Bücher von Giuseppe Ungaretti

"Trench warfare and lyric poetry are an unusual-pairing. Some readers would doubtless even recoil at the notion of linking the two. After all, the former shows the ugliness and bestiality that mankind is all too capable of inflicting on the world. The latter, on the other hand, shows the beauty and humanity to which the genius of the human mind can aspire and the lasting beauty that it can produce. And yet there are artists who find, if not beauty, then at least eternal verities in cataclysmic events that can inspire them to creative heights. