Born in Alexandria, Egypt, of Tuscan parentage.
Ungaretti studied
at
the Sorbonne (1912)
and was one of many enthusiastic students of the
relativist philosopher and metaphysician Henri Bergson.
Contact with the avant-garde circles
of the contemporary Paris (Braque, Picasso, Apollinaire,
etc.). Early poems published in "Lacerba." Ungaretti went
through World War I as a solider, and this experience is
distilled in his two earliest volumes of poetry: Il Porto
Sepolto (1916) and Allegria dei naufragi (1919) (Joy of
Shipwrecks). These two volumes represent the best and the
most essential of Ungaretti's work, out of a lifetime of
dedication to the perfection of his poetic diction. Along
with Montale and Quasimodo, Ungaretti is one of the leaders
of Hermetic poetry in the 20's and 30's. He moved closer to
a personal religion after 1928, and in 1936 accepted the
chair of Italian Literature on San Paolo, Brazil, where he
remained until 1942. With the publication of Il Dolore
(1947), he returned to the University of Rome. The year of
his death Mondadori published his complete poems, under the
general title: La Vita d'un uomo (the Life of a Man).
Main Works:
Allegria dei Naufragi (1919) (Joy of
Shipwrecks)
Sentimento del Tempo (1933) (Feeling of Time)
Il Dolore (1947) (Grief)
La Vita d'un uomo (1970) (The Life of a
Man)
From L'Allegria
Rivers
I cling to this mangled tree
Left to lie in the crevasse
That has all the indolence
Of a circus
Before or after the show
And I watch
The tranquil passing
Of clouds across the moon.
This morning
I stretched out
In an urn of water
And like a relic
Rested.
The Isonzo rushing
Polished me
As one of its stones.
I pulled
My bones together
And off I went
On the water
Like an acrobat.
I squatted down
Beside my clothes
Filthy with war and like a bedouin
I bowed to receive
The sun
This is the Isonzo
And here I best
Acknowledged myself
A pliant fiber
In the Universe.
My torment
Comes when
I think myself
Out of harmony.
But those hidden Hands
That immerse me
Give me freely
An uncommon
Happiness.
I have gone
Through the stages
Of my life
These are my rivers.
This is the Serchio
From which perhaps two thousand
Years of my own country folk
And my father and my mother
Have drawn their water
This is the Nile
That saw me born
And saw me grow
In unawareness
On the expansive plains.
This is the Seine
And in its swirl I mingled
And I came to know myself
These are my rivers
Tallied in the Isonzo.
This is my nostalgia
That in each of them
It comes to me
Now that night has fallen
That my life to me seems
A flower
Of shadows.
Cotici, 16th August 1916)
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Agony
To die like the parched skylarks; full of illusions
Or like the quail who having crossed the sea takes rest in the very first hedges because he no longer wishes to fly
But not to live and lament like a blinded goldfinch
Nostalgia
When the night is about to disappear shortly before spring and seldom anyone passes
Over Paris gathers a dark colour of tears
In a corner of a bridge I gaze at the limitless silence of a girl slender
Our illnesses mingle
And as though carried away we remain Locvizza, September 28, 1916 | ||
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In Memoriam
He was called Mohammed Sceab
Descendant of nomad emirs a suicide because he no longer had a Fatherland
He loved France and changed his name
He was Marcel but was not French and he no longer knew how to live in the tent of his people where one hears the refrain of the Koran while drinking coffee
And he could not find words for his despair in his song
I accompanied him together with the hotel owner where we lived in Paris at number 5 rue des Carmes a decayed and slightly sloping street
He rests in the Ivry graveyard a suburb that seems always in a day of a decomposed bazaar
And perhaps I am the only one who knows that he lived Locvizza, September 30, 1916 | ||
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From Sentimento del Tempo
Hymn to Death
Love, my young emblem, Returned to brighten the earth, Diffused between the rocky day, It is the last time that I gaze (By the foot of the ditch, glorious With gushing water, dark With caves) at the path of light Which like the moaning turtle dove Moves heedless across the grass.
Love, shining health, The coming years weigh heavy upon me.
Casting aside the faithful walking stick, I will slip into the dark water Without regret.
Death, arid river
Forgetful sister, death, You will be like a dream As you kiss me.
I will have your footstep, I will walk without leaving a footprint.
You will give me the motionless heart Of a God, I will be innocent, I will no longer have thoughts nor kindness.
With my mind walled up, With my eyes fallen into oblivion, I will act as a guide for happiness.
1925 | ||
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Without any more burden
To Ottone Rosai
1934
For a God who laughs like a child, So many songs of the sparrows, So many dances on the tree branches,
A soul frees itself of its burden, The fields have such tenderness, Such reserve relives in the eyes,
The hands like leaves Become enchanted in the air ...
Who fears anymore, who dares to judge?
From La Terra Promessa
The Poet's Secret
Night alone is my friend. I can always spend useful hours With her, moment by moment; But time to which I entrust my being Oh how this pleases me, always conscious of it.
It happens when I feel, As it begins to move away from darkness, That unshakeable hope Which discovers passion in me again And in the silence it moves giving back, To your earthly gestures So beloved that they seemed immortal, Light. | ||
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