Negri, Ada

Negri, Ada (ä`dä nĕ`grē), 1870–1945, Italian writer. Her first poems, Fatalità (1892, tr. Fate and Other Poems, 1898) voiced bitter protest against the state of the poor. Her passionate lyrics, developed in Maternità (1904), reached their climax in Il libro di Mara (1919). Canti dell'isola (1924) sang of the beauty of Capri. In her last years Negri took refuge in religion and her last volumes of poetry, Vespertina (1931) and Il dono (1936), express resignation and serenity. Her prose includes Le solitarie (1917), short stories, and the autobiographical novel Stella mattutina (1921, tr. Morning Star, 1930). She became the first woman member of the Italian Academy in 1940.

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Negri, Ada 

Born Feb. 3, 1870, in Lodi; died Jan. 11, 1945, in Milan. Italian poet.

Negri was born into a working-class family. She taught in a people’s school. Negri’s poetry, for example, her collections Fate (1892) and Storms (1896), depicted for the first time in Italian poetry the life of factory workers. Her verse was written in the spirit of rebellion.

After marrying an industrialist, Negri became isolated from her natural milieu. She described her subsequent inner crisis in the collection Banishment (1914). Her later poetry lost its concern with social issues and acquired an intimate character. Negri’s poetry was popular in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.

WORKS

Opere, vols. 1–2. Milan, 1956.
In Russian translation:
Stikhotvoreniia. Foreword by V. M. Friche. Moscow, 1918.

REFERENCES

Lunacharskii, A. V. “Novye stikhotvoreniia Ady Negri.” Sobr. soch. v 8 tt., vol. 5. Moscow, 1965. Page 144.
Vatson, M. Ada Negri, 2nd ed. St. Petersburg, 1903.
Potapova, Z. M. Russko-ital’ianskie literaturnye sviazi: Vtoraia polovina XIX v. Moscow, 1973.
Croce, B. “Ada Negri.” In La letteratura italiana [vol. 4]. Bari, 1960.

Z. M. POTAPOVA