Giuseppe Ungaretti
Encyclopedia
Giuseppe Ungaretti was an Italian modernist
poet, journalist, essayist, critic and academic. A leading representative of the experimental
trend known as Ermetismo
("Hermeticism
"), he was one of the most prominent contributors to 20th century Italian literature
. Influenced by symbolism
, he was briefly aligned with futurism
. Like many futurists, he took an irredentist
position during World War I. Ungaretti debuted as a poet while fighting in the trenches
, publishing one of his best-known pieces, L'allegria ("The Joy").
During the interwar period
, Ungaretti was a collaborator of Benito Mussolini
(whom he met during his socialist
accession), as well as a foreign-based correspondent for Il Popolo d'Italia
and La Gazzetta del Popolo. While briefly associated with the Dadaists, he developed Hermeticism
as a personal take on poetry. After spending several years in Brazil, he returned home during World War II, and was assigned a teaching post at the University of Rome, where he spent the final decades of his life and career. His Fascist
past was the subject of controversy.
, Egypt
into a family from the Tuscan city of Lucca
. As a child, he was nursed by a Nubia
n nurse named Bahita, and, as an adult, claimed that her influence accounted for his own exoticism
. Ungaretti's father worked on digging the Suez Canal
, where he suffered a fatal accident in 1890. His widowed mother, who ran a bakery on the edge of the Sahara
, educated her child on the basis of Roman Catholic tenets.
Giuseppe Ungaretti's formal education began in French, at Alexandria's Swiss School. It was there that he became acquainted with Parnassianism and Symbolist poetry, in particular with Gabriele d'Annunzio
, Charles Baudelaire
, Jules Laforgue
, Stéphane Mallarmé
and Arthur Rimbaud
. He also became familiar with works of the Classicists Giacomo Leopardi
and Giosuè Carducci
, as well as with the writings of maverick author Giovanni Pascoli
. This period marked his debut as a journalist and literary critic, with pieces published Risorgete, a journal edited by anarchist
writer Enrico Pea. At the time, he was in correspondence with Giuseppe Prezzolini
, editor of the influential magazine La Voce. A regular visitor of Pea's Baracca Rossa ("Red House"), Ungaretti was himself a sympathizer of anarchist-socialist circles. He abandoned Christianity and became an atheist. It was not until 1928 that he returned to the Catholic faith.
In 1912, the 24-year-old Giuseppe Ungaretti moved to Paris, France. On his way there, he stopped in Rome, Florence
and Milan
, meeting face to face with Prezzolini. Ungaretti attended lectures at the Collège de France
and the University of Paris
, and had among his teachers philosopher Henri Bergson
, whom he reportedly admired. The young writer also met and befriended French literary figure Guillaume Apollinaire
, a promoter of Cubism
and a forerunner of Surrealism
. Apollinaire's work to be a noted influence on his own. He was also in contact with the Italian expatriates, including leading representatives of Futurism
such as Carlo Carrà
, Umberto Boccioni
, Aldo Palazzeschi
, Giovanni Papini
and Ardengo Soffici
, as well as with the independent visual artist Amedeo Modigliani
.
position, and called for his country's intervention on the side of the Entente Powers
. Enrolled in the infantry a year later, he saw action on the Northern Italian theater
, serving in the trenches
. In contrast to his early enthusiasm, he became appalled by the realities of war. The conflict also made Ungaretti discover his talent as a poet, and, in 1917, he published the volume of free verse
Il porto sepolto ("The Buried Port"), largely written on the Kras
front. Although depicting the hardships of war life, his celebrated L'Allegria was not unenthusiastic about its purpose (even if in the poem "Fratelli", and in others, he describes the absurdity of the war and the brotherhood between all the men); this made Ungaretti's stance contrast with that of Lost Generation
writers, who questioned their countries' intents, and similar to that of Italian intellectuals such as Soffici, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
, Piero Jahier
and Curzio Malaparte
.
By the time the 1918 armistice
was signed, Ungaretti was again in Paris, working as a correspondent for Benito Mussolini
's paper Il Popolo d'Italia
. He published a volume of French-language poetry, titled La guerre ("The War", 1919). In 1920, Giuseppe Ungaretti married the Frenchwoman Jeanne Dupoix, with whom he had a daughter, Ninon (born 1925), and a son, Antonietto (born 1930).
