Summary: Symbolism In The National Anthem Of Italy

This piece of text is written by Italian poet Goffredo Mameli in 1848 during the historical period of Risorgimento. The text is located in the 2nd stanza of the Mameli’s Hymn, also known as Brothers of Italy. The text is part of the lyrics that later become the national anthem of Italy-“Il Canto Degli Italiani”

The main theme of this text is to promote the notion of the political and cultural unification of the national identity of Italy. In particular, this piece of text describes the lack of respect people face as a result of a divided, weakened Italy, as shown in line 1-3 of the text.

And to call for a patriot spirit of unification. From here we can see that the author is trying to stress the importance of a united Italy to avoid the difficult situation of being affected by the foreign power. The author does it by using inciting words such as “one flag one dream” as oppose to been “stamped on”.

Get quality help now

Sweet V

Verified writer

Proficient in: Symbolism

4.9 (984)

“ Ok, let me say I’m extremely satisfy with the result while it was a last minute thing. I really enjoy the effort put in. ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

This style of words can be seen all over the whole text as a symbol to indicates the author’s strong hope to unite people as a country. The tone of the text is also inciting, develops to a climax towards the end of each stanza. This also plays a role in expressing Mameli’s hope for people to take action for unification.

The importance of this text in the unification of Italy is that it reintroduces and takes inspiration from the ancient Rome spirit to call for a further rebirth of national identity after the rebirth of cultural identity happened during the Rinascimento period.

This has been indicated in the 1st stanza of the lyrics “slave of Rome” and “awakened”. The Author hopes people to turn the weakness of present Italy by doing something new- unify Italy as a country to restore the ancient Rome power of the nation. This can link back to the point of the idea “Let us unite” in the selected text. This has also been clearly shown in the original title of the text translated as “The Song for the Italian”, the notion of Italian people together as a cultural and political unification. This also explains the importance of the people of Italy as the main character in this text. The selected text symbolises Italian people as been “stamped on”, which expresses Mameli’s idea of a negative idea of Italy at the time of difficulties. This is different compare to the use of Legnano and Ferruccio as the symbol of a positive reference: victory and heroic in the independent process in the 4th stanza. This enhances the theme of the desperate call for the unification of Italy to change those difficult times. The use of symbolism in the selected text as well as across the whole text has an effect of turning a concept into actions that are easy to understand. For example, been “laughed at” is an action that symbolises people are in difficulty, this acts as incite to react. It is also worth noticing that the text is written in the first-person plural, this has the effect of highlighting the sense of Italian people together, not alone.

The selected text is a precise representation of the text as a whole. It clearly represents the main theme of the need for unification during difficult times. And the notion of Italy as a cultural and political unification.