But not only that: he was an authentic anti-fascist and above all a militant intellectual. He died in prison after refusing to collaborate with the Germans, the same ones who had violently attacked him. And Natalìa, his wife, always remained faithful to the memory of this courageous man, so much so that she kept his surname and renounced her own - in a clear sign of devotion. The story that binds them is the story of a love made of respect and daily care, humility and sharing. It hadn't been a dazzling love: when the two met, Natalìa had found Leone "ugly". Yet, the friendship that existed between him and one of her brothers led her to discover a solid, firm, decisive character that he envied her and felt her need for. Leone was, for Natalìa, a sort of political and spiritual guide. In her last words that she addressed to her, before her death, she wrote: «Through artistic creation you will free yourself from too many tears that make a lump inside you; through social activity, whatever it is, you will remain close to the world of other people [...] How I love you, dear. If I lost you, I would gladly die [...] But I don't want to lose you, and I don't want you to lose yourself even if, by some chance, I lose myself [...] I love you with all the fibers of my being [...] Be brave" .  And Natalìa would have had an extreme need of this courage in the near future, because dark times were waiting for her. She had to escape, escape the Germans' searches, keep her children safe, try to survive somehow. But, above all, she had to come to terms with Leone's death to live peacefully with the memory of her. Few, heartbreaking lines remain of her effort: «Today, still in the time that passes, you lift the sheet / to look at her face for the last time. / If you walk down the street no one is next to you. / If you're scared, no one takes your hand [...] You lifted the sheet to look at your face, / you bent down to kiss it with the usual gesture. / But it was the last time.." (Memory).

Fanny Brawne e John Keats
My Creed is Love, and you are its only dogma. You have kidnapped me with a power I cannot resist; yet I was able to resist until I saw you; and even after seeing you I often forced myself to "reason against the reasons for my love". Now I can't do it anymore. The pain would be too great. My love Is selfish. I can not breathe without you.

The words you have just read are taken from one of the letters contained in the correspondence Leggiadra stella. No other title would have been more apt: that's exactly what Keats called his Fanny. This story seems to have been taken from a classic romance novel: she is the girl next door; he is a fragile poet who dreams of being able to tell beauty and truth. They fall in love after looking at each other for a long time, between nature walks and shared readings. At a certain point, however, life takes over: Keats discovers he has tuberculosis and is forced to move to Italy, where the climate is milder. The two part ways and promise to see each other again. It will never happen: just a year later the writer will die in Rome. It would seem it was all over. But it was 1865 when Fanny's children discovered a trunk full of letters - the same ones that the two exchanged over time. They had been hidden to preserve a love that no one could ever understand. And this is why - despite the fact that almost two hundred years have passed since that day - Fanny and Keats continue to move us, testifying to a bond that seems to have overcome even death:

Constance Dowling and Cesare Pavese
When we talk about Pavese it is inevitable not to mention his surly and reserved character. And it is perhaps precisely for this reason that his story surprises us so much: it seems impossible that a man like him could have become so fragile in the hands of a woman. Her name is Constance, she is American and an actress. They met in 1948, during one of his tours in Italy. Pavese was so impressed by her that he dedicated his latest collection of poems to her: Death will come and will have your eyes  . And we could say, with relative certainty, that Constance represented a real turning point in the writer's life and poetry. We understand this above all from a detail present in the collection that we mentioned before: here the incipitatory poem and the final one do not appear in Italian, but in English - the language by Constance. It is as if we were, therefore, faced with a true declaration of poetics: everything suddenly seems to be able to be summed up in a very specific identity – she and no one else. And it is also from this that we understand why Constance became a real obsession for Pavese, who remained attached to her even after the end of their relationship. Only she had managed to give meaning to a life that until then had appeared empty and useless; only she could soothe such excruciating suffering:

Elsa Morante and Alberto Moravia
Anna Folli, who wrote a biography of them a few years ago, calls them “MoranteMoravia”, almost as if to underline their inseparable bond. They were two writers, first of all: she sought in literature the enchantment that had not been granted to her during her childhood; he investigated with precision and rationality the contradictions of the bourgeois world to which she belonged. They had had different youths and different educations, but when they met in 1936, in a beer hall, any differences seemed to disappear.

They lived an intense and unconventional love: at their wedding there were no rings, but a bouquet of lilies of the valley. They went through war and historical tragedies with strength and courage, running from Naples to Rome and continuing to write - always, because this was what came most spontaneously to them. But their relationship at a certain point cracked, becoming rough and cutting: it is not surprising, in this regard, that Morante has always interpreted impossible loves in her novels, nor that Moravia went so far as to write about the failure of a marriage (in Conjugal love). Yet, despite the misunderstandings, despite the breakup - which, invariably, came - MoranteMoravia still continue to be one of the most fascinating couples that our Italian twentieth century has ever known. Perhaps because - in all honesty - it is a bit of a dream for all of us to live a love made of words and literature.

Virginia Woolf e Leonard Woolf
We conclude this journey with another couple of writers, no longer Italian but foreign. There are wonderful portraits of the relationship that existed between Leonard and Virginia Woolf in his Diaries (some of these were published by Lindau). In those lines we find the days spent writing, the misunderstandings, but above all the sense of impotence of a love that would like to be salvation but is aware of not succeeding. And, probably, living next to a woman who is overwhelmed by immense pain - loving her, despite this, despite the fact that she can't love herself either - is the most difficult undertaking that a human being can undertake.

In fact, strength of mind, courage, a true bond are necessary. And in the end, when we realize that even this wasn't enough, it's natural to ask ourselves if it wasn't our fault too. This is exactly the feeling with which Leonard writes whenever he remembers his Virginia. Between them there existed, first of all, a relationship of intellectual esteem. But not only that: there was also affection, sharing, literature. None of this was enough to save her from the pain that was gnawing at her, as we said about her before. But it is nevertheless touching to find, in the words that Virginia chose to greet her lifelong companion, that sincere sense of emotion that can only be felt in the memory of a happiness truly experienced:

You have given me the greatest happiness possible. You were in every sense everything a man could be. I know I'm ruining your life. I know that without me you could work and you will, I know it... You see I can't even write these lines worthily... I want to tell you that I owe all the happiness in my life to you. You have been infinitely patient with me. And incredibly good. Everything has abandoned me except the certainty of your goodness. I can't keep ruining your life. I don't think two people could have been happier than we were.