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Allegria
Geoffrey Brock, whose translations have won him Poetry magazine's John Frederick Nims Memorial Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship, finally does justice to these slim, concentrated verses in his English translation, alongside Ungaretti's Italian originals.
Famed for his brevity, Giuseppe Ungaretti's early poems swing nimbly from the coarse matter of tram wires, alleyways, quails in bushes, and hotel landladies to the mystic shiver of pure abstraction. These are the kinds of poems that, through their numinous clarity and shifting intimations, can make a poetry-lover of the most stone-faced non-believer. Ungaretti won multiple prizes for his poetry, including the 1970 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. He was a major proponent of the Hermetic style, which proposed a poetry in which the sounds of words were of equal import to their meanings. This auditory awareness echoes through Brock's hair-raising translations, where a man holding vigil with his dead, open-mouthed comrade, says, "I have never felt / so fastened / to life."
Famed for his brevity, Giuseppe Ungaretti's early poems swing nimbly from the coarse matter of tram wires, alleyways, quails in bushes, and hotel landladies to the mystic shiver of pure abstraction. These are the kinds of poems that, through their numinous clarity and shifting intimations, can make a poetry-lover of the most stone-faced non-believer. Ungaretti won multiple prizes for his poetry, including the 1970 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. He was a major proponent of the Hermetic style, which proposed a poetry in which the sounds of words were of equal import to their meanings. This auditory awareness echoes through Brock's hair-raising translations, where a man holding vigil with his dead, open-mouthed comrade, says, "I have never felt / so fastened / to life."
204 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1931
16 people are currently reading
376 people want to read
About the author
Giuseppe Ungaretti
203 books135 followersGiuseppe Ungaretti was an Italian modernist poet, journalist, essayist, critic and academic. A leading representative of the experimental trend known as ermetismo, he was one of the most prominent contributors to 20th century Italian literature. Influenced by symbolism, he was briefly aligned with futurism. Like many futurists, he took an irredentist position during World War I. Ungaretti debuted as a poet while fighting in the trenches, publishing one of his best-known pieces, L'allegria ("The Joy").
During the interwar period, Ungaretti was a collaborator of Benito Mussolini (whom he met during his socialist accession), as well as a foreign-based correspondent for Il Popolo d'Italia and La Gazzetta del Popolo. While briefly associated with the Dadaists, he developed ermetismo as a personal take on poetry. After spending several years in Brazil, he returned home during World War II, and was assigned a teaching post at the University of Rome, where he spent the final decades of his life and career. Ungaretti's Fascist past was the subject of controversy.
During the interwar period, Ungaretti was a collaborator of Benito Mussolini (whom he met during his socialist accession), as well as a foreign-based correspondent for Il Popolo d'Italia and La Gazzetta del Popolo. While briefly associated with the Dadaists, he developed ermetismo as a personal take on poetry. After spending several years in Brazil, he returned home during World War II, and was assigned a teaching post at the University of Rome, where he spent the final decades of his life and career. Ungaretti's Fascist past was the subject of controversy.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
November 13, 2020
Tonight
A balustrade of breeze
Tonight to lean
My melancholy on
(Versa, May 22, 2016)
Allegria is a celebration of life dressed in the colours of the essential. Melancholic and luminous at once, the collection’s original, longer title, Joy of shipwrecks makes a fitting oxymoronic allegory for the fundamental ambivalence that is the human condition.
Written between 1914 and 1919, quite a few poems are written from the perspective of a soldier of in the first world war, in which Ungaretti volunteered to fight in the Italian army. Many of them he literally wrote in the trenches, on the eastern edge of the Italian Front, on a hill in the Karst Plateau.
Born in Egypt and educated in French-language schools, later moving to Paris where he studied and became a friend of Guillaume Apollinaire and frequented the same literary and artistic circles, Ungaretti’s sense of belonging to Italy was not obvious. His youth in Egypt lives on in his poems, infused with allusions to Alexandria, the desert, the scorching sunlight – the feeling of being an eternal wanderer seemed strong (‘There is no/land/on earth/I can/make home).
Some of his poems, in their brevity, sense of nature and lapidarity, reminiscence haiku, shining from the page with a likewise purity and acuity. From the sobriety of expression, the Italian language itself comes to the fore as the focal point, the sound and musicality of it. Ungaretti, born in Egypt from Italian parents, considered the Italian language his true as well as imaginary homeland. At first knowing Italy only by hear say, it became a place of imagination and longing.
As most of the poems are accompanied by a note of date and place, they give the impression one is reading diary fragments, however Ungaretti continued honing and revising some of these poems for many years (this book is a translation of the 1931 edition of L’Allegria, Ungaretti’s last retouches date from 1969).
Ungaretti’s minimalism was at odds with the dominant tendencies in Italian poetry of that moment, he defied D’Annunzio’s bombast and mannerism a well as the overwhelming loudness of the Futurists, his poetry contemplative and sober.
I read this collection twice, both in the English translation on the right pages and in the original on the left (I started learning Italian this year); some poems I was glad to find also a Dutch translation. The poems raise from the pages as finely chiselled sculptures. Brilliantly blending beauty and intense sadness, they invite to be read over and over again, each word conveying a multitude of meaning.
Dear
Ettore Serra
Poetry
Is world and humanity
And one’s own life
Blooming from the word
The lucid marvel
Of a raving fermentation
When I find
in this silence of mine
a word
it bores into my life
like an abyss
(Envoi)
The sea, stars, sky, rivers, trees, graves, the grumble of crickets, landscapes, the unsettling and moving poetry of Guiseppe Ungaretti is intense like the midday sun blinding the eyes. It is pure like the stones on a shore washed clean by the waves, cleared from any gratuitous ornamentation.
Maybe a river
Fog is blotting us out
Maybe a river is being born up here
I listen to the siren song
of the lake where the city was
I would like to thank Archipelago Books and NetGalley for granting me an ARC of this beautiful bilingual edition of Allegria.