During that period in Paris, Ungaretti came to affiliate with the anti-establishment
and anti-art current known as Dada
ism. He was present in the Paris-based Dadaist circle led by Romania
n poet Tristan Tzara
, being, alongside Alberto Savinio
, Julius Evola
, Gino Cantarelli
, Aldo Fiozzi and Enrico Prampolini
, one of the figures who established a transition from Italian Futurism to Dada. In May 1921, he was present at the Dadaist mock trial of reactionary
author Maurice Barrès
, during which the Dadaist movement began to separate itself into two competing parts, headed respectively by Tzara and André Breton
. He was also affiliated with the literary circle formed around the journal La Ronda
.
employee. By then, Mussolini had organized the March on Rome
, which confirmed his seizure of power. Ungaretti joined in the National Fascist Party
, signing the pro-fascist Manifesto of the Italian Writers in 1925. In his essays of 1926–1929, republished in 1996, he repeatedly called on the Duce
to direct cultural development in Italy and reorganize the Italian Academy
on fascist lines. He argued: "The first task of the Academy will be to reestablish a certain connection between men of letters, between writers, teachers, publicists. This people is hungers for poetry. If it had not been for the miracle of Blackshirts
, we would never have leaped this far." In his private letters to a French critic, Ungaretti also claimed that fascist rule did not imply censorship
. Mussolini, who did not give a favorable answer to Ungaretti's appeal, prefaced the 1923 edition of Il porto sepolto, thus politicizing its message.
In 1925, Ungaretti experienced a religious crisis, which, three years later, made him return to the Roman Catholic Church. Meanwhile, he contributed to a number of journals and published a series of poetry volumes, before becoming a foreign correspondent for Gazzetta del Popolo in 1931, and traveling not only to Egypt, Corsica
and the Netherlands, but also to various regions of Italy.
It was during this period that Ungaretti introduced Ermetismo
, baptized with the Italian-language
word for "Hermeticism
". The new trend, inspired by both Symbolism and Futurism, had its origins in both Il porto sepolto, where Ungaretti had eliminated structure, syntax
and punctuation, and the earlier contributions of Arturo Onofri. The style was indebted to the influence of Symbolists from Edgar Allan Poe
to Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Mallarmé and Paul Valéry
. Alongside Ungaretti, its main representatives were Eugenio Montale
and Salvatore Quasimodo
.
Despite the critical acclaim he enjoyed, the poet confronted himself with financial difficulties. In 1936, he moved to the Brazilian city of São Paulo
, and became a Professor of Italian at São Paulo University
. It was there that, in 1939, his son Antonietto died as a result of a badly performed appendectomy.
-allied Italy, where he was received with honors by the officials. The same year, he was made a Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Rome. He continued to write poetry, and published a series of essays. By then, Hermeticism
had come to an end, and Ungaretti, like Montale and Quasimodo, had adopted a more formal style in his poetry.
At the close of the war, following Mussolini's downfall, Ungaretti was expelled from the faculty owing to his fascist connections, but reinstated when his colleagues voted in favor of his return. Affected by his wife's 1958 death, Giuseppe Ungaretti sought comfort in traveling throughout Italy and abroad. He visited Japan, the Soviet Union
, Israel
and the United States.
In 1964, he gave a series of lectures at Columbia University
in New York City, and, in 1970, was invited by the University of Oklahoma
to receive its Books Abroad Prize. During this last trip, Ungaretti fell ill with bronchopneumonia
, and, although he received treatment in New York City, died while under medical supervision in Milan. He was buried in Rome.
’s Calligrammes and the equality between verse and a single word), connecting it with his experience of death and pain as a soldier at war. The hope of brotherhood between all the people is expressed strongly, together with the desire of searching for a renovated "harmony" with the universe, impressive in the famous verses of Mattina:
M’illumino
d’immenso
I illuminate (myself)
with immensity
(Flora, August 2010)
A famous poem regarding the First World War is Soldati (soldiers):
Si sta come
d'autunno
sugli alberi
le foglie
(There we are
like leaves on
trees, in Autumn)
(Flora, August 2010)
In the successive works he studied the importance of the poetic word (marked by Hermeticism
and symbolism
), as the only way to save the humanity from the universal horror, and was searching for a new way to recuperate the roots of the Italian classical poetry. His last verses are on the poem l'Impietrito e il Velluto, about the memory of the bright universe eyed Dunja, an old woman that was house guest of his mother in the time of his childhood. Here is the end:
Il velluto dello sguardo di Dunja
Fulmineo torna presente pietà
(The velvet in the bright gaze of Dunja
Rapid returns as present mercy)
("Hermeticism
"), his early experiments were continued for a while by poets such as Alfonso Gatto
, Mario Luzi
and Leonardo Sinisgalli
. His collected works were published as Vita di un uomo ("The Life of a Man") at the time of his death.
