Salvatore Quasimodo
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For the protagonist of the novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, see Quasimodo.
Salvatore Quasimodo (August 20, 1901 – June 14, 1968 ) was an Italian poet.
He was born in Modica (Ragusa) and spent his childhoold in eastern Sicily. After the earthquake of 1908, the family moved to Messina, where his father was asked to reorganize the railroad station. Their first home there was in a railway car, like many other survivors whose homes were destroyed. He received a diploma in physics and mathematics from the technical institute in 1919.
He began to write verse, which was published in symbolist reviews. In 1919, he left Sciliy for Rome. He continued to publish in Messina and studied at the Vatican. In 1926, he received a post as a civil engineer in the Ministry of Public Works for Reggio Calabria, which gave him a stable source of income. He drifted away from poetry during this period and had to reconsider his own poetic ambitions. However, when he traveled back to Messina, he rejoined his literary friends there, particularly Salvatore Pugliatti, and renewed his literary activity.
In 1932, he published Oboe sommerso, his first major work. Two years later, he moved to Milan. There he was the center of a literary and artistic salon, which became a catalyst for his work. In 1936, he published Erato e Apollion, a work that marks the end of the "hermetic" phase of his poetry.
In 1938, he quit his job as a civil engineer to become an editor of the weekly Tempo. His first important anthology also appeared that year.
In 1959, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his lyrical poetry, which with classical fire expresses the tragic experience of life in our own times." Along with Giuseppe Ungaretti and Eugenio Montale, he is one of the foremost Italian poets of the 20th century.
He became ill in Amalfi, where he was presiding over a poetry conference, and died as he was being transported to Naples. He was interred in the Cimitero Monumentale in Milan.
His son Alessandro Quasimodo travels throughout Italy, giving readings of his father's poetry.
[edit] Works
- Acque e terre - 1930
- Oboe sommerso - 1932
- Erato e Apollion - 1936
- Poesie (anthology) - 1938
- Lirici greci (translation) - 1939-40
- Ed è subito sera - 1942
- Giorno dopo giorno - 1947
- La vita non è un sogno - 1949
- Il falso e vero verde - 1954
- La terra impareggiabile - 1958
- Dare e avere - 1966
[edit] External links
- The poet's official website (in Italian)
- A Quasimodo page at the Nobel Prize website, with links to his biography and to his Nobel lecture "The Poet and the Politician"
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1951: Lagerkvist | 1952: Mauriac | 1953: Churchill | 1954: Hemingway | 1955: Laxness | 1956: Jiménez | 1957: Camus | 1958: Pasternak | 1959: Quasimodo | 1960: Perse | 1961: Andrić | 1962: Steinbeck | 1963: Seferis | 1964: Sartre | 1965: Sholokhov | 1966: Agnon, Sachs | 1967: Asturias | 1968: Kawabata | 1969: Beckett | 1970: Solzhenitsyn | 1971: Neruda | 1972: Böll | 1973: White | 1974: Johnson, Martinson | 1975: Montale |