A balustrade of breeze
Tonight to lean
My melancholy on
(Versa, May 22, 2016)
Allegria is a celebration of life dressed in the colours of the essential. Melancholic and luminous at once, the collection’s original, longer title, Joy of shipwrecks makes a fitting oxymoronic allegory for the fundamental ambivalence that is the human condition.
Written between 1914 and 1919, quite a few poems are written from the perspective of a soldier of in the first world war, in which Ungaretti volunteered to fight in the Italian army. Many of them he literally wrote in the trenches, on the eastern edge of the Italian Front, on a hill in the Karst Plateau.
Born in Egypt and educated in French-language schools, later moving to Paris where he studied and became a friend of Guillaume Apollinaire and frequented the same literary and artistic circles, Ungaretti’s sense of belonging to Italy was not obvious. His youth in Egypt lives on in his poems, infused with allusions to Alexandria, the desert, the scorching sunlight – the feeling of being an eternal wanderer seemed strong (‘There is no/land/on earth/I can/make home).
Some of his poems, in their brevity, sense of nature and lapidarity, reminiscence haiku, shining from the page with a likewise purity and acuity. From the sobriety of expression, the Italian language itself comes to the fore as the focal point, the sound and musicality of it. Ungaretti, born in Egypt from Italian parents, considered the Italian language his true as well as imaginary homeland. At first knowing Italy only by hear say, it became a place of imagination and longing.
As most of the poems are accompanied by a note of date and place, they give the impression one is reading diary fragments, however Ungaretti continued honing and revising some of these poems for many years (this book is a translation of the 1931 edition of L’Allegria, Ungaretti’s last retouches date from 1969).
Ungaretti’s minimalism was at odds with the dominant tendencies in Italian poetry of that moment, he defied D’Annunzio’s bombast and mannerism a well as the overwhelming loudness of the Futurists, his poetry contemplative and sober.
I read this collection twice, both in the English translation on the right pages and in the original on the left (I started learning Italian this year); some poems I was glad to find also a Dutch translation. The poems raise from the pages as finely chiselled sculptures. Brilliantly blending beauty and intense sadness, they invite to be read over and over again, each word conveying a multitude of meaning.
Dear
Ettore Serra
Poetry
Is world and humanity
And one’s own life
Blooming from the word
The lucid marvel
Of a raving fermentation
When I find
in this silence of mine
a word
it bores into my life
like an abyss
(Envoi)
The sea, stars, sky, rivers, trees, graves, the grumble of crickets, landscapes, the unsettling and moving poetry of Guiseppe Ungaretti is intense like the midday sun blinding the eyes. It is pure like the stones on a shore washed clean by the waves, cleared from any gratuitous ornamentation.
Maybe a river
Fog is blotting us out
Maybe a river is being born up here
I listen to the siren song
of the lake where the city was
I would like to thank Archipelago Books and NetGalley for granting me an ARC of this beautiful bilingual edition of Allegria.
August 31, 2024
This is devastatingly sad, yet somehow really beautiful. Ungaretti's poetry is full of melancholic thoughts, it was very intense to read. But despite its sadness, the way he tells you how he feel is so pretty I was almost in tears.
《Dopo tanta
Nebbia
A una
A una
Si svelano
Le stelle
Respiro
Il fresco
Che mi lascia
Il colore del cielo
Mi riconosco
Immagine
Passeggera
Presa in un giro
Immortale. 》
《Dopo tanta
Nebbia
A una
A una
Si svelano
Le stelle
Respiro
Il fresco
Che mi lascia
Il colore del cielo
Mi riconosco
Immagine
Passeggera
Presa in un giro
Immortale. 》
December 14, 2023
‘La vita si vuota/ in diafana ascesa/ di nuvole colme/ trapunte di sole’
‘Life leaks away/ in the gauzy ascent/ of billowing clouds/ stitched by the sun’
(Inizio di Sera; Early Evening) Versa, February 15, 1917
Don Paterson (poet, writer, musician, etc.) described his views on poetry in translation (which I really like) as : ‘—poems are something like piano transcriptions of guitar music. The bare octaves and fifths—can find no equivalent resonance in the great contraption, no matter how loudly we strike them. The only thing we can do is work a little more chromaticism, a little directed emotional reading, in the hope that occasionally, a description of gravitas or an awe can stand for its unmediated sounding.’ Brilliantly articulated, no? And I truly think that that applies to this collection of poetry/work of translation as well.
‘What Ungaretti has done in his poetry is similar to what the Viennese school did to the musical tradition. Like magnets brought close at the same poles, words stand next to their surrounding words in tension. As Stockhausen has pointed out in respect to Webern's music, this is a matter of experimental time.’ — Andrew Wylie (Ungaretti's Poetry and Experimental Time)
Considering how complicated (wild understatement obviously) Ungaretti’s life was, this collection of poems just doesn’t ‘tell/offer’ enough (but then again it is not like it/they should), but in any case, it was all written/delivered so brilliantly despite the briefness of it all. Someone needs to write a book on Ungaretti’s life, I feel anyway.
‘Words stand next to their surrounding words in tension: between each adjective and its noun, between each noun and its verb, is a high degree of alteration, with the logic of the flow repeatedly broken. This density of alteration gives violence even in a slow tempo.
So if these poems are of their time, and if there are distinctly separate voices between one division and another, between the poems of one war and another, between the poems of one "peaceful" interval and the next-there's still unity. We do not live under the old order; poetry that reflects our time must break that order. So now that "only the improbable and violent are important," this is a new unity. Ungaretti's poetry is true to his time; we are living his violence now. And while men are still in the trenches, they will continue to free themselves.’
— Andrew Wylie (Ungaretti's Poetry and Experimental Time)
Picchionne wrote some about Ungaretti in his ‘anthology’ Twentieth-Century Italian Poetry: An Anthology (but then again a couple decades old since it was published now). I suppose most of the available texts about Ungaretti and his peers are simply not ‘translated’ yet (I would like to think).
FRICTION
With my wolf hunger
I haul down
my lamb body
I am both
the wretched boat
and the lecherous ocean
Lokvica, September 23, 1916
A bunch of other things that got Ungaretti into ‘trouble’ during Mussolini’s time in ‘power’ includes his expressions of anti-colonialist sentiments (North Africa), frequenting ‘cafés’ that ‘anti-fascist groups’ were known to gather/meet up, etc.; and/but ultimately many deduced that his affiliations/commitment to ‘fascism’ (other than his recklessly/all-too-hopeful/much-too-romantic ideas of ‘unity’) was to ensure a solid place for himself in academia (and ironically, funnily in hindsight, he was pretty much instantly left unemployed (from Roma university?) after the fascist regime was ‘dismantled’ after the war ‘ended’. In any case, Ungaretti’s sentiments ‘saved’/enclosed in his poems in this collection are very much akin if not directly the sentiments of ‘anti-war’. To put it very simply (and excuse the Harry Potter comparison (definitely not my preferred analogy, but an irresistible, ‘low hanging-fruit’)) — Ungaretti is in a way a bit of a ‘Severus Snape’.
RETURN
Things embroider a sprawling tedium of absences
Now it’s a pallid shell
The dark blue of the depths has shattered
Now it’s an arid mantle
John London’s comparison of Ungaretti to Catalan poet/writer, Joan Brossa in the excerpt below (which I thought is spectacular, and perfectly explained what I couldn’t do properly, shamefully resorting to a HP analogy above).
‘—the Italian Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888-1970) and the Catalan Joan Brossa (1919-98), are not immediately associated with the uglier limits of political extremism. However, they were both keenly aware of contemporary ideology, both worked within dictatorships and, in the life they initially led removed from their national languages, both were on the margins of their respective cultures. The fact that both share fundamental aesthetic notions and features of modernist linguistic simplicity, but diverge so importantly in political allegiance, can serve as a starting point for challenging blanket theoretical assertions about the elitism of much modernism and its potential for political exploitation.’
‘It was his wish for the unity of the nation which made him choose Fascism. Ungaretti spoke out against Germany after Mussolini's Pact of Steel with Hitler in 1939. He used his friendship with the Duce to obtain the release of anti-Fascists from prison. But, by 1980, these claims were not enough. Ungaretti's biographer, Piccioni, felt compelled to publish a special vindication of his friend and subject ten years after the poet's death (although he unfortunately considered it unnecessary to provide documentation for his claims): according to Piccioni, Ungaretti's Fascism had been a Fascism of the Left, against the speculations of the bourgeoisie, on two or three occasions he was arrested for protesting against the regime (and released through Mussolini's intervention); he took in a Jewish woman during the German occupation, there was, moreover, nothing incriminating about Mussolini's preface, and nothing to worry about, even in the three poems under attack for their "Fascism." A notion of Ungaretti's poetry as being untainted by politics has been encouraged by the idea that the "Hermetic" movement of which Ungaretti was considered a part during ruling Fascism (1922-43) was, in the words of one historian, "the most extreme literary reaction to Fascism." (The same historian used II porto sepolto to support his argument.)’
‘Em va fer Joan Brossa (1951) was not Brossa's first book of poems, but, by mapping out an original style he would subsequently develop in later collections, it has an importance equivalent to that of Allegria (1919) for Ungaretti's work.
Having written in a surrealist vein employing traditional forms such as the sonnet, Em va fer Joan Brossa signalled a change in direction, influenced by the author's contact with the Marxist ideas of his friend, the Brazilian poet Joao Cabral de Melo. According to Brossa, Cabral de Melo made Brossa understand "the possibility there was of an evolution of neo-surrealist forms applied for a socially progressive sense." In his preface to the book, the Brazilian poet pointed out how, in contrast to other Catalan poets who were attracted by recherché words, Brossa had drawn on the vocabulary of the kitchen, the fair and the workshop. Brossa was writing a poetry that was "fully human," with (in an echo of Ungarettian aspirations) "the enormous subject of men."’ — John London (SIMPLE WORDS AND COMPLEX POLITICS: Language and Identity in Giuseppe Ungaretti and Joan Brossa)
Anyway I mostly prefer Ungaretti’s shorter poems in this collection (and the first and only collection I’ve ever read of his), but this one is an exception.
IRONY
I hear spring in the aching black branches.
Only at this hour, passing between houses alone with your thoughts, do you notice.
It’s the hour of shuttered windows, but this homecoming sadness has robbed me of peace.
These trees, still dry moments ago when night took them, will soften morning with a veil of green.
Divine work never rests
Only at this hour, to the occasional dreamer, is the torment of noticing granted.
Snow on the city tonight, though it’s April.
No violence is greater than that whose features are silent and cold.
To have read Ungaretti’s poems alongside (albeit not intentionally) Dino Buzzati and Clarice Lispector was, to me, a rather complementary read(s)/curation. In the most simplistic/obvious sense, Buzzati uses ‘violence’ (or at least portrays it) in a ‘noiseless’ but effectively and intensely suffocating way (which is not dissimilar to Ungaretti’s work). Lispector on the other hand brings ‘nature’ to life in a strange and vivid manner which is akin to Ungaretti’s poems. All in all, it got me more than a bit interested in (post)modernist poetry of the Italian sorts (which really is more than I can ask for from this reading experience).
January 31, 2021
L’ ALLEGRIA – GIUSEPPE UNGARETTI
Il titolo è solo un’utopia. Quella che dovrebbe essere allegria è in realtà una nostalgia cupa, in cui il poeta si crogiola con la consapevolezza di essere una fiamma, un nulla nell’Universo.