Two of Ungaretti's poems ("Soldiers – War – Another War" and "Vanity") were made into song by American composer Harry Partch
(Eleven Intrusions, 1949–50); and eleven poems were set by the French-Romanian composer Horaţiu Rădulescu
in his cycle End of Kronos (1999). Fragments of his poetry are set by composer Michael Mantler in Cerco un Paese Innocente, a work recorded in 1994.
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
poet, journalist, essayist, critic and academic. A leading representative of the experimental
Experimental literature
Experimental literature refers to written works - often novels or magazines - that place great emphasis on innovations regarding technique and style.-Early history:...
trend known as Ermetismo
Hermeticism (poetry)
Hermeticism in poetry, or Hermetic poetry, is a term used to describe obscure and difficult poetry, as of the Symbolist school. The name alludes to the mythical Hermes Trismegistus, supposed author of mystic doctrines composed in the Neoplatonic tradition.Hermeticism was influential in the...
("Hermeticism
Hermeticism (poetry)
Hermeticism in poetry, or Hermetic poetry, is a term used to describe obscure and difficult poetry, as of the Symbolist school. The name alludes to the mythical Hermes Trismegistus, supposed author of mystic doctrines composed in the Neoplatonic tradition.Hermeticism was influential in the...
"), he was one of the most prominent contributors to 20th century Italian literature
Italian literature
Italian literature is literature written in the Italian language, particularly within Italy. It may also refer to literature written by Italians or in Italy in other languages spoken in Italy, often languages that are closely related to modern Italian....
. Influenced by symbolism
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
, he was briefly aligned with futurism
Futurism
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century.Futurism or futurist may refer to:* Afrofuturism, an African-American and African diaspora subculture* Cubo-Futurism* Ego-Futurism...
. Like many futurists, he took an irredentist
Italia irredenta
Italian irredentism was an Italian Irredentist movement that aimed at the unification of all ethnically Italian peoples....
position during World War I. Ungaretti debuted as a poet while fighting in the trenches
Trench warfare
Trench warfare is a form of occupied fighting lines, consisting largely of trenches, in which troops are largely immune to the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery...
, publishing one of his best-known pieces, L'allegria ("The Joy").
During the interwar period
Interwar period
Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....
, Ungaretti was a collaborator of Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
(whom he met during his socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
accession), as well as a foreign-based correspondent for Il Popolo d'Italia
Il Popolo d'Italia
Il Popolo d'Italia , was an Italian newspaper founded by Benito Mussolini on November 15, 1914, as a result of his split with the Italian Socialist Party. Il Popolo d'Italia ran until July 24, 1943 and became the foundation for the Fascist movement in Italy after World War I...
and La Gazzetta del Popolo. While briefly associated with the Dadaists, he developed Hermeticism
Hermeticism (poetry)
Hermeticism in poetry, or Hermetic poetry, is a term used to describe obscure and difficult poetry, as of the Symbolist school. The name alludes to the mythical Hermes Trismegistus, supposed author of mystic doctrines composed in the Neoplatonic tradition.Hermeticism was influential in the...
as a personal take on poetry. After spending several years in Brazil, he returned home during World War II, and was assigned a teaching post at the University of Rome, where he spent the final decades of his life and career. His Fascist
Italian Fascism
Italian Fascism also known as Fascism with a capital "F" refers to the original fascist ideology in Italy. This ideology is associated with the National Fascist Party which under Benito Mussolini ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, the Republican Fascist Party which ruled the Italian...
past was the subject of controversy.
Early life
Ungaretti was born in AlexandriaAlexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
into a family from the Tuscan city of Lucca
Lucca
Lucca is a city and comune in Tuscany, central Italy, situated on the river Serchio in a fertile plainnear the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Lucca...
