‘Yes, I’m Italian – but I’m not loud, I don’t gesticulate and I’m not good with pizza’

‘Yes, I’m Italian – but I’m not loud, I don’t gesticulate and I’m not good with pizza’

Elena Ferrante

I love my country, but I have no patriotic spirit and no national pride. What’s more, I digest pizza poorly, I eat very little spaghetti, I don’t speak in a loud voice, I don’t gesticulate, I hate all mafias, I don’t exclaim “Mamma mia!” National characteristics are simplifications that should be contested. Being Italian, for me, begins and ends with the fact that I speak and write in the Italian language.

Put that way it doesn’t seem like much, but really it’s a lot. A language is a compendium of the history, geography, material and spiritual life, the vices and virtues, not only of those who speak it, but also of those who have spoken it through the centuries. When I say that I’m Italian because I write in Italian, I mean that I’m fully Italian in the only way that I’m willing to attribute to myself a nationality. I don’t like the other ways, especially when they become nationalism, chauvinism, and imperialism.

(Adaptado de Elena Ferrante, ‘Yes, I´m Italian – but I´m not loud, I don´t gesticulate and I´m not good with pizza’, The Guardian, 24/02/2018.)

Transcrevem-se, a seguir, versos de canções brasileiras e de um poema de Vinícius de Moraes. Assinale a alternativa que melhor exemplifica as afirmações de Elena Ferrante.