“ DANNAZIONE
Chiuso fra le cose mortali
(anche il cielo stellato finirà>)
Perché bramo Dio?”
Versi conosciuti si rincorrono fra le pagine, contraltare a “Dolore” in cui la sofferenza è piena e si coglie nel suo animo.
SOLDATI
Si sta
Come d’autunno
Sugli alberi
Le foglie”
***
Forse l’unico momento in cui davvero il poeta alza la testa in questo mare di sofferenza e nostalgia e sente crescere la speranza nel cuore è
“ M’illumino d’immenso”.
Il titolo è solo un’utopia. Quella che dovrebbe essere allegria è in realtà una nostalgia cupa, in cui il poeta si crogiola con la consapevolezza di essere una fiamma, un nulla nell’Universo.
“ DANNAZIONE
Chiuso fra le cose mortali
(anche il cielo stellato finirà>)
Perché bramo Dio?”
Versi conosciuti si rincorrono fra le pagine, contraltare a “Dolore” in cui la sofferenza è piena e si coglie nel suo animo.
SOLDATI
Si sta
Come d’autunno
Sugli alberi
Le foglie”
***
Forse l’unico momento in cui davvero il poeta alza la testa in questo mare di sofferenza e nostalgia e sente crescere la speranza nel cuore è
“ M’illumino d’immenso”.
August 29, 2021
I have been reading these poems over the past month. They were written while the author was a soldier for Italy during WWI, though not collected and published until 1969. He wrote them on scraps of whatever was at hand in the trenches.
What I loved about the poems is how much he says in so few words. How he observes what is around him and what is going on inside his mind.
And I think, if one can write under such circumstances and somehow preserve the pages, what excuse do I have?
What I loved about the poems is how much he says in so few words. How he observes what is around him and what is going on inside his mind.
And I think, if one can write under such circumstances and somehow preserve the pages, what excuse do I have?
August 19, 2025
What a triumph this book is.
December 14, 2014
Sarà per la brevità, a me sì cara, sarà per le rime accennate, sarà per la potenza espressiva, sarà per questo e altro ancora, dico solo che Ungaretti mi ha completamente conquistata.
December 26, 2023
Que livro é esse, Jesus? Livraço. Ungaretti antes dos trinta anos já era um poeta muito bom. Não sei se chegou a ser um poeta maior (lerei as poesias mais maduras para saber se chegou a ser um mestre), mas esse A Alegria já bastaria.
Read
August 30, 2020If you know the work (or at least the name) of this Italian War Poet, then you're probably going to come here regardless of what I say, and find some specialist pleasure in these pages. If, however, you come here in complete ignorance of this author, and fancy some poetry by some chap you've never heard of before, then I would strongly suggest you think hard about walking on by. These pieces are not really for the layman, the average reader such as my humble self, or the curious browser wanting something for their downtime or commute.
It wasn't immediately apparent this was a War Poet, but the main bulk of the piece, once an early sequence is over, is verse dated individually, and clearly from the WWI battlefield. "I hear the night raped" he says when one military position is shot at by gunners through the evening. All of this is blank verse – often in very short lines, of barely more than half a dozen words, and haiku-like in its brevity. (Bear in mind, value-hunter, that we get the Italian original on the opposing page, so we're only reading half of this.) A third part is even more pared back, and in seeing up to three short short pieces credited to the same day, feels like a selection of unfinished works neither his estate nor his publishers wanted to do anything with but present as is.
I was left to myself to find out we're in the far NE of Italy, fighting the Austro-Hungarians a lot nearer Ljubljana than Milan, where this volume (hardly out of print) had its final authorial tweak and reprint at the end of the 1960s, and France for some late verses. The lack of introduction here surprised me, for any book trying to resurrect this author would, I thought, need to at least fill us in slightly on his biography and the context of his pieces. The fact it comes as a footnote at the end, after the contents have failed to appeal, is further evidence for me that this book (a book of verse much removed from the general person's general idea of entertainment) is only designed to be preaching to the academically converted.
It wasn't immediately apparent this was a War Poet, but the main bulk of the piece, once an early sequence is over, is verse dated individually, and clearly from the WWI battlefield. "I hear the night raped" he says when one military position is shot at by gunners through the evening. All of this is blank verse – often in very short lines, of barely more than half a dozen words, and haiku-like in its brevity. (Bear in mind, value-hunter, that we get the Italian original on the opposing page, so we're only reading half of this.) A third part is even more pared back, and in seeing up to three short short pieces credited to the same day, feels like a selection of unfinished works neither his estate nor his publishers wanted to do anything with but present as is.
I was left to myself to find out we're in the far NE of Italy, fighting the Austro-Hungarians a lot nearer Ljubljana than Milan, where this volume (hardly out of print) had its final authorial tweak and reprint at the end of the 1960s, and France for some late verses. The lack of introduction here surprised me, for any book trying to resurrect this author would, I thought, need to at least fill us in slightly on his biography and the context of his pieces. The fact it comes as a footnote at the end, after the contents have failed to appeal, is further evidence for me that this book (a book of verse much removed from the general person's general idea of entertainment) is only designed to be preaching to the academically converted.
February 25, 2021
Tonight, Annihilation, At Ease, Vigil, Chiaroscuro, Maybe A River, June, Memory, Sam Martino Del Carso, The Beautiful Night, Silence
November 6, 2020
Si sta come
d’autunno
sugli alberi
le foglie
d’autunno
sugli alberi
le foglie
December 22, 2013
Tra le poesie piu' significative di questa collezione ho trovato le seguenti:
Veglia - bellissimo pezzo che illustra le sensazioni piu' intense nel momento in cui i nostri occhi vedono la realta' della morte. "... non sono mai stato tanto attaccato alla vita". E' proprio vero che alle volte abbiamo bisogno di essere risvegliati dalla realta' della morte per apprezzare la vita.