. As a child, he was nursed by a Nubia
Nubia
Nubia is a region along the Nile river, which is located in northern Sudan and southern Egypt.There were a number of small Nubian kingdoms throughout the Middle Ages, the last of which collapsed in 1504, when Nubia became divided between Egypt and the Sennar sultanate resulting in the Arabization...
n nurse named Bahita, and, as an adult, claimed that her influence accounted for his own exoticism
Exoticism
Exoticism is a trend in art and design, influenced by some ethnic groups or civilizations since the late 19th-century. In music exoticism is a genre in which the rhythms, melodies, or instrumentation are designed to evoke the atmosphere of far-off lands or ancient times Exoticism (from 'exotic')...
. Ungaretti's father worked on digging the Suez Canal
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal , also known by the nickname "The Highway to India", is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigation...
, where he suffered a fatal accident in 1890. His widowed mother, who ran a bakery on the edge of the Sahara
Sahara
The Sahara is the world's second largest desert, after Antarctica. At over , it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as Europe or the United States. The Sahara stretches from the Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean coasts, to the outskirts of the Atlantic Ocean...
, educated her child on the basis of Roman Catholic tenets.
Giuseppe Ungaretti's formal education began in French, at Alexandria's Swiss School. It was there that he became acquainted with Parnassianism and Symbolist poetry, in particular with Gabriele d'Annunzio
Gabriele D'Annunzio
Gabriele D'Annunzio or d'Annunzio was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist, and dramatist...
, Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
, Jules Laforgue
Jules Laforgue
Jules Laforgue was an innovative Franco-Uruguayan poet, often referred to as a Symbolist poet. Critics and commentators have also pointed to Impressionism as a direct influence and his poetry has been called "part-symbolist, part-impressionist".-Life:...
, Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé , whose real name was Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism.-Biography:Stéphane...
and Arthur Rimbaud
Arthur Rimbaud
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...
. He also became familiar with works of the Classicists Giacomo Leopardi
Giacomo Leopardi
Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi was an Italian poet, essayist, philosopher, and philologist...
and Giosuè Carducci
Giosuè Carducci
Giosuè Alessandro Michele Carducci was an Italian poet and teacher. He was very influential and was regarded as the official national poet of modern Italy. In 1906 he became the first Italian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.-Biography:...
, as well as with the writings of maverick author Giovanni Pascoli
Giovanni Pascoli
Giovanni Placido Agostino Pascoli was an Italian poet and classical scholar.- Biography :Giovanni Pascoli was born at San Mauro di Romagna , into a well-to-do family. He was the fourth of ten children of Ruggero Pascoli and Caterina Vincenzi Alloccatelli...
. This period marked his debut as a journalist and literary critic, with pieces published Risorgete, a journal edited by anarchist
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
writer Enrico Pea. At the time, he was in correspondence with Giuseppe Prezzolini
Giuseppe Prezzolini
Giuseppe Prezzolini was an Italian journalist, editor and writer, later an American citizen.-Biography:...
, editor of the influential magazine La Voce. A regular visitor of Pea's Baracca Rossa ("Red House"), Ungaretti was himself a sympathizer of anarchist-socialist circles. He abandoned Christianity and became an atheist. It was not until 1928 that he returned to the Catholic faith.
In 1912, the 24-year-old Giuseppe Ungaretti moved to Paris, France. On his way there, he stopped in Rome, Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
and Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, meeting face to face with Prezzolini. Ungaretti attended lectures at the Collège de France
Collège de France
The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...
and the University of Paris
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...
, and had among his teachers philosopher Henri Bergson
Henri Bergson
Henri-Louis Bergson was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson convinced many thinkers that immediate experience and intuition are more significant than rationalism and science for understanding reality.He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize...
, whom he reportedly admired. The young writer also met and befriended French literary figure Guillaume Apollinaire
Guillaume Apollinaire
Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki, known as Guillaume Apollinaire was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic born in Italy to a Polish mother....
, a promoter of Cubism
Cubism
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
and a forerunner of Surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
. Apollinaire's work to be a noted influence on his own. He was also in contact with the Italian expatriates, including leading representatives of Futurism
Futurism
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century.Futurism or futurist may refer to:* Afrofuturism, an African-American and African diaspora subculture* Cubo-Futurism* Ego-Futurism...
such as Carlo Carrà
Carlo Carrà
Carlo Carrà was an Italian painter, a leading figure of the Futurist movement that flourished in Italy during the beginning of the 20th century. In addition to his many paintings, he wrote a number of books concerning art. He taught for many years in the city of Milan.-Biography:Carrà was born in...
