Salvatore Quasimodo

Quasimodo, Salvatore 

Born Aug. 20, 1901, in Syracuse; died June 14, 1968, in Naples. Italian poet.

In the 1930’s, Quasimodo wrote in the style of the “hermetic” school, which was characterized by motifs of grief and loneliness —the collections Waters and Land (1930), Sunken Oboe (1932), Erato and Apollion (1936), and Poems (1938). During the antifascist resistance he began to concern himself with social reality (the collection Day After Day, 1947). Quasimodo’s postwar poetry deals with civic and patriotic themes—for example, Life Is Not a Dream (1949), and The False and True Green (1954)—and expresses faith in the people, whom the poet addresses directly (the collection The Incomparable Earth, 1958). Quasimodo was a member of the World Peace Council (1950) and received the Nobel Prize in 1959.

WORKS

Tutte le poesie. Verona, 1961.
In Russian translation:
Moia strana—Italiia. Edited by K. Zelinskii. [Introductory article by A. Surkov.] Moscow, 1961. (Translated from Italian.)
[“Stikhi.”] In ItaVianskaia lirika: XX vek. Moscow, 1968.

REFERENCES

Tedesco, N. S. Quasimodo e la condizione poetica del nostro tempo. Palermo [1959]. (Contains bibliography.)
Pento, B. Lettura di Quasimodo. Milan [1966].
Mazzamuto, P. Salvatore Quasimodo. [Palermo, 1967.]
Quasimodo e la critica. Edited by G. Finzi. [Milan, 1969.]

R. I. KHLODOVSKII