Risvegli -
"Ogni mio momento
io l'ho vissuto
un'altra volta
in un'epoca fonda
fuori di me
Sono lontano colla mia memoria
dietro a quelle vite perse
Mi desto in un bagno
di care cose consuete
sorpreso
e raddolcito
Rincorro le nuvole
che si sciolgono dolcemente
co' gli occhi attenti
e mi rammento
di qualche amico
morto
Ma Dio cos'è?
E la creatura
atterrita
sbarra gli occhi
e accoglie gocciole di stelle
e la pianura muta
E si sente
riavere"
Alle volte e' come se vivessimo le nostre giornate di vita a modo di sogno, non bello o brutto ma solo surreale, come se stessimo leggendo un libro della nostra vita.
E ovviamente la mia preferita:
Mattina - " M' illumino d'immenso" Ogni mattina e' piena di speranza.
Veglia - bellissimo pezzo che illustra le sensazioni piu' intense nel momento in cui i nostri occhi vedono la realta' della morte. "... non sono mai stato tanto attaccato alla vita". E' proprio vero che alle volte abbiamo bisogno di essere risvegliati dalla realta' della morte per apprezzare la vita.
Risvegli -
"Ogni mio momento
io l'ho vissuto
un'altra volta
in un'epoca fonda
fuori di me
Sono lontano colla mia memoria
dietro a quelle vite perse
Mi desto in un bagno
di care cose consuete
sorpreso
e raddolcito
Rincorro le nuvole
che si sciolgono dolcemente
co' gli occhi attenti
e mi rammento
di qualche amico
morto
Ma Dio cos'è?
E la creatura
atterrita
sbarra gli occhi
e accoglie gocciole di stelle
e la pianura muta
E si sente
riavere"
Alle volte e' come se vivessimo le nostre giornate di vita a modo di sogno, non bello o brutto ma solo surreale, come se stessimo leggendo un libro della nostra vita.
E ovviamente la mia preferita:
Mattina - " M' illumino d'immenso" Ogni mattina e' piena di speranza.
June 29, 2020
Amo Montale, ma penso che la sua poesia non renda quanto quella di Ungaretti. A dire la verità, Ungaretti è proprio il mio poeta preferito; non solo italiano, ma della letteratura in generale. Sarà la frammentazione del verso, che restituisce il significato alle parole, fa comprendere davvero il valore della poesia; sarà la capacità di Ungaretti di mostrare l’anima che si salva con la poesia soltanto. Non è solo poesia di guerra, dotata di cocente disillusione per la barbarie che essa è: la poesia ungarettiana è la riscoperta del sé rispetto al resto del mondo («docile fibra dell’universo», come dice il poeta in Fiumi), è intrisa di filosofia (Fiumi e Dolina Notturna, con la nozione bergosoniana del tempo). È poesia alta e bassa, così potente e intensa che leggere Ungaretti non può seguire un semplice parametro di valutazione. È un’esperienza formativa per riconnettersi con gli antri più nascosti dell’anima.
June 18, 2018
Uno dei più grandi poeti del 900, e questa raccolta complicata ne è l'esempio. Avendola studiata e sviscerata in ogni suo minimo dettaglio ho avuto modo di conoscerla e apprezzarla a 360°, come se mi trovassi accanto all'autore a farmi spiegare le poesie. La contrapposizione tra immanenza e volontà di fusione con la natura, l'allontanamento verso un altrove migliore, sono di un'intensità da mozzare il fiato e da lasciare esanimi di fronte a tanta bellezza.
February 28, 2022
10-
Recente classico della poesia mondiale e pietra miliare dell'Ermetismo, "L'Allegria" è una complessa meditazione ricca di sfumature sul tema della guerra e sui brevi scorci di quiete che vi si possono trovare (l'allegria del titolo appunto). L'opera è suddivisa in cinque sezioni ("Ultime", "Il Porto Sepolto", "Naufragi", "Girovago" e "Prime") e priva sia di schemi ritmici e strutturali, un'anarchica che trova la propria giustificazione in un modo nuovo di intendere la lirica: poche, difficili ma stimolanti parole in libertà senza neanche la punteggiatura a fare da linea guida, sentimenti purissimi in cui immergersi per uscirne migliori.
A discapito del nome, "Ultime" sono le prime poesie ad essere state scritte; probabilmente l'ennesimo sovvertimento di Ungaretti. Le tematiche sono più esistenziali, le situazioni descritte universali (nonostante alcuni squarci che forse già anticipano il contesto bellico come "Ricordo D'Africa" o "Popoli", che non a caso chiude questa parte) e il tema principale la malinconia, espressa sia come incomunicabilità ("Eterno" sembra alludere all'incapacità di esprimere i propri sentimenti) che come condizione intrinseca alla vita ("Tappeto" e "Noia").
Il porto sepolto è il riparo negato ai soldati in trincea, con la vita appesa ad un filo e che si aggrappano ad ogni piccola gioia: immergersi in un fiume per riposarsi, ricordare gli affetti lontani... Azioni apparentemente scontate che in mezzo alla morte si rivelano tuttavia fondamentali, trovare addirittura nel pericolo stesso della morte uno slancio alla vita (come sottolineato da "Veglia", forse il capolavoro dell'intera raccolta, che narrando di una notte affianco ad un compagno morto esprime tutta la complessità che permea l'opera con le parole "Un’intera nottata buttato vicino
a un compagno massacrato con la sua bocca digrignata volta al plenilunio con la congestione delle sue mani penetrata nel mio silenzio ho scritto lettere piene d’amore Non sono mai stato tanto attaccato alla vita").
"Naufragi" prosegue il discorso con maggior stoicismo, raccontando le ultime fasi della guerra con particolare attenzione sulle spinte a sopravvivere come il mattino che "illumina d'immenso" o i dolci sogni.