, Umberto Boccioni
Umberto Boccioni
Umberto Boccioni was an Italian painter and sculptor. Like other Futurists, his work centered on the portrayal of movement , speed, and technology. He was born in Reggio Calabria, Italy.-Biography:...
, Aldo Palazzeschi
Aldo Palazzeschi
Aldo Palazzeschi was the pen name of Aldo Giurlani, an Italian novelist, poet, journalist and essayist.-Biography:...
, Giovanni Papini
Giovanni Papini
Giovanni Papini was an Italian journalist, essayist, literary critic, poet, and novelist.-Early life:...
and Ardengo Soffici
Ardengo Soffici
Ardengo Soffici , was an Italian writer, painter and Fascist intellectual.-Life:Soffici was born in Rignano sull'Arno, near Florence...
, as well as with the independent visual artist Amedeo Modigliani
Amedeo Modigliani
Amedeo Clemente Modigliani was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. Primarily a figurative artist, he became known for paintings and sculptures in a modern style characterized by mask-like faces and elongation of form...
.
World War I and debut
Upon the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Ungaretti, like his Futurist friends, supported an irredentistItalia irredenta
Italian irredentism was an Italian Irredentist movement that aimed at the unification of all ethnically Italian peoples....
position, and called for his country's intervention on the side of the Entente Powers
Allies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
. Enrolled in the infantry a year later, he saw action on the Northern Italian theater
Italian Campaign (World War I)
The Italian campaign refers to a series of battles fought between the armies of Austria-Hungary and Italy, along with their allies, in northern Italy between 1915 and 1918. Italy hoped that by joining the countries of the Triple Entente against the Central Powers it would gain Cisalpine Tyrol , the...
, serving in the trenches
Trench warfare
Trench warfare is a form of occupied fighting lines, consisting largely of trenches, in which troops are largely immune to the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery...
. In contrast to his early enthusiasm, he became appalled by the realities of war. The conflict also made Ungaretti discover his talent as a poet, and, in 1917, he published the volume of free verse
Free verse
Free verse is a form of poetry that refrains from consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern.Poets have explained that free verse, despite its freedom, is not free. Free Verse displays some elements of form...
Il porto sepolto ("The Buried Port"), largely written on the Kras
Kras
Karst ; also known as the Karst Plateau, is a limestone borderline plateau region extending in southwestern Slovenia and northeastern Italy. It lies between the Vipava Valley, the low hills surrounding the valley, the westernmost part of the Brkini Hills, northern Istria, and the Gulf of Trieste...
front. Although depicting the hardships of war life, his celebrated L'Allegria was not unenthusiastic about its purpose (even if in the poem "Fratelli", and in others, he describes the absurdity of the war and the brotherhood between all the men); this made Ungaretti's stance contrast with that of Lost Generation
Lost Generation
The "Lost Generation" is a term used to refer to the generation, actually a cohort, that came of age during World War I. The term was popularized by Ernest Hemingway who used it as one of two contrasting epigraphs for his novel, The Sun Also Rises. In that volume Hemingway credits the phrase to...
writers, who questioned their countries' intents, and similar to that of Italian intellectuals such as Soffici, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti was an Italian poet and editor, the founder of the Futurist movement, and a fascist ideologue.-Childhood and adolescence:...
, Piero Jahier
Piero Jahier
Piero Jahier was an Italian poet, translator and journalist.-Life:He was born in Genoa into a Protestant family. His father was a Piedmontese preacher whose work took them to Turin and Susa....
and Curzio Malaparte
Curzio Malaparte
Curzio Malaparte , born Kurt Erich Suckert, was an Italian journalist, dramatist, short-story writer, novelist and diplomat...
.
By the time the 1918 armistice
Armistice with Germany (Compiègne)
The armistice between the Allies and Germany was an agreement that ended the fighting in the First World War. It was signed in a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest on 11 November 1918 and marked a victory for the Allies and a complete defeat for Germany, although not technically a surrender...
was signed, Ungaretti was again in Paris, working as a correspondent for Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
's paper Il Popolo d'Italia
Il Popolo d'Italia
Il Popolo d'Italia , was an Italian newspaper founded by Benito Mussolini on November 15, 1914, as a result of his split with the Italian Socialist Party. Il Popolo d'Italia ran until July 24, 1943 and became the foundation for the Fascist movement in Italy after World War I...
