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CARDUCCI, GIOSUE (1836-1907)
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See also:CARDUCCI, GIOSUE (1836-1907) , See also:Italian poet, was See also:born at Val-di-See also:Castello, in See also:Tuscany, on the 27th of See also:July 1836, his See also:father being Michele Carducci, a physician, of an old Florentine See also:family, who in his youth had suffered imprisonment for his See also:share in the revolution of 1831. Carducci received a See also:good See also:education. He began See also:life as a public teacher, but soon took to giving private lessons at See also:Florence, where he became connected with a set of See also:young men, enthusiastic patriots in politics, and in literature See also:bent on overthrowing the reigning romantic See also:taste by a return to classical See also:models. These aspirations always constituted the mainsprings of Carducci's See also:poetry. In 186o he became See also:professor at See also:Bologna, where, after in 1865 astonishing the public by a defiant Hymn to Satan, he published in 1868 Levia Gravia, a See also:volume of lyrics which not only gave him an indisputable position at the See also:head of contemporary Italian poets, but made him the head of a school of which the best Italian men of letters have been disciples, and which has influenced all. Several other volumes succeeded, the most important of which were the Decennalia (1871), the Nuove Poesie (1872), and the three See also:series of the Odi Barbare (1877-1889). Carducci had been brought into more fraternal contact with the aims of the younger See also:generation by the efforts of Angelo Sommaruga who became, about 188o, the publisher of a See also:group of young unknown writers all destined to some, and a few to See also:great, accomplishment. The See also:period of his prosperity was a See also:strange one for See also:Italy. The first ten years of the newly constituted See also:kingdom had passed more in stupor than activity; See also:original contributions to literature had been scarce, and publishers had preferred bringing out inferior See also:translations of not always admirable See also:French authors to encouraging the original See also:work of Italians—work which it must be confessed was generally mediocre and entirely lifeless. Sommaruga's creation, a See also:literary See also:review called La Cronaca Bizantina, gathered together such beginners as Giovanni Marradi,Matilde See also:Serao,Edoardo Scarfoglio, Guido Magnoni and Gabriele d'See also:Annunzio. In See also:order to obtain the See also:sanction of what he considered an enduring name, the founder turned to Giosue Carducci, then living in retirement at Bologna, discontented with his See also:fate, and still not generally known by the public of his own See also:country. The activity of Sommaruga exercised a great See also:influence on Giosue Carducci. Within the next few years he published the three admirable volumes of his Confessioni e Battaglie, the Ca Ira sonnets, the Nuove Odi Barbare, and a considerable number of articles, See also:pamphlets and essays, which in their collected edition See also:form the most living See also:part of his work. His lyrical See also:production, too, seemed to reach its perfection in those five years of tense, unrelenting work; for the See also:Canzone di See also:Legnano, the Odes to See also:Rome and to See also:Monte See also:Mario, the See also:Elegy on the See also:urn of See also:Percy Bysshe See also:Shelley, the ringing rhymes of the Inter-mezzo, in which he happily blended the See also:satire of See also:Heine with the lyrical form of his native poetry—all belong to this period, together with the essays on See also:Leopardi and on See also:Parini, the admirable discussions in See also:defence of his Ca Ira, and the pamphlet called Eterno Femrainino regale, a See also:kind of self-defence, undertaken to explain the origin of the Alcaic See also:metre to the See also:queen of Italy, which marks the beginning of the last See also:evolution in Carducci's work (1881). The revolutionary See also:spirits of the See also:day, who had always
looked upon Giosue Carducci as their See also:bard and See also:champion, See also:fell away from him after this poem written in See also:honour of a queen, and the poet, wounded by the attitude of his party, wrote what he intended to be his defence and his See also:programme for the future in pages that will remain amongst the noblest and most powerful of contemporary literature. From that See also:time Carducci appears in a new form, evolved afterwards in his last Odes, Il Piemonte, Li Bicocca di See also:San Giacomo, the See also:Ode to the daughter of See also:Francesco See also:Crispi on her See also:marriage, and the one to the See also: Patriot-ism, the grandeur of work, the soul-satisfying See also:power of See also:justice, are the poet's dominant ideals. For many years the See also:national struggle for See also:liberty had forced the best there was in See also:heart and See also:brain into the See also:atmosphere of See also:political intrigue and from one battlefield to another; Carducci therefore found a poetry emasculated by the deviation into other channels of the intellectual virility of his country. On this See also:mass of patriotic doggerel, of sickly, languishing sentimentality as insincere as it was inane, he grafted a poetry not often See also:tender, but always violently See also:felt and thrown into a See also:mould of majestic form; not always quite expected or appreciated by his contemporaries, but never See also:commonplace in structure; always high in See also:tone and See also:free in spirit. The See also:adaptation of various kinds of Latin metres to the somewhat sinewless See also:language he found at his disposal, whilst it might have been an effort of See also:mere pedantry in another, was a life-giving and strengthening See also:inspiration in his See also:case. Another of his characteristics, which made him peculiarly See also:precious to his countrymen, is the fact that his poems form a kind of lyric See also:record of the Italian struggle for See also:independence. The tumultuous vicissitudes of all other nations, however, and the pageantry of the See also:history of all times, have in turns touched his particular order of See also:imagination. The more important part of his See also:critical work which belongs to this later period consists of his Conversazioni critiche, his See also:Scoria filosofica della letteratura Italiana, and a masterly edition of See also:Petrarch. That he should have had the faults of his qualities is not remarkable. Being almost a See also:pioneer in the See also:world of See also:criticism, his essays on the authors of other countries, though appearing in the See also:light of discoveries to his own country, absorbed as it had hitherto been in its own vicissitudes, have little of value to the See also:general student beyond the attraction of robust See also:style. And in his unbounded admiration for the sculptural lines of See also:antique Latin poetry he sometimes relapsed into that See also:fascination by mere See also:sound which is the snare of his language, and against which his own work in its great moments is a reaction. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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