Giosuè Alessandro Giuseppe Carducci (; 27 July 1835 – 16 February 1907) was an Italian poet, writer, literary critic and teacher. He was very noticeably influential, and was regarded as the official
national poet
A national poet or national bard is a poet held by tradition and popular acclaim to represent the identity, beliefs and principles of a particular national culture. The national poet as culture hero is a long-standing symbo ...
of modern Italy. In 1906, he became the first Italian to receive the
Nobel Prize in Literature. Excerpt from the
Swedish Academy's motivation: "
..not only in consideration of his deep learning and critical research, but above all as a tribute to the creative energy, freshness of style, and lyrical force which characterize his poetic masterpieces".
Biography
He was born in
Valdicastello (part of
Pietrasanta Pietrasanta is a town and ''comune'' on the coast of northern Tuscany in Italy, in the province of Lucca. Pietrasanta is part of Versilia, on the last foothills of the Apuan Alps, about north of Pisa. The town is located off the coast, where the ...
), a small town in the
Province of Lucca
The province of Lucca ( it, provincia di Lucca) is a province in the Tuscany region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Lucca.
It has an area of and a total population of about 390,000. There are 33 '' comuni'' (singular: ''comune'') in the pr ...
in the northwest corner of the region of
Tuscany
it, Toscano (man) it, Toscana (woman)
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 = Citizenship
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographics1_title1 = Italian
, demogra ...
. His father, a doctor, was an advocate of the unification of Italy and was involved with the
Carbonari
The Carbonari () was an informal network of secret revolutionary societies active in Italy from about 1800 to 1831. The Italian Carbonari may have further influenced other revolutionary groups in France, Portugal, Spain, Brazil, Uruguay and Ru ...
. Because of his politics, the family was forced to move several times during Carducci's childhood, eventually settling for a few years in
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...
.
From the time he was in school, he was fascinated with the restrained style of
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
and
Roman Antiquity, and his mature work reflects a restrained classical style, often using the classical meters of such Latin poets as
Horace and
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...
. He translated Book 9 of
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
's ''
Iliad
The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Odys ...
'' into Italian.
Carducci was awarded a scholarship to study at the prestigious
Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. After graduating in 1856, he began teaching school. The following year, he published his first collection of poems, ''Rime''. These were difficult years for Carducci: his father died, and his brother committed suicide.
In 1859, he married Elvira Menicucci, and they had four children. He briefly taught Greek at a high school in
Pistoia, and then was appointed Professor of Italian Literature at the
University of Bologna
The University of Bologna ( it, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, UNIBO) is a public research university in Bologna, Italy. Founded in 1088 by an organised guild of students (''studiorum''), it is the oldest university in continu ...
. Here, one of his students was
Giovanni Pascoli, who became an eminent poet himself and later succeeded him at the university.
Carducci was a popular lecturer and a fierce critic of literature and society. In his youth he was an atheist, whose political views were vehemently hostile to the Catholic Church. In the course of his life his views on religion shifted towards a socially oriented
theism
Theism is broadly defined as the belief in the existence of a supreme being or deities. In common parlance, or when contrasted with '' deism'', the term often describes the classical conception of God that is found in monotheism (also referred ...
which he exposed in his famous "Discorso sulla libertà perpetua di
San Marino
San Marino (, ), officially the Republic of San Marino ( it, Repubblica di San Marino; ), also known as the Most Serene Republic of San Marino ( it, Serenissima Repubblica di San Marino, links=no), is the fifth-smallest country in the world an ...
" ("A Speech on San Marino's Perpetual Freedom"), pronounced on September the 30th, 1894 before the authorities and people of that ancient Republic and celebrating "the Universal God of Peoples, Mazzini's and Washington's God".
His anti-clerical revolutionary vehemence was prominently showcased in one famous poem, the deliberately blasphemous and provocative "Inno a Satana" ("Hymn to Satan"). "Satan" / "Lucifer" was considered by Italian leftists of the time as a metaphor of the rebellious and freethinking spirit. The poem was composed in 1863 as a dinner party toast, published in 1865, then republished in 1869 by Bologna's radical newspaper, ''Il Popolo'', as a provocation timed to coincide with the
First Vatican Council, a time when revolutionary fervor directed against the papacy was running high as republicans pressed both politically and militarily for an end to the Vatican's domination over the
papal states
The Papal States ( ; it, Stato Pontificio, ), officially the State of the Church ( it, Stato della Chiesa, ; la, Status Ecclesiasticus;), were a series of territories in the Italian Peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope fro ...
.
While "Inno a Satana" had quite a revolutionary impact, Carducci's finest poetry came in later years. His collections ''Rime Nuove'' (''New Rhymes'') and ''Odi Barbare'' (''
Barbarian Odes
Barbarian Odes (Italian: ''Odi barbare'') is a collection of three books of poetry by Giosuè Carducci, published between 1877 and 1889.
Overview
Together, the three books of ''Barbarian Odes'' contain 56 poems. Of the adjectives available in Eng ...
'') contain his greatest works.
He was the first Italian to receive the
Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1906. He was also appointed senator by the King of Italy (1890). In politics he remained a strong
Liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
throughout his life; through the years he progressively evolved from republicanism to a sort of support to monarchy.
He was a
Freemason. Although his reputation rests primarily on his poetry, he also produced a large body of prose works. Indeed, his prose writings, including literary criticism, biographies, speeches and essays, fill some 20 volumes. Carducci was also an excellent translator and translated some of
Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as tr ...
and
Heine into Italian.
The
Museum of the Risorgimento, Bologna is housed in the Casa Carducci, the house where he died at the age of 71, and contains an exhibit on the author.
Legacy
Carducci confessed his sins and was reconciled to the Catholic Church in 1895. On 11 September 1978,
Pope John Paul I
Pope John Paul I ( la, Ioannes Paulus I}; it, Giovanni Paolo I; born Albino Luciani ; 17 October 1912 – 28 September 1978) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City from 26 August 1978 to his death 33 days later. Hi ...
mentioned him as a "model" for university professors and teachers of
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
.
Works
It is not always easy to follow the development of Carducci's poetry through the collections he edited. The poet in fact organized his compositions several times and in different ways and gave a definitive arrangement only later in the edition of his ''Opere'' published for Zanichelli between 1889 and 1909. The following is a list of poetic works published in one volume, then rearranged into the 20 volumes of his ''Opere''.
* ''Rime'', San Miniato, 1857.
* ''Levia Gravia'', 1868.
* ''Poesie'', Firenze, Barbera, 1871.
* ''Primavere elleniche'', 1872.
* ''Nuove poesie'', 1873.
* ''Odi barbare'', 1877.
* ''Juvenilia'', 1880.
* ''Levia Gravia'', 1881.
* ''Giambi ed Epodi'', 1882.
* ''Nuove odi barbare'', 1882.
* ''Rime nuove'', 1887.
* ''Terze odi barbare'', 1889.
* ''Delle Odi barbare. Libri II ordinati e corretti'', 1893.
* ''Rime e ritmi'', 1899.
* ''Poesie. MDCCCL-MCM'', 1901.
Below are the poetic volumes in the ''Opere''. The volumes, however, do not correspond to the chronological order with which the poet had published his first collections, but refer more than anything else to the distinctions of genres and therefore we find poems of the same period in different collections. The collections follow this order:
* ''Juvenilia'', in six books, 1850-1860
* ''Levia Gravia'', in two books, 1861-1871
* ''Inno a Satana'', 1863
* ''Giambi ed Epodi'', in two books, 1867-1879
* ''Intermezzo'', 1874-1887
* ''Rime Nuove'', in nine books, 1861-1887
* ''Odi barbare'', in two books, 1873-1889
* ''Rime e Ritmi'', 1889-1898
* ''Della Canzone di Legnano'', Part I, 1879
''Juvenilia''
The first collection of lyrical poems, which Carducci collected and divided in six books under the title ''Juvenilia'' (1850-1860), is undoubtedly inspired by the classical tradition of the ''Amici pedanti'' group that was constituted at that time for the purpose of fighting the
romanticism
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
of the Florentines. In the verses of the collection we can immediately see his imitation of the ancient classics, of the
stilnovo style, of
Dante
Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian people, Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', origin ...
and
Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists.
Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited ...
and, among the moderns,
Vittorio Alfieri
Count Vittorio Alfieri (, also , ; 16 January 17498 October 1803) was an Italian dramatist and poet, considered the "founder of Italian tragedy." He wrote nineteen tragedies, sonnets, satires, and a notable autobiography.
Early life
Alfieri was ...
,
Monti,
Foscolo and
Leopardi
Count Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi (, ; 29 June 1798 – 14 June 1837) was an Italian philosopher, poet, essayist, and philologist. He is considered the greatest Italian poet of the nineteenth century and one of ...
.
But the Carduccian spirit is already visible; his love for the beauty of style, the purity of sentiments and the celebration of liberty, as well as the ability to appreciate all that is genuine, therefore also the language of the common people.
[G. Bertoni, ''La lingua poetica di Giosue Carducci'', in Regia Università di Bologna, cit., pp.91-95]
See also
*
Jessie White Mario
Notes
References
Nobel Prize Presentation Speech*Carducci Essentials: the Poems of Giosuè Carducci Translated in English, LiteraryJoint Press, 2021
External links
*
List of works*
*
*
Carducci poemsOriginal Italian text
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carducci, Giosue
1835 births
1907 deaths
Burials at Certosa cemetery
People from Pietrasanta
19th-century Italian poets
Italian male poets
Nobel laureates in Literature
Italian Nobel laureates
University of Pisa alumni
19th-century Italian male writers
19th-century atheists
20th-century atheists
Translators of Homer
Italian Freemasons