. He published a volume of French-language poetry, titled La guerre ("The War", 1919). In 1920, Giuseppe Ungaretti married the Frenchwoman Jeanne Dupoix, with whom he had a daughter, Ninon (born 1925), and a son, Antonietto (born 1930).
During that period in Paris, Ungaretti came to affiliate with the anti-establishment
Anti-establishment
An anti-establishment view or belief is one which stands in opposition to the conventional social, political, and economic principles of a society. The term was first used in the modern sense in 1958, by the British magazine New Statesman to refer to its political and social agenda...
and anti-art current known as Dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
ism. He was present in the Paris-based Dadaist circle led by Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n poet Tristan Tzara
Tristan Tzara
Tristan Tzara was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, composer and film director, he was known best for being one of the founders and central figures of the anti-establishment Dada movement...
, being, alongside Alberto Savinio
Alberto Savinio
Alberto Savinio, real name Andrea Francesco Alberto de Chirico was an Italian writer, painter, musician, journalist, essayist, playwright, set designer and composer. He was the younger brother of 'metaphysical' painter Giorgio De Chirico...
, Julius Evola
Julius Evola
Barone Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola also known as Julius Evola, was an Italian philosopher and esotericist...
, Gino Cantarelli
Gino Cantarelli
Gino Cantarelli was an Italian Dadaist poet and painter of the early 20th century. He was associated first with Futurism, then with Dada. He often wrote his poems in French....
, Aldo Fiozzi and Enrico Prampolini
Enrico Prampolini
Enrico Prampolini was an Italian Futurist painter, sculptor and scenographer. He assisted in the design of the Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution and was active in Aeropainting....
, one of the figures who established a transition from Italian Futurism to Dada. In May 1921, he was present at the Dadaist mock trial of reactionary
Reactionary
The term reactionary refers to viewpoints that seek to return to a previous state in a society. The term is meant to describe one end of a political spectrum whose opposite pole is "radical". While it has not been generally considered a term of praise it has been adopted as a self-description by...
author Maurice Barrès
Maurice Barrès
Maurice Barrès was a French novelist, journalist, and socialist politician and agitator known for his nationalist and antisemitic views....
, during which the Dadaist movement began to separate itself into two competing parts, headed respectively by Tzara and André Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
. He was also affiliated with the literary circle formed around the journal La Ronda
La Ronda
La Ronda is one of seven parishes in Boal, a municipality within the province and autonomous community of Asturias, in northern Spain.It is in size with a population of 79 .-Villages:*La Bajada*Brañadesella...
.
Hermeticism and fascism
The year after his marriage, Ungaretti returned to Italy, settling in Rome as a Foreign MinistryItalian Minister of Foreign Affairs
As in most countries, in Italy the Minister of Foreign Affairs, which is the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is one of the most important ministerial positions...
employee. By then, Mussolini had organized the March on Rome
March on Rome
The March on Rome was a march by which Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party came to power in the Kingdom of Italy...
, which confirmed his seizure of power. Ungaretti joined in the National Fascist Party
National Fascist Party
The National Fascist Party was an Italian political party, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of fascism...
, signing the pro-fascist Manifesto of the Italian Writers in 1925. In his essays of 1926–1929, republished in 1996, he repeatedly called on the Duce
Duce
Duce is an Italian title, derived from the Latin word dux, and cognate with duke. National Fascist Party leader Benito Mussolini was identified by Fascists as Il Duce of the movement and became a reference to the dictator position of Head of Government and Duce of Fascism of Italy was established...
to direct cultural development in Italy and reorganize the Italian Academy
Accademia dei Lincei
The Accademia dei Lincei, , is an Italian science academy, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in Rome, Italy....
on fascist lines. He argued: "The first task of the Academy will be to reestablish a certain connection between men of letters, between writers, teachers, publicists. This people is hungers for poetry. If it had not been for the miracle of Blackshirts
Blackshirts
The Blackshirts were Fascist paramilitary groups in Italy during the period immediately following World War I and until the end of World War II...
, we would never have leaped this far." In his private letters to a French critic, Ungaretti also claimed that fascist rule did not imply censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
. Mussolini, who did not give a favorable answer to Ungaretti's appeal, prefaced the 1923 edition of Il porto sepolto, thus politicizing its message.