In "Girovago" si parla probabilmente dei viaggi per tornare a casa, la stanchezza di queste peregrinazioni, il sentirsi sempre stranieri e avvolti da una forte malinconia, anche nella pace la stessa precarietà di quando si era soldati ("Si sta come d'autunno sugli alberi le foglie").
"Prime" sono gli ultimi scritti, una maggiore calma che spinge Ungaretti a concedersi brevi racconti dalla struttura più classica dove torna la punteggiatura ma che proseguono i discorsi della raccolta, fra africani a parigi e le idee infantili che si schiantano contro la realtà lasciando spazio all'accettazione della morte. Le poesie si fanno più tranquille ma stanche al tempo stesso mostrando la promiscuità sessuale del poeta come un rifugio al trauma del conflitto. La conclusione dell'opera, "Preghiera", invoca la fine di questi suoi meccanismi di difesa in favore del naufragio "di quel giovane giorno al primo grido".
Recente classico della poesia mondiale e pietra miliare dell'Ermetismo, "L'Allegria" è una complessa meditazione ricca di sfumature sul tema della guerra e sui brevi scorci di quiete che vi si possono trovare (l'allegria del titolo appunto). L'opera è suddivisa in cinque sezioni ("Ultime", "Il Porto Sepolto", "Naufragi", "Girovago" e "Prime") e priva sia di schemi ritmici e strutturali, un'anarchica che trova la propria giustificazione in un modo nuovo di intendere la lirica: poche, difficili ma stimolanti parole in libertà senza neanche la punteggiatura a fare da linea guida, sentimenti purissimi in cui immergersi per uscirne migliori.
A discapito del nome, "Ultime" sono le prime poesie ad essere state scritte; probabilmente l'ennesimo sovvertimento di Ungaretti. Le tematiche sono più esistenziali, le situazioni descritte universali (nonostante alcuni squarci che forse già anticipano il contesto bellico come "Ricordo D'Africa" o "Popoli", che non a caso chiude questa parte) e il tema principale la malinconia, espressa sia come incomunicabilità ("Eterno" sembra alludere all'incapacità di esprimere i propri sentimenti) che come condizione intrinseca alla vita ("Tappeto" e "Noia").
Il porto sepolto è il riparo negato ai soldati in trincea, con la vita appesa ad un filo e che si aggrappano ad ogni piccola gioia: immergersi in un fiume per riposarsi, ricordare gli affetti lontani... Azioni apparentemente scontate che in mezzo alla morte si rivelano tuttavia fondamentali, trovare addirittura nel pericolo stesso della morte uno slancio alla vita (come sottolineato da "Veglia", forse il capolavoro dell'intera raccolta, che narrando di una notte affianco ad un compagno morto esprime tutta la complessità che permea l'opera con le parole "Un’intera nottata buttato vicino
a un compagno massacrato con la sua bocca digrignata volta al plenilunio con la congestione delle sue mani penetrata nel mio silenzio ho scritto lettere piene d’amore Non sono mai stato tanto attaccato alla vita").
"Naufragi" prosegue il discorso con maggior stoicismo, raccontando le ultime fasi della guerra con particolare attenzione sulle spinte a sopravvivere come il mattino che "illumina d'immenso" o i dolci sogni.
In "Girovago" si parla probabilmente dei viaggi per tornare a casa, la stanchezza di queste peregrinazioni, il sentirsi sempre stranieri e avvolti da una forte malinconia, anche nella pace la stessa precarietà di quando si era soldati ("Si sta come d'autunno sugli alberi le foglie").
"Prime" sono gli ultimi scritti, una maggiore calma che spinge Ungaretti a concedersi brevi racconti dalla struttura più classica dove torna la punteggiatura ma che proseguono i discorsi della raccolta, fra africani a parigi e le idee infantili che si schiantano contro la realtà lasciando spazio all'accettazione della morte. Le poesie si fanno più tranquille ma stanche al tempo stesso mostrando la promiscuità sessuale del poeta come un rifugio al trauma del conflitto. La conclusione dell'opera, "Preghiera", invoca la fine di questi suoi meccanismi di difesa in favore del naufragio "di quel giovane giorno al primo grido".
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 20, 2025
- first learned of Ungaretti way back in an Italian literature class in 2018, and now finally got around to reading his poems. wasn't expecting them to be this short
- also kinda surprised to find out he was a fascist
poems I liked:
- also kinda surprised to find out he was a fascist
poems I liked:
Veglia
Un’intera nottata
Buttato vicino
A un compagno
Massacrato
Con la sua bocca
Digrignata
Volta al plenilunio
Con la congestione
Delle sue mani
Penetrata
Nel mio silenzio
Ho scritto
Lettere piene d’amore
Non sono mai stato
Tanto
Attaccato alla vita
Fase
Cammina cammina
ho ritrovato
il pozzo d'amore.
Nell'occhio
di mill'una notte
ho riposato
Agli abbandonati giardini
ella approdava
come una colomba
Fra l'aria
del meriggio
ch'era uno svenimento
le ho colto
arance e gelsomini.
Risvegli
Ogni mio momento
io l'ho vissuto
un'altra volta
in un'epoca fonda
fuori di me
Sono lontano colla mia memoria
dietro a quelle vite perse
Mi desto in un bagno
di care cose consuete
sorpreso
e raddolcito
Rincorro le nuvole
che si sciolgono dolcemente
cogli occhi attenti
e mi rammento
di qualche amico
morto
Ma Dio cos'è?
E la creatura
atterrita
sbarra gli occhi
e accoglie
gocciole di stelle
e la pianura muta
E si sente
riavere
San Martino del Carso
Di queste case
non è rimasto
che qualche
brandello di muro
Di tanti
che mi corrispondevano
non è rimasto
neppure tanto
Ma nel cuore
nessuna croce manca
È il mio cuore
il paese più straziato
Mattina
M’illumino
d’immenso.
