Selected Poems of Giovanni Pascoli
The most comprehensive collection in English of the founder of modern Italian poetry

Giovanni Pascoli (1855–1912)—the founder of modern Italian poetry and one of Italy's most beloved poets—has been compared to Robert Frost for his evocation of natural speech, his bucolic settings, and the way he bridges poetic tradition and the beginnings of modernism. Featuring verse from throughout his career, and with the original Italian on facing pages, Selected Poems of Giovanni Pascoli is a comprehensive and authoritative collection of a fascinating and major literary figure.

Reading this poet of nature, grief, and small-town life is like traveling through Italy's landscapes in his footsteps—from Romagna and Bologna to Rome, Sicily, and Tuscany—as the country transformed from an agrarian society into an industrial one. Mixing the elevated diction of Virgil with local slang and the sounds of the natural world, these poems capture sense-laden moments: a train's departure, a wren's winter foraging, and the lit windows of a town at dusk. Incorporating revolutionary language into classical scenes, Pascoli's poems describe ancient rural dramas—both large and small—that remain contemporary.

Framed by an introduction, annotations, and a substantial chronology, Taije Silverman and Marina Della Putta Johnston's translations render the variety, precision, and beauty of Pascoli's poetry with a profoundly current vision.

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Selected Poems of Giovanni Pascoli
The most comprehensive collection in English of the founder of modern Italian poetry

Giovanni Pascoli (1855–1912)—the founder of modern Italian poetry and one of Italy's most beloved poets—has been compared to Robert Frost for his evocation of natural speech, his bucolic settings, and the way he bridges poetic tradition and the beginnings of modernism. Featuring verse from throughout his career, and with the original Italian on facing pages, Selected Poems of Giovanni Pascoli is a comprehensive and authoritative collection of a fascinating and major literary figure.

Reading this poet of nature, grief, and small-town life is like traveling through Italy's landscapes in his footsteps—from Romagna and Bologna to Rome, Sicily, and Tuscany—as the country transformed from an agrarian society into an industrial one. Mixing the elevated diction of Virgil with local slang and the sounds of the natural world, these poems capture sense-laden moments: a train's departure, a wren's winter foraging, and the lit windows of a town at dusk. Incorporating revolutionary language into classical scenes, Pascoli's poems describe ancient rural dramas—both large and small—that remain contemporary.

Framed by an introduction, annotations, and a substantial chronology, Taije Silverman and Marina Della Putta Johnston's translations render the variety, precision, and beauty of Pascoli's poetry with a profoundly current vision.

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Overview

The most comprehensive collection in English of the founder of modern Italian poetry

Giovanni Pascoli (1855–1912)—the founder of modern Italian poetry and one of Italy's most beloved poets—has been compared to Robert Frost for his evocation of natural speech, his bucolic settings, and the way he bridges poetic tradition and the beginnings of modernism. Featuring verse from throughout his career, and with the original Italian on facing pages, Selected Poems of Giovanni Pascoli is a comprehensive and authoritative collection of a fascinating and major literary figure.

Reading this poet of nature, grief, and small-town life is like traveling through Italy's landscapes in his footsteps—from Romagna and Bologna to Rome, Sicily, and Tuscany—as the country transformed from an agrarian society into an industrial one. Mixing the elevated diction of Virgil with local slang and the sounds of the natural world, these poems capture sense-laden moments: a train's departure, a wren's winter foraging, and the lit windows of a town at dusk. Incorporating revolutionary language into classical scenes, Pascoli's poems describe ancient rural dramas—both large and small—that remain contemporary.

Framed by an introduction, annotations, and a substantial chronology, Taije Silverman and Marina Della Putta Johnston's translations render the variety, precision, and beauty of Pascoli's poetry with a profoundly current vision.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780691198279
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Publication date: 10/15/2019
Series: The Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation , #133
Pages: 216
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Taije Silverman teaches poetry and literary translation at the University of Pennsylvania and is the author of the poetry collection Houses Are Fields. Marina Della Putta Johnston is a lecturer in Italian at the University of Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

Chronology xxiii

From Myricae / Myricae

Patria / Birthplace 3

Alba festiva / Sunday Dawn 5

Allora / Back Then 7

Fides / Fides 9

I puffini dell' Adriatico / Puffins of the Adriatic 11

From L'ultima passeggiata / The Last Walk

Arano / They're Plowing 13

Galline / Hens 13

Lavandare / Laundresses 15

La via ferrata / Track 15

Festa lontana / Faraway Festival 17

Quel giorno / That Day 17

Già dalla mattina / Since Morning 19

Carrettiere / Wagoner 19

In capannello / Huddle 21

Il cane / The Dog 21

O reginella / Little Queen 23

Ti chiama / She's Calling You 23

From Finestra illuminata / Lit Window

Mezzanotte / Midnight 25

Un gatto nero / Black Cat 25

Dopo? / Then? 27

Un rondinotto / Baby Swallow 27

Sogno d'ombra / Dream of a Shadow 29

Il bove / The Ox 31

Vespro / Dusk 33

Canzone d'aprile / April Song 35

Alba / Dawn 37

Stoppia / Stubble 39

L'assiuolo / Owl 41

Temporale / Storm 43

Pioggia / Rain 45

Novembre / November 47

Il flume / The River 49

In chiesa / At Church 51

Mare / Sea 53

Sogno / Dream 55

Il lampo / Lightning 57

Il tuono / Thunder 59

Dalla spiaggia / From the Shore 61

Notte di neve / Night Snow 63

I gigli / Lilies 65

From Primi poemetti / First Little Poems

La quercia caduta / Fallen Oak 69

L'aquilone / The Kite 71

Nella nebbia / In the Fog 75

Il libro / The Book 77

Il transito / The Stopover 81

From Canti di Castelvecchio / Canti of Castelvecchio

L'uccellino del freddo / The Winter Wren 85

Nebbia / Fog 89

L'or di notte / The Night Hour 91

Canzone di marzo / Song for March 93

Il gelsomino notturno / Night-Blooming Jasmine 95

La guazza / Dew 97

L'imbrunire / Nightfall 99

Temporale / Squall 101

La mia sera / My Evening 105

Le rane / Frogs 109

Casa mia / Home 113

Il bolide / The Meteor 119

From Diario autunnale / Autumn Diary

Bologna, 2 novembre / Bologna, November 2 123

Torre di San Mauro. Notte dal 9 al 10 novembre / San Mauro Tower. Night between November 9 and 10 125

Bologna, 14 novembre / Bologna, November 14 127

Bologna, 12 dicembre. Narcissi / Bologna, December 12. Narcissi 129

From Odi e inni / Odes and Hymns

L'ultimo frutto / Last Fruit 133

Il cane notturno / The Night Dog 135

Crisantemi / Chrysanthemums 139

From Nuovi poemetti / New Little Poems

Il naufrago / The Drowned 143

From Poesie varie / Various Poems

L'amorosa giornata / The Loving Day 149

A una giovinetta (cartolina) / To a Girl (Postcard) 153

Il poeta ozioso / Idle Poet 155

Acknowledgments 157

Notes 159

Selected Bibliography 179

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Italian modernist poetry begins not, as everywhere else, in the anonymous city, but in the lore, sights, and especially the sounds of Giovanni Pascoli's peasant village. The closely perceived local becomes, without rhetorical flourishes, the universal, and in this brilliant translation yesterday's Italian becomes today's American English."—Eliot Weinberger

"This is a lyrical and learned introduction to one of modern Italy's essential poets. The quiet openness and aesthetic finesse of Pascoli's 'little' poems sound far truer to us today than the ringing odes of his near-contemporaries Carducci and D'Annunzio. It is Pascoli, in the end, who speaks to us most hauntingly and memorably. Silverman and Johnston have brought him wonderfully alive for contemporary readers."—Jonathan Galassi

"This sensitive translation makes accessible to a new audience of English-language readers a body of work that often has the beautiful, lucid simplicity and compelling complexity of haiku, while capturing the mysterious depths of loss, longing, and evil. This exquisitely crafted bilingual volume is a gift to all who cherish the renewal of perception and understanding of our shared humanity, which only the great poets, like Pascoli, can provide."—Rebecca West, University of Chicago

"What a marvelous book! Here at long last is a true rendering of the first modern in Italian poetry, a quiet foundational figure poised between centuries, a secret force akin to Thomas Hardy and Robert Frost. These translations of Giovanni Pascoli shine with the tears of things."—Edward Hirsch, author of Gabriel: A Poem

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