In 1925, Ungaretti experienced a religious crisis, which, three years later, made him return to the Roman Catholic Church. Meanwhile, he contributed to a number of journals and published a series of poetry volumes, before becoming a foreign correspondent for Gazzetta del Popolo in 1931, and traveling not only to Egypt, Corsica
Corsica
Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....
and the Netherlands, but also to various regions of Italy.
It was during this period that Ungaretti introduced Ermetismo
Hermeticism (poetry)
Hermeticism in poetry, or Hermetic poetry, is a term used to describe obscure and difficult poetry, as of the Symbolist school. The name alludes to the mythical Hermes Trismegistus, supposed author of mystic doctrines composed in the Neoplatonic tradition.Hermeticism was influential in the...
, baptized with the Italian-language
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
word for "Hermeticism
Hermeticism (poetry)
Hermeticism in poetry, or Hermetic poetry, is a term used to describe obscure and difficult poetry, as of the Symbolist school. The name alludes to the mythical Hermes Trismegistus, supposed author of mystic doctrines composed in the Neoplatonic tradition.Hermeticism was influential in the...
". The new trend, inspired by both Symbolism and Futurism, had its origins in both Il porto sepolto, where Ungaretti had eliminated structure, syntax
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
and punctuation, and the earlier contributions of Arturo Onofri. The style was indebted to the influence of Symbolists from Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
to Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Mallarmé and Paul Valéry
Paul Valéry
Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath...
. Alongside Ungaretti, its main representatives were Eugenio Montale
Eugenio Montale
Eugenio Montale was an Italian poet, prose writer, editor and translator, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1975.- Early years :...
and Salvatore Quasimodo
Salvatore Quasimodo
Salvatore Quasimodo was an Italian author and poet. In 1959 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature "for his lyrical poetry, which with classical fire expresses the tragic experience of life in our own times". Along with Giuseppe Ungaretti and Eugenio Montale, he is one of the foremost Italian poets...
.
Despite the critical acclaim he enjoyed, the poet confronted himself with financial difficulties. In 1936, he moved to the Brazilian city of São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
, and became a Professor of Italian at São Paulo University
University of São Paulo
Universidade de São Paulo is a public university in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. It is the largest Brazilian university and one of the country's most prestigious...
. It was there that, in 1939, his son Antonietto died as a result of a badly performed appendectomy.
World War II and after
In 1942, three years after the start of World War II, Ungaretti returned to AxisAxis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
-allied Italy, where he was received with honors by the officials. The same year, he was made a Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Rome. He continued to write poetry, and published a series of essays. By then, Hermeticism
Hermeticism (poetry)
Hermeticism in poetry, or Hermetic poetry, is a term used to describe obscure and difficult poetry, as of the Symbolist school. The name alludes to the mythical Hermes Trismegistus, supposed author of mystic doctrines composed in the Neoplatonic tradition.Hermeticism was influential in the...
had come to an end, and Ungaretti, like Montale and Quasimodo, had adopted a more formal style in his poetry.
At the close of the war, following Mussolini's downfall, Ungaretti was expelled from the faculty owing to his fascist connections, but reinstated when his colleagues voted in favor of his return. Affected by his wife's 1958 death, Giuseppe Ungaretti sought comfort in traveling throughout Italy and abroad. He visited Japan, the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and the United States.
In 1964, he gave a series of lectures at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in New York City, and, in 1970, was invited by the University of Oklahoma
University of Oklahoma
The University of Oklahoma is a coeducational public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded in 1890, it existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two became the state of Oklahoma. the university had 29,931 students enrolled, most located at its...
to receive its Books Abroad Prize. During this last trip, Ungaretti fell ill with bronchopneumonia
Bronchopneumonia
Bronchopneumonia or bronchial pneumonia or "Bronchogenic pneumonia" is the acute inflammation of the walls of the bronchioles...
, and, although he received treatment in New York City, died while under medical supervision in Milan. He was buried in Rome.
Poetry
L'Allegria is a decisive moment of the recent history of Italian literature: Ungaretti revises with novel ideas the poetic style of the poets maudits (especially the broken verses without punctation marks of Guillaume ApollinaireGuillaume Apollinaire
Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki, known as Guillaume Apollinaire was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic born in Italy to a Polish mother....
’s Calligrammes and the equality between verse and a single word), connecting it with his experience of death and pain as a soldier at war. The hope of brotherhood between all the people is expressed strongly, together with the desire of searching for a renovated "harmony" with the universe, impressive in the famous verses of Mattina:
M’illumino
d’immenso
I illuminate (myself)
with immensity
(Flora, August 2010)
A famous poem regarding the First World War is Soldati (soldiers):
Si sta come
d'autunno
sugli alberi
le foglie
(There we are
like leaves on
trees, in Autumn)
(Flora, August 2010)
In the successive works he studied the importance of the poetic word (marked by Hermeticism
Hermeticism (poetry)
Hermeticism in poetry, or Hermetic poetry, is a term used to describe obscure and difficult poetry, as of the Symbolist school. The name alludes to the mythical Hermes Trismegistus, supposed author of mystic doctrines composed in the Neoplatonic tradition.Hermeticism was influential in the...
and symbolism
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
), as the only way to save the humanity from the universal horror, and was searching for a new way to recuperate the roots of the Italian classical poetry. His last verses are on the poem l'Impietrito e il Velluto, about the memory of the bright universe eyed Dunja, an old woman that was house guest of his mother in the time of his childhood. Here is the end:
Il velluto dello sguardo di Dunja
Fulmineo torna presente pietà
(The velvet in the bright gaze of Dunja
Rapid returns as present mercy)
Legacy
Although Ungaretti parted company with ErmetismoHermeticism (poetry)
Hermeticism in poetry, or Hermetic poetry, is a term used to describe obscure and difficult poetry, as of the Symbolist school. The name alludes to the mythical Hermes Trismegistus, supposed author of mystic doctrines composed in the Neoplatonic tradition.Hermeticism was influential in the...
("Hermeticism
Hermeticism (poetry)
Hermeticism in poetry, or Hermetic poetry, is a term used to describe obscure and difficult poetry, as of the Symbolist school. The name alludes to the mythical Hermes Trismegistus, supposed author of mystic doctrines composed in the Neoplatonic tradition.Hermeticism was influential in the...
"), his early experiments were continued for a while by poets such as Alfonso Gatto
Alfonso Gatto
Alfonso Gatto was an Italian author. Along with Giuseppe Ungaretti and Eugenio Montale, he is one of the foremost Italian poets of the 20th century and a major exponent of hermetic poetry.-Biography:...
, Mario Luzi
Mario Luzi
- Biography:Mario Luzi was born in Castello, near Sesto Fiorentino; his parents, Ciro Luzi and Margherita Papini hailed from Samprugnano and he spent his youth in Castello, where he started his primary school...
and Leonardo Sinisgalli
Leonardo Sinisgalli
Leonardo Sinisgalli was an Italian poet and art critic active from the 1930s to the 1970s.Sinisgalli was born in Montemurro, Basilicata. His early education and careers led to him being called the "engineer poet"....
. His collected works were published as Vita di un uomo ("The Life of a Man") at the time of his death.
Two of Ungaretti's poems ("Soldiers – War – Another War" and "Vanity") were made into song by American composer Harry Partch
Harry Partch
Harry Partch was an American composer and instrument creator. He was one of the first twentieth-century composers to work extensively and systematically with microtonal scales, writing much of his music for custom-made instruments that he built himself, tuned in 11-limit just intonation.-Early...
(Eleven Intrusions, 1949–50); and eleven poems were set by the French-Romanian composer Horaţiu Rădulescu
Horatiu Radulescu
Horaţiu Rădulescu was a Romanian-French composer, best known for the spectral technique of composition.-Biography:Rădulescu was born in Bucharest, where he studied the violin privately with Nina Alexandrescu, a pupil of Enescu, and later studied composition at the Bucharest Academy of Music ,...
in his cycle End of Kronos (1999). Fragments of his poetry are set by composer Michael Mantler in Cerco un Paese Innocente, a work recorded in 1994.
Published volumes
- Il porto sepolto ("The Buried Port", 1916 and 1923)
- La guerra ("The War", 1919 and 1947)
- Allegria di naufragi ("The Joy of Shipwrecks", 1919)
- L'allegria ("The Joy", 1931)
- Sentimento del tempo ("The Feeling of Time", 1933)
- Traduzioni ("Translations", 1936)
- Poesie disperse ("Scattered Poems", 1945)
- Il dolore ("The Pain", 1947)
- La terra promessa ("The Promised Land", 1950)
- Un grido e paesaggi ("A Shout and Landscapes", 1952)
- Il taccuino del vecchio ("The Old Man's Notebook", 1960)
- Vita di un uomo ("The Life of a Man", 1969)