Inzio di sera
Inizio di sera
la vita si vuota
in diafana ascesa
di nuvole colme
trapunte di sole.
April 5, 2021
Born in Egypt in 1888 to Italian parents, Guiseppe Ungaretti moved to Paris in 1915, then joined the Italian army at the outbreak of World War I, where he wrote in the trenches the poems comprising Allegria. The poems are spare expressions of the extremes of emotions when surrounded by death. Here is “Vigil” in its entirety:
all night long
flung beside
a butchered
comrade
his teeth
bared
to the full moon
the bloating
of his hands
entering
my silence
I wrote
letters full of love
I’ve never felt
so fastened
to life
In the teeth of war, the poems yearn for silence as an ideal form—“To drowse there / alone / in a distant café / in a light / as faint / as this moon’s” (from “Once Upon a Time”); “Nothing / but grumble / of crickets / reaches me now // It keeps my troubles / company” (“Sleepiness”)
After the exhaustion of endless murder, an emotional surrender, during the return home, to the horrors of war and the future:
Farewell, desires and regrets.
Of past and future I know as much as a man can know.
Already I know my fate, and my origin.
Nothing is left for me to desecrate, or dream about.
I have enjoyed and suffered it all; nothing is left but to
make peace with death.
Which means calmly raising some children. (from “Lucca”)
all night long
flung beside
a butchered
comrade
his teeth
bared
to the full moon
the bloating
of his hands
entering
my silence
I wrote
letters full of love
I’ve never felt
so fastened
to life
In the teeth of war, the poems yearn for silence as an ideal form—“To drowse there / alone / in a distant café / in a light / as faint / as this moon’s” (from “Once Upon a Time”); “Nothing / but grumble / of crickets / reaches me now // It keeps my troubles / company” (“Sleepiness”)
After the exhaustion of endless murder, an emotional surrender, during the return home, to the horrors of war and the future:
Farewell, desires and regrets.
Of past and future I know as much as a man can know.
Already I know my fate, and my origin.
Nothing is left for me to desecrate, or dream about.
I have enjoyed and suffered it all; nothing is left but to
make peace with death.
Which means calmly raising some children. (from “Lucca”)
September 9, 2020
Thank you Archipelago and Netgalley for the e-copy.
Researching more into the author and on the poetry book itself really made me appreciate it even more.
I requested this poetry book not only because I’m falling in love with Archipelago Publishing but also because it was a poetry book by an Italian author. As I grew up in Italy and consider myself Italian, I wanted to read something in Italian as well, and reading the Italian poems followed by the English translated version of them made me experience them twice and made me love each single one more and more.
These poems are deep and heavy, as they are his experience with war.
These poems aren’t only about war but they’re also about the self.
I'm so glad I got to read this poetry collection and being able to experience them to the fullest.
Would definitely recommend it if you love deep and beautiful poetry that will make you think about other’s experiences with heavy moments in their lives, and in general if you love poetry that allows you to think deep and wonder.
Researching more into the author and on the poetry book itself really made me appreciate it even more.
I requested this poetry book not only because I’m falling in love with Archipelago Publishing but also because it was a poetry book by an Italian author. As I grew up in Italy and consider myself Italian, I wanted to read something in Italian as well, and reading the Italian poems followed by the English translated version of them made me experience them twice and made me love each single one more and more.
These poems are deep and heavy, as they are his experience with war.
These poems aren’t only about war but they’re also about the self.
I'm so glad I got to read this poetry collection and being able to experience them to the fullest.
Would definitely recommend it if you love deep and beautiful poetry that will make you think about other’s experiences with heavy moments in their lives, and in general if you love poetry that allows you to think deep and wonder.
June 18, 2022
Giuseppe Ungaretti was the first recipient of the Neustadt Prize in 1970. I have been in the process of reading at least one book by each of the winners of this literary award and that is why I happened to read this one. It is an exceptional collection of very short poems, all written by Ungaretti while in the trenches during World War I. Some of the poems I highlighted are ones far removed from war like:
Home
Surprised by love
returning
after so long
to visit me
I thought I had scattered it
out in the world
While other poems are very much influenced by the war:
Vigil
All night long
flung beside
a butchered
comrade
his teeth
bared
to the full moon
the bloating
of his hands
entering
my silence
I wrote
letters of love
I've never felt
so fastened
to life
While some of the poems were influenced by war but not so obvious:
I am a Creature
Like this stone
on San Michele
this cold
this hard
this arid
this impervious
this utterly
spiritless
like this stone
is my
unseen grief
We pay down
death
by living
Home
Surprised by love
returning
after so long
to visit me
I thought I had scattered it
out in the world
While other poems are very much influenced by the war:
Vigil
All night long
flung beside
a butchered
comrade
his teeth
bared
to the full moon
the bloating
of his hands
entering
my silence
I wrote
letters of love
I've never felt
so fastened
to life
While some of the poems were influenced by war but not so obvious:
I am a Creature
Like this stone
on San Michele
this cold
this hard
this arid
this impervious
this utterly
spiritless
like this stone
is my
unseen grief
We pay down
death
by living
March 23, 2022
Just an incredibly beautiful collection from one of Italy's most important poets. I love dual language editions of books and Archipelago has managed to present these translations with such generosity. The honor the poet as well as the translator and let me tell you, Geoffrey Brock has done a masterful job here. Some of the works are so slight they are like delicate snowflakes full of nuance and emotional weight and somehow Brock skillfully conveys them in English.
I fell in love with the poems in this book and somehow reading a few times through didn't seem like enough to take them in. I'll need to revisit often, which is no chore. Here's one I keep thinking about:
Memory
When
the night is about to vanish
just before spring
and hardly
anyone's around
The dark color
of grief
gathers over Paris
and on the edge
of a bridge
I consider
the immense silence
of a slender
girl
And our
maladies
meld
and as if carried off
we stay
Lokvica, September 28, 1916
I fell in love with the poems in this book and somehow reading a few times through didn't seem like enough to take them in. I'll need to revisit often, which is no chore. Here's one I keep thinking about:
Memory
When
the night is about to vanish
just before spring
and hardly
anyone's around
The dark color
of grief
gathers over Paris
and on the edge
of a bridge
I consider
the immense silence
of a slender
girl
And our
maladies
meld
and as if carried off
we stay
Lokvica, September 28, 1916
February 18, 2024
Non ho sempre un buon rapporto con le poesie, quindi ha aiutato molto nella lettura di questa raccolta che per la maggior parte i componimenti fossero molto brevi (e comunque quelli più corti erano di gran lunga i più belli!). Ho sofferto ogni tanto l’assenza di una spiegazione, ma per fortuna spesso non ce n’era bisogno, nel senso che pure non capendo le poesie ho potuto comunque apprezzare la bellezza delle parole e le sensazioni che trasmettevano.
http://www.naufragio.it/iltempodilegg...
I don't always have a good relationship with poems, so it helped a lot in reading this collection that for the most part the poems were very short (and in any case the shortest ones were by far the most beautiful!). Sometimes I suffered from the absence of an explanation, but luckily there was not a real need for that: even though I didn't always understand the poems, I was still able to appreciate the beauty of the words and the sensations they conveyed.
http://www.naufragio.it/iltempodilegg...
I don't always have a good relationship with poems, so it helped a lot in reading this collection that for the most part the poems were very short (and in any case the shortest ones were by far the most beautiful!). Sometimes I suffered from the absence of an explanation, but luckily there was not a real need for that: even though I didn't always understand the poems, I was still able to appreciate the beauty of the words and the sensations they conveyed.
September 30, 2023
Estos poemas tienen mucho de empatía por los muertos. En un fragmento del siglo XX caracterizado por acciones que llevaron a personas de todo signo y nacionalidad a matarse como quien no tiene otra opción. Hay un sentimiento de soledad paternal, la emoción de alguien que ama a través de las inclemencias de los elementos y que no puede escuchar del otro lado más que tristeza, pero una tristeza que, por lo que se ve en los textos de otros que acompañan la recopilación, engendraron a un montón de artistas y marcaron a miles de lectores.
Después bueno, está el temita de que colaboró con Musolinni, qué se le va a hacer.
La traducción de Oreste Frattoni me da que tiene muchos problemas / errores. Algunos gruesos.
Después bueno, está el temita de que colaboró con Musolinni, qué se le va a hacer.
La traducción de Oreste Frattoni me da que tiene muchos problemas / errores. Algunos gruesos.
September 17, 2025
1970 Neustadt International Prize for Literature
Giuseppe Ungaretti received this “American Nobel” prize in the year he died. This, his most famous work was published in 1931 and written in the trenches of WW1, between 1915 and 1918. It is not typical war,poetry, though, but much deeper observations of his life in general. He uses very few words, but the words are there contain all the power necessary to convey his feelings.
This is a bi-lingual edition, which is great, because Ungaretti’s poetry is as much about the sound as it is about the content. Kudos to the translator to convey some of that in English as well.
Giuseppe Ungaretti received this “American Nobel” prize in the year he died. This, his most famous work was published in 1931 and written in the trenches of WW1, between 1915 and 1918. It is not typical war,poetry, though, but much deeper observations of his life in general. He uses very few words, but the words are there contain all the power necessary to convey his feelings.
This is a bi-lingual edition, which is great, because Ungaretti’s poetry is as much about the sound as it is about the content. Kudos to the translator to convey some of that in English as well.
April 18, 2023
Compito arduo scrivere una recensione delle poesie di Ungaretti, quindi non ci provo nemmeno. In questa raccolta di poesie scritte negli anni 1914-19 sono presenti quelle più famose: Soldati, Sono una creatura, San Martino del Carso: ricordi dell’orrore della guerra reso con forza espressiva unica in frasi brevissime e incisive. E come dimenticare Mattina, quel “M’illumino d’immenso” che allarga l’anima? Alcune le so ancora a memoria per averle studiate a scuola e di anni ne son passati tanti, ma Ungaretti non si dimentica.
Assolutamente consigliato.
Assolutamente consigliato.
January 2, 2026
L'Allegria raccoglie forse le poesie più note di Ungaretti: quelle del periodo della guerra e che ritengo siano anche le migliori. Inserita nel volume Vita di un uomo, il titolo della raccolta è quasi un ossimoro visto il tenore spesso drammatico delle liriche contenute. Dopo questa lettura sono sempre convinto che Ungaretti sia tra i migliori poeti del novecento e che in vita avrebbe meritato di più di quello che ha ricevuto.
April 2, 2023
gorgeous, wonderful, beautiful. me and ungaretti are on the same page. need to do a full analysis on this book.
“i see myself adrift in the infinite”
“when i find in this silence of mine a word it bored into my life like an abyss”
“i am both the wretched boat and the lecherous ocean”
“i settle into cinders shoals discovered by the sun and become a flight of clouds”
“i see myself adrift in the infinite”
“when i find in this silence of mine a word it bored into my life like an abyss”
“i am both the wretched boat and the lecherous ocean”
“i settle into cinders shoals discovered by the sun and become a flight of clouds”
October 10, 2020
That was lovely. I really enjoyed that superb and intense collection of poetry. It was a joy to read.
February 2, 2022
Shoutout to the library for causing me to stumble across the book. It was sad but beautiful and thoroughly enjoyable.
September 7, 2022
Nonostante le difficoltà che ho riscontrato in alcuni casi nel capire il significato delle poesie (alcune non le ho capite) non ci sono parole per descriverne la bellezza.
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