Salvatore Quasimodo
Encyclopedia
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 of the 20th century.
, Sicily
. In 1908 his family moved to Messina, as his father had been sent there to help the population struck by a devastating earthquake. The impressions of the effects of natural forces would have a great impact on the young Quasimodo.
In 1919 he graduated from the local Technical College. In Messina he also made friends with Giorgio La Pira
, future mayor of Florence
.
In 1917 Quasimodo founded the short-lived Nuovo giornale letterario ("New Literary Journal"), in which he published his first poems. In 1919 he moved to Rome to finish his engineering studies, but poor economic conditions forced him to find a work as a technical draughtsman. In the meantime he collaborated with several reviews and studied Greek
and Latin.
In 1929, invited by Elio Vittorini
, who had married Quasimodo's sister, he moved to Florence. Here he met poets such as Alessandro Bonsanti and Eugenio Montale
. In 1930 he took a job with Italy's Civil Engineering Corps in Reggio Calabria
. Here he met the Misefari brothers, who encouraged him to continue writing. Developing his nearness to the hermetic
movement, Quasimodo published his first collection, Acque e terre ("Waters and Earths") in that year.
In 1931 he was transferred to Imperia
and then to Genoa
, where he got acquainted with Camillo Sbarbaro and other personalities of the Circoli magazine, with which Quasimodo started a prolific collaboration. In 1932 he published with them a new collection, Oboe sommerso, including all his lyrics from 1930-1932.
In 1934 Quasimodo moved to Milan
. Starting from 1938 he devoted himself entirely to writing, working with Cesare Zavattini
and for Letteratura, official review of the Hermetic movement
. In 1938 he published Poesie, followed by the translations of Lirici Greci ("Greek Poets") published by Corrente di Vita
in 1939.
Though an outspoken anti-Fascist, during World War II
Quasimodo did not take part in the Italian resistance against the German occupation. In that period he devoted himself to the translation of the Gospel of John
, of some of Catullus
's cantos, and several episodes of the Odyssey. In 1945 he became a member of the Italian Communist Party
.
In 1946 he published another collection, Giorno dopo giorno ("Day After Day"), which made clear the increasing moral engagement and the epic tone of social criticism of the author. The same theme characterized his next works, La vita non è sogno ("Life Is Not a Dream"), Il falso e il vero verde ("The False and True Green") and La terra impareggiabile ("The Incomparable Land"). In all this period Quasimodo did not stop producing translations of classic authors and collaborating as a journalist for some of the most prestigious Italian publications (mostly with articles about the theatre).
In the 1950s Quasimodo won the following awards: Premio San Babila (1950), Premio Etna-Taormina (1953), Premio Viareggio (1958) and, finally, the Nobel Prize for Literature (1959). In 1960 and 1967 he received honoris causa degrees from the Universities of Messina and Oxford
, respectively.
In his last years the poet made numerous voyages to Europe and America, giving public speeches and public lectures of his poems, which had been translated in several foreign languages.
In June
1968, when he was in Amalfi
for a discourse, Quasimodo was struck by a cerebral hemorrhage. He died a few days later in the hospital in Naples
. He was interred in the Cimitero Monumentale in Milan
.
period until World War II and the post-hermetic era until his death. Although these periods are distinct, they are to be seen as a single poetical quest. This quest or exploration for a unique language took him through various stages and various modalities of expression.
As an intelligent and clever poet, Quasimodo used a hermetical
, "closed" language to sketch recurring motifs like Sicily, religion and death. Subsequently, the translation of authors from Roman and Greek Antiquity enabled him to extend his linguistic toolkit. The disgust and sense of absurdity of World War II also had its impact on the poet's language.
This bitterness, however, faded in his late writings, and was replaced by the mature voice of an old poet reflecting upon his world.
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
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
Giuseppe Ungaretti
Giuseppe Ungaretti was an Italian modernist poet, journalist, essayist, critic and academic. A leading representative of the experimental trend known as Ermetismo , he was one of the most prominent contributors to 20th century Italian literature. Influenced by symbolism, he was briefly aligned...
and 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 :...
, he is one of the foremost Italian poets of the 20th century.
Biography
Quasimodo was born in ModicaModica
-External links:*...
, Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
. In 1908 his family moved to Messina, as his father had been sent there to help the population struck by a devastating earthquake. The impressions of the effects of natural forces would have a great impact on the young Quasimodo.
In 1919 he graduated from the local Technical College. In Messina he also made friends with Giorgio La Pira
Giorgio La Pira
Giorgio La Pira was an Italian politician who served as mayor of Florence twice . He also served as deputy of the Christian Democratic Party and participated in the assembly that wrote the Constitution of Italy after World War II...
, future mayor of 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....
.
In 1917 Quasimodo founded the short-lived Nuovo giornale letterario ("New Literary Journal"), in which he published his first poems. In 1919 he moved to Rome to finish his engineering studies, but poor economic conditions forced him to find a work as a technical draughtsman. In the meantime he collaborated with several reviews and studied Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
and Latin.
In 1929, invited by Elio Vittorini
Elio Vittorini
Elio Vittorini was an Italian writer and novelist. He was a contemporary of Cesare Pavese and an influential voice in the modernist school of novel writing. His best-known work is the anti-fascist novel Conversations in Sicily, for which he was jailed when it was published in 1941. The first U.S...
, who had married Quasimodo's sister, he moved to Florence. Here he met poets such as Alessandro Bonsanti and 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 :...
. In 1930 he took a job with Italy's Civil Engineering Corps in Reggio Calabria
Reggio Calabria
Reggio di Calabria , commonly known as Reggio Calabria or Reggio, is the biggest city and the most populated comune of Calabria, southern Italy, and is the capital of the Province of Reggio Calabria and seat of the Council of Calabrian government.Reggio is located on the "toe" of the Italian...
. Here he met the Misefari brothers, who encouraged him to continue writing. Developing his nearness to the hermetic
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...
movement, Quasimodo published his first collection, Acque e terre ("Waters and Earths") in that year.
In 1931 he was transferred to Imperia
Imperia
Imperia may be:* Imperia , an Italian city* Province of Imperia, the Italian province of the above city of Imperia* IMPERIA, a vodka produced by Russian Standard* Imperia , a statue in Constance, Germany...
and then to Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
, where he got acquainted with Camillo Sbarbaro and other personalities of the Circoli magazine, with which Quasimodo started a prolific collaboration. In 1932 he published with them a new collection, Oboe sommerso, including all his lyrics from 1930-1932.
In 1934 Quasimodo moved to 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 ,...
. Starting from 1938 he devoted himself entirely to writing, working with Cesare Zavattini
Cesare Zavattini
Cesare Zavattini was an Italian screenwriter and one of the first theorists and proponents of the Neorealist movement in Italian cinema.-Brief biography:...
and for Letteratura, official review of the Hermetic movement
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...
. In 1938 he published Poesie, followed by the translations of Lirici Greci ("Greek Poets") published by Corrente di Vita
Corrente di Vita
Corrente di Vita Giovanile , later renamed Corrente di Vita or Corrente, was an Italian magazine founded on 1 January 1938 in Milan by artist Ernesto Treccani....
in 1939.
Though an outspoken anti-Fascist, during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Quasimodo did not take part in the Italian resistance against the German occupation. In that period he devoted himself to the translation of the Gospel of John
Gospel of John
The Gospel According to John , commonly referred to as the Gospel of John or simply John, and often referred to in New Testament scholarship as the Fourth Gospel, is an account of the public ministry of Jesus...
, of some of Catullus
Catullus
Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the Republican period. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art.-Biography:...
's cantos, and several episodes of the Odyssey. In 1945 he became a member of the Italian Communist Party
Italian Communist Party
The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy.The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party . Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. Outlawed during the Fascist regime, the party played...
.
In 1946 he published another collection, Giorno dopo giorno ("Day After Day"), which made clear the increasing moral engagement and the epic tone of social criticism of the author. The same theme characterized his next works, La vita non è sogno ("Life Is Not a Dream"), Il falso e il vero verde ("The False and True Green") and La terra impareggiabile ("The Incomparable Land"). In all this period Quasimodo did not stop producing translations of classic authors and collaborating as a journalist for some of the most prestigious Italian publications (mostly with articles about the theatre).
In the 1950s Quasimodo won the following awards: Premio San Babila (1950), Premio Etna-Taormina (1953), Premio Viareggio (1958) and, finally, the Nobel Prize for Literature (1959). In 1960 and 1967 he received honoris causa degrees from the Universities of Messina and Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, respectively.
In his last years the poet made numerous voyages to Europe and America, giving public speeches and public lectures of his poems, which had been translated in several foreign languages.
In June
June
June is the sixth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and one of the four months with a length of 30 days. Ovid provides two etymologies for June's name in his poem concerning the months entitled the Fasti...
1968, when he was in Amalfi
Amalfi
Amalfi is a town and comune in the province of Salerno, in the region of Campania, Italy, on the Gulf of Salerno, c. 35 km southeast of Naples. It lies at the mouth of a deep ravine, at the foot of Monte Cerreto , surrounded by dramatic cliffs and coastal scenery...
for a discourse, Quasimodo was struck by a cerebral hemorrhage. He died a few days later in the hospital in Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
. He was interred in the Cimitero Monumentale in 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 ,...
.
Poetic language
Traditional literary critique divides Quasimodo's work into two major periods: the hermeticHermeticism (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...
period until World War II and the post-hermetic era until his death. Although these periods are distinct, they are to be seen as a single poetical quest. This quest or exploration for a unique language took him through various stages and various modalities of expression.
As an intelligent and clever poet, Quasimodo used a hermetical
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...
, "closed" language to sketch recurring motifs like Sicily, religion and death. Subsequently, the translation of authors from Roman and Greek Antiquity enabled him to extend his linguistic toolkit. The disgust and sense of absurdity of World War II also had its impact on the poet's language.
This bitterness, however, faded in his late writings, and was replaced by the mature voice of an old poet reflecting upon his world.
Works
- Acque e terre (1930)
- Oboe sommerso (1932)
- Erato e Apòllìon (1938)
- Poesie (1938)
- Lirici Greci (1940)
- Ed è subito sera (1942)
- Con il piede straniero sopra il cuore (1946)
- Giorno dopo giorno (1947)
- La vita non è sogno (1949)
- Il falso e vero verde (1954)
- Il fiore delle "Georgiche" (1957)
- La terra impareggiabile (1958)
- Il poeta e il politico e altri saggi (1960)
- Dare e avere (1966)
External links
- Salvatore Quasimodo - Parco letterario Salvatore Quasimodo
- Salvatore Quasimodo - Official website
- Nobel Laureate Page Quasimodo page at the Nobel Prize website, with links to his biography and to his Nobel lecture "The Poet and the Politician"
- Strada di Agrigento in English translation
- Salvatore Quasimodo poems
- Salvatore Quasimodo and Agrigento