Guido Gozzano

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This article is about the Italian poet. For the town in Piedmont, Italy, see Gozzano, Italy.
Guido Gozzano
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Guido Gozzano

Guido Gustavo Gozzano (Turin, December 19, 1883 - August 9, 1916) was an Italian poet and writer. Son of Fausto Gozzano, an engineer, and of Diodata Mautino, the daughter of the senator Mautino, a patriot supporter of Giuseppe Mazzini and Massimo D'Azeglio, he spent his childhood in Turin and in Agliè (in Canavese area), where his family had several buildings and a large park.

Of delicate health (but nevertheless practising or following sports like ice-skating, cycling, swimming), he attended primary school as a not too hard-working pupil, and after secondary school he enrolled, in 1903, in law faculty at the University of Turin, but never graduated, preferring the attendance, together with some friend, the crepuscolari torinesi, of literature lessons by poet Arturo Graf, well liked by the young men of letters.

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[edit] Life

[edit] Early years in Turin

The influence of Arturo Graf, who was inspired by Leopardi's pessimism mitigated by a spiritualistic form of socialism, and who was thus gratly admired by Turinese young intellectuals, seeing in his thought an "antidote" to rampant D'annunzio style, helped Gozzano in freeing himself from the D'Annunzio inspiration that imbued his first works. In these years Gozzano devoted himself to a careful study of Dante Alighieri and Francesco Petrarca, thus refining his poetic sensibility.

[edit] Health worsening

In May 1907 his weak health worsened due to a severe pleurisy. Since then, Gozzano was forced to spend his solitary life in the Italian Riviera (mostly San Giuliano d'Albaro) and in mountain towns (Ceresole Reale, Ronco, Bertesseno, Fiery).

[edit] The affair with Amalia - First poetry collection

1907 was also the year in which his affair with young poet Amalia Guglielminetti began, as an exchange of letters. Gozzano had met Guglielminetti at the meetings of the Società di Cultura. Gozzano and Guglielminetti's love Lettere, exchanged in 1907-1909 but first published in 1951, witness a love he tried often to shirk preferring a cautious "literary comradeship"; they represent an intense piece of Gozzano biography.

In the same year his first collection, La via del rifugio, is published by the Turinese publisher Streglio: it collects poems written in 1904-1907.

[edit] I Colloqui

In 1909 Gozzano gave up law studies and completely devoted himself to poetry. In 1911 he published his most important book, I colloqui (literally "The Conversations"), with the Milanese publisher Treves: here the poems are distributed, according to a precise plan, in three sections: Il giovenile errore (lit. "The Youthful Error"), Alle soglie (lit. "On the Threshold"), Il reduce (lit. "The Survivor"). "I colloqui" was very successful and yielded several offers of collaboration to important magazines and newspapers, among which La Stampa, La Lettura, La Donna. Here he published both prose and poetry.

[edit] Illness and voyage to India

In 1912 Gozzano's health got even worse and he decided to travel to India and Ceylon looking for a climate more suited to his health. He cruised from February 16, 1912, leaving from Genua till May 1913 with his friend Garrone: he went to Colombo and to Bombay. He did not get better, but the travel, together with extensive readings, gave the inspiration to write the texts which were to be collected and posthumously published (in 1917) under the title Verso la cuna del mondo (lit., "Towards the World's Cradle").

[edit] Last years

In March 1914 Gozzano published on "La Stampa" some fragments of the long poem Le Farfalle (lit. "The Butterflies"), also known as Epistole entomologiche (lit. "Entomological Epistles"), which he would never complete. In the same year he collected in I tre talismani (lit. "The Three Talismans"), six fairy tales he had written for the children magazine Corriere dei Piccoli. Gozzano was always interested in theatre and in cinema, and reduced for them some of his novellas. In 1914-1915 he wrote some unexceptional poems about World War I.

In 1916 he began writing the script for a film about Francis of Assisi, which was never filmed. In the same year Gozzano died in Turin: he was buried in Agliè.

[edit] Works

[edit] Poetry

  • La via del rifugio, Streglio, Turin, 1907.
  • I colloqui, Treves, Milano, 1911.
  • Tutte le poesie, A. Rocca, ed., introduction by M. Guglielminetti, Milano, 1980 (the whole corpus).

[edit] Prose

  • I tre talismani, La Scolastica, Ostiglia, 1914.
  • La principessa si sposa. Fiabe, Milano, 1918.
  • Verso la cuna del mondo. Lettere dall'India (1912-1913), with preface by G.A. Borgese, Treves, Milano, 1917 (first edition).
  • L'altare del passato, Treves, Milano, 1918.
  • L'ultima traccia, Treves, Milano, 1919.
  • Primavere romantiche, Appia Rivarolo, 1924.
  • La moneta seminata e altri scritti con un saggio di varianti e una scelta di documenti, F. Antonicelli, ed., Scheiwiller, Milano 1968.
  • Verso la Cuna del mondo - Lettere dall'India, Flaminio di Biagi, ed., with afterword by Giorgio Bàrberi Squarotti, La Finestra editrice, Trento, 2005 (first complete edition).

[edit] Letters

  • Lettere d'amore di Guido Gozzano e Amalia Guglielminetti, S. Asciamprener, ed., Garzanti, Milano, 1951.
  • Lettere a Carlo Vallini con altri inediti, Giorgio Di Rienzo, ed., Centro di Studi Piemontesi, Torino, 1971.

[edit] Works about Guido Gozzano

  • W. Vaccari, La vita e i pallidi amori di Guido Gozzano, Milano, Omnia editrice, 1958.
  • Flaminio Di Biagi, Sotto l'arco di Tito: le "Farfalle" di Guido Gozzano, Trento, La Finestra editrice 1999.


[edit] External links

[edit] References


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