Salvatore Quasimodo (1901-1968) was an Italian poet and literary critic known for his powerful and reflective poetry. Born in Modica, Sicily, Quasimodo grew up in a region rich with ancient history and vibrant culture, which would later influence his work. His life and writings reflected the tumultuous times of the 20th century, marked by political upheavals and social changes.
Quasimodo’s poetry explored themes of love, war, and the human condition. He often used vivid imagery and precise language to convey deep emotions and a sense of melancholy. The Italian literary tradition influenced his early works, but he also drew inspiration from French symbolism and surrealism. His poetic style evolved, becoming more concise and focused on the beauty of everyday life.
During the Fascist regime in Italy, Quasimodo faced censorship and could not publish his works freely. However, he continued to write and engage with fellow intellectuals in underground literary circles. After World War II, he emerged as one of the leading voices in Italian literature, using his poetry to address the devastation and aftermath of the war. His collection “Ed è subito sera” (And Suddenly It’s Evening) won him the prestigious Nobel Prize in Literature in 1959, recognizing his lyrical excellence and profound insights.
Aside from poetry, Quasimodo was also a dedicated critic and translator. He translated the works of poets such as T.S. Eliot and Paul Valéry into Italian, contributing to the dissemination of international literature in his homeland. As a critic, he explored various literary movements and advocated for the renewal of Italian poetry, urging writers to embrace modernity while staying rooted in their cultural heritage.
Both joys and struggles marked Quasimodo’s personal life. He experienced love and heartbreak, and his relationships influenced his poetry, adding complexity to his work. Despite his success and acclaim, he remained humble and introspective, constantly questioning the artist’s role in society.
Salvatore Quasimodo’s legacy endures as one of the most influential voices in 20th-century Italian poetry. His ability to evoke profound emotions through his carefully crafted verses resonates with readers worldwide. Quasimodo’s poems offer a window into the human experience, capturing the beauty and fragility of life while reflecting on the complexities of the modern world. His contributions to literature and unwavering dedication to his craft make him an enduring figure in Italian and global literary history.
War, I have always said, forces men to change their standards, regardless of whether their country has won or lost.
Salvatore Quasimodo
Religious poetry, civic poetry, lyric or dramatic poetry are all categories of man’s expression which are valid only if the endorsement of formal content is valid.
Salvatore Quasimodo
Religious power, which, as I have already said, frequently identifies itself with political power, has always been a protagonist of this bitter struggle, even when it seemingly was neutral.
Salvatore Quasimodo
The antagonism between the poet and the politician has generally been evident in all cultures.
Salvatore Quasimodo
The poet does not fear death, not because he believes in the fantasy of heroes, but because death constantly visits his thoughts and is thus an image of a serene dialogue.
Salvatore Quasimodo
The poet’s spoken discourse often depends on a mystique, on the spiritual freedom that finds itself enslaved on earth.
Salvatore Quasimodo
Thus, the poet’s word is beginning to strike forcefully upon the hearts of all men, while absolute men of letters think that they alone live in the real world.
Salvatore Quasimodo
We wrote verses that condemned us, with no hope of pardon, to the most bitter solitude.
Salvatore Quasimodo
Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal which the reader recognizes as his own.
Salvatore Quasimodo
The poet’s other readers are the ancient poets, who look upon the freshly written pages from an incorruptible distance. Their poetic forms are permanent, and it is difficult to create new forms which can approach them.
Salvatore Quasimodo
The writer of stories or of novels settles on men and imitates them; he exhausts the possibilities of his characters.
Salvatore Quasimodo
An exact poetic duplication of a man is for the poet a negation of the earth, an impossibility of being, even though his greatest desire is to speak to many men, to unite with them by means of harmonious verses about the truths of the mind or of things.
Salvatore Quasimodo
Poetry is also the physical self of the poet, and it is impossible to separate the poet from his poetry.
Salvatore Quasimodo
A poet clings to his own tradition and avoids internationalism.
Salvatore Quasimodo
The Resistance is a moral certainty, not a poetic one. The true poet never uses words in order to punish someone. His judgment belongs to a creative order; it is not formulated as a prophetic scripture.
Salvatore Quasimodo
After the turbulence of death, moral principles and even religious proofs are called into question.
Salvatore Quasimodo
As the poet has expected, the alarms now are sounded, for – and it must be said again – the birth of a poet is always a threat to the existing cultural order, because he attempts to break through the circle of literary castes to reach the center.
Salvatore Quasimodo
At the point when continuity was interrupted by the first nuclear explosion, it would have been too easy to recover the formal sediment which linked us with an age of poetic decorum, of a preoccupation with poetic sounds.
Salvatore Quasimodo
Europeans know the importance of the Resistance; it has been the shining example of the modern conscience.
Salvatore Quasimodo
Even a polemic has some justification if one considers that my own first poetic experiments began during a dictatorship and mark the origin of the Hermetic movement.
Salvatore Quasimodo
From the night, his solitude, the poet finds day and starts a diary that is lethal to the inert. The dark landscape yields a dialogue.
Salvatore Quasimodo
He passes from lyric to epic poetry in order to speak about the world and the torment in the world through man, rationally and emotionally. The poet then becomes a danger.
Salvatore Quasimodo
In opposition to this detachment, he finds an image of man which contains within itself man’s dreams, man’s illness, man’s redemption from the misery of poverty – poverty which can no longer be for him a sign of the acceptance of life.
Salvatore Quasimodo
My readers at that time were still men of letters; but there had to be other people waiting to read my poems.
Salvatore Quasimodo
According to them, the poet is confined to the provinces with his mouth broken on his own syllabic trapeze.
Salvatore Quasimodo
