Poesie

by Ugo Foscolo, Matteo Palumbo (Contributor)

Nella sua lotta appassionata contro la poesia vuota e accademica, nella sua resistenza contro gli eruditi di corte, Foscolo è stato il primo intellettuale a denunciare quella spaccatura fra teoria e pratica, fra pensiero e azione, che sarebbe diventato il tarlo non solo della letteratura, ma di tutta la società italiana. Le sue liriche, e i Sepolcri innanzitutto, si rifanno ai modelli più prestigiosi della tradizione classica, ritrovando l'autorità che la voce dei poeti aveva nelle comunità antiche: una voce potente, intrisa di passione e d'immaginazione, di umano dolore e umana pietà. Così, se le prime rime oscillano tra le occasioni mondane e le inquietudini giovanili, l'inno mai finito alle Grazie, posto al termine del suo percorso creativo, celebra i fondamenti eterni della politica e della morale. Versi impetuosi e cristallini, che il commento di Matteo Palumbo permette di scoprire attraverso una lettura capillare del testo e della tessitura poetica che lo governa.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Italian Literature

308 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1800

About the author

Foscolo was born on the Ionian island of Zakynthos. His father was Andrea Foscolo, an impoverished Venetian nobleman, and his mother Diamantina Spathis was Greek.
In 1788, on the death of his father, who worked as a physician in Spalato, today Croatia (Split), the family removed to Venice, and at the University of Padua Foscolo completed the studies begun at the Dalmatian grammar school.

Amongst his Paduan teachers was the abbé Cesarotti, whose version of Ossian had made that work highly popular in Italy, and who influenced Foscolo's literary tastes; he knew both modern and Ancient Greek. His literary ambition revealed itself by the appearance in 1797 of his tragedy Tieste--a production which obtained a certain degree of success.

Foscolo, who, for causes not clearly explained, had changed his Christian name Niccolò to that of Ugo, now began to take an active part in the stormy political discussions which the fall of the republic of Venice had provoked. He was a prominent member of the national committees, and addressed an ode to Napoleon Bonaparte, expecting Napoleon to overthrow the Venetian oligarchy and create a free republic.

The Treaty of Campoformio (17 October 1797), by which Napoleon handed Venice over to the Austrians, gave a rude shock to Foscolo, but did not quite destroy his hopes. The state of mind produced by that shock is reflected in his novel Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis (The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis) (1798), which was described by the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica as a more politicized version of Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, "for the hero of Foscolo embodies the mental sufferings and suicide of an undeceived Italian patriot just as the hero of Goethe places before us the too delicate sensitiveness embittering and at last cutting short the life of a private German scholar."

The story of Foscolo, like that of Goethe, had a groundwork of melancholy fact. Jacopo Ortis had been a real person; he was a young student of Padua, and committed suicide there under circumstances akin to those described by Foscolo.

Foscolo, like many of his contemporaries, had thought much about the topic of suicide. Cato and the many classical examples of self-destruction described in Plutarch's Lives appealed to the imaginations of young Italian patriots as they had done in France to those of the heroes and heroines of the Gironde. In the case of Foscolo, as in that of Goethe, the effect produced on the writer's mind by the composition of the work seems to have been beneficial. He had seen the ideal of a great national future rudely shattered; but he did not despair of his country, and sought relief in now turning to gaze on the ideal of a great national poet.

After the fall of Venice Foscolo moved to Milan, where he formed a friendship with the older poet Giuseppe Parini, whom he later remembered with admiration and gratitude. In Milan, he published a choice of 12 Sonnets, where he blends the passionate sentiments shown in Ortis with classical control of language and rhythm.

Still hoping that his country would be freed by Napoleon, he served as a volunteer in the French army, took part in the battle of the Trebbia and the siege of Genoa, was wounded and made prisoner. When released he returned to Milan, and there gave the last touches to his Ortis, published a translation of and commentary upon Callimachus, commenced a version of the Iliad and began his translation of Lawrence Sterne's Sentimental Journey. He also took part in a failed memorandum intended to present a new model of unified Italian government to Napoleon.

In 1807, Foscolo wrote his Carme Dei sepolcri, which may be described as a sublime effort to seek refuge in the past from the misery of the present and the darkness of the future. The mighty dead are summoned from their tombs, as ages before they had been in the masterpieces of Greek oratory, to fight again the battles of their country. The inaugural lecture On the origin and duty

Reviews

[Pierre · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Sdegno il verso che suona e che non crea"
Da Le Grazie, Inno Primo, v. 24

Credo che la maggior parte di noi abbia studiato Foscolo nel suo percorso scolastico. Ricordo dalle scuole medie il sonetto A Zacinto, che avevo dovuto studiare a memoria. Ricordo i pomeriggi del me diciassettenne spesi a cercare di decifrare i versi del Dei Sepolcri. Sicuramente, la scrittura di Foscolo resta tuttora di difficile interpretazione senza un buon apparato di note, anche, ma non solo, a causa dei numerosi rimandi mitologici di gusto neoclassico. Tuttavia, una volta decifrato il piano letterale, i versi foscoliani si aprono nella loro preziosa eleganza. Ne sono testimoni alcuni splendidi sonetti (quello dedicato alla nativa Zacinto è il più noto, non senza ragione) e gli incompiuti inni alle Grazie, che nella loro dolcezza neoclassica riescono a superare il confine tra letteratura e arti figurative (non a caso, sono dedicate al famoso scultore Canova). Ho riportato in apertura proprio un verso dall'Inno Primo alle Grazie, in cui il Poeta afferma di preferire la poesia in grado di evocare immagini a quella che produce un bel suono fine a se stesso.

[Lucrezia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Devo vederle meglio

[ottoemezza · Rating 2 out of 5]

le poesie sono bellissime. non è tanto scorrevole, ma essendo un libro di foscolo mi è piaciuto. 2 stelle perché è cortino.

[martuss]

mi ero dimenticata di aggiungerlo ops, vabbè comunque foscolo sopravvalutato, nessuno riuscirà mai a farmi cambiare idea.