SVEVO AS A JEWISH WRITER

Abstract

That Italo Svevo is the pseudonym—or, to be more precise, one of the pseudonyms—of the Triestine Jew Aron (detto Ettore) Schmitz is a fact so well known that it is almost obligatory for monographs on Svevo to begin with some reference to it. Yet one is surprised to discover that few attempts have been made to assess its significance. Does Svevo's Jewishness influence his writing? And if so, how? These are clearly important questions, which have not been answered in a satisfactory manner. There are, of course, a number of reasons why this should be the case. Svevo himself, in his published works, drew no attention to his Jewish background; indeed, one might say that in his Profilo autobiografico, by misleadingly describing his father as ‘un assimilato’, he deliberately directed attention away from it. One could perhaps say the same of his use of pseudonyms—E. Samigli, Ettore Muranese and Italo Svevo. Whatever they revealed, they certainly concealed one fact—that the author was a Jew. Nor are his characters Jewish, which is in itself an oddity, given the prominence of Jews in Triestine business circles. It is understandable that the critics should, with few exceptions, have chosen not to explore an aspect of Svevo's work which the author himself seems to regard as unimportant, especially as the case of Svevo is different from that of, say, Kafka. With the latter, one can at least point to specifically Jewish sources and influences, namely the Yiddish Theatre, although even here one must be careful not to exaggerate their importance.

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