This poem was first published in the collection of poems Acque e terre (Waters and Lands) in June 1930. Vento a Tindari is composed in unrhymed verse, with each line containing a varying number of syllables. In Italian, the rhythm… Read More ›
Italian Literature
Analysis of Paolo Volponi’s View on the Parallel Year
It is appropriate that this poem ends Paolo Volponi’s 1986 collection Con testo a fronte (With Parallel Text), a title that signifies that it complements some other text (testo). Vista sull’anno parallelo is thus a fitting conclusion because the “parallel… Read More ›
Analysis of Umberto Saba’s To My Wife
You are like a creamy pullet, my white hen, whose plumes the wind disturbs when she stoops to drink or peck at the ground, yet proceeding over the grass with measured step just like a queen: full-bosomed and superb and… Read More ›
Analysis of Cesare Pavese’s South Seas
This was Pavese’s first successful poetic composition. In South Seas (I mari del Sud) are three qualities evident in many of his later poems: Pavese’s effort to create a “poem-story” (poesia-racconto); the poet’s choice of conventionally “unpoetic” subject matter (lower-class… Read More ›
Analysis of Giuseppe Ungaretti’s Shout No More
Giuseppe Ungaretti’s Shout No More Stop killing the dead, don’t shout anymore, don’t shout if you still want to hear them, if you hope not to pass on. They have the imperceivable murmur, they make no more noise than the… Read More ›
Analysis of Gabriele d’Annunzio’s The Shepherds of Abruzzo
This is the first of seven poems grouped under the heading Sogni di terre lontane (Dreams of Distant Places), which are part of d’Annunzio’s poetic masterpiece Alcyone (Halcyon). If the entire work is a passionate celebration of the summer and… Read More ›
Analysis of Gabriele D’Annunzio’s Rain in the Pinewood
This is probably the most widely known of D’Annunzio’s poems and the one that is usually taken as most emblematic of his “panism,” the ability to experience the vibrant life of nature in one’s own body and soul. The poem… Read More ›
Analysis of Eugenio Montale’s On the Threshold
“On the Threshold” (“In Limine”) was originally published in Eugenio Montale’s first volume of verse, Cuttlefish Bones (Ossi di seppia, 1925). It is a short poem in four stanzas: the first and third stanzas have five lines each; the second… Read More ›
Analysis of Edoardo Sanguineti’s Last Walk
This poem by Edoardo Sanguineti was originally published as part of the proceedings of a conference in 1982 devoted to the Italian poet Giovanni Pascoli, one of the founders of modern Italian poetry, known for his innovative and musical verses… Read More ›
Analysis of Alfredo Giuliani’s Birthday
Alfredo Giuliani’s unrhymed free-verse poem Compleanno (Birthday) was first published in I novissimi: poesie per gli anni ’60 (1961), the famous and influential anthology of neo-avant-garde poetry that Giuliani himself edited, containing his own poetry and that of four other… Read More ›
Analysis of Cesare Pavese’s The Moon and the Bonfires
The Moon and the Bonfires is the famed Italian author Cesare Pavese’s (1908–50) last novel. Published in June 1950 by the Italian publishing house Einaudi (where Pavese held a prominent position), the novel met immediate critical and commercial success. “To… Read More ›
Analysis of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s The Leopard
A historical novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (1896–1957), The Leopard was one of the most successful literary works of 20th-century European literature. The plot is straightforward: In 1860 Giuseppe Garibaldi and his forces have landed in Marsala (Sicily) to… Read More ›
Analysis of Umberto Eco’s The Island of the Day Before
The third novel by Italian author Umberto Eco (1932–2016), The Island of the Day Before is another extended meditation on the subjective nature of reality that demonstrates the deceptive nature of all signs and metaphors. Eco presents his historical romance… Read More ›
Analysis of Alberto Moravia’s The Indifferent Ones
The Italian author Alberto Moravia (1907–90) began writing his masterpiece The Indifferent Ones in 1925, when he was 17 years old. Publication came in 1929, when he was 21. The Indifferent Ones is the story of a Roman bourgeois family… Read More ›
Analysis of Primo Levi’s If Not Now, When?
This novel by the famed Italian author Primo Levi (1919–87) can be read on multiple levels. First, it is an exciting story, with the heroes (and heroines), a roving resistance band of Jews, trying whenever possible to wreak havoc in… Read More ›
Analysis of Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum
Foucault’s Pendulum is the second novel by the highly prolific Italian writer Umberto Eco (1932–2016), and continues the pattern of linguistic games and narrative proliferation established in The Name of the Rose. This time the focus is more contemporary, with… Read More ›
Analysis of Carlo Levi’s Christ Stopped at Eboli
The Italian author and painter Carlo Levi (1902–75) wrote Christ Stopped at Eboli while hiding in a room looking onto Florence’s Palazzo Pitti during the final years of World War II. An Italian Jew, a painter with a degree in… Read More ›
Analysis of Umberto Eco’s Baudolino
The fourth novel by the prolific Italian novelist Umberto Eco (1932–2016) charts the adventurous life of the eponymous hero, a medieval adventurer and consummate liar with a gift for making the most of chance. The book opens with Baudolino rescuing… Read More ›
Analysis of Italo Calvino’s The Baron in the Trees
Published first in Italian in 1957 and translated into English in 1959, The Baron in the Trees is an enchanting novel by Italo Calvino (1923–85). Because of the book’s mixture of fantasy and allegory, The Baron in the Trees is… Read More ›
Analysis of Dante’s Inferno
Dante’s Hell is a diorama of sin, enacted as both moral exhortation and poetic prophecy. Change is no longer possible here, and damnation is the irrevocable, total removal from God—a separation that is more terrible for being freely willed by… Read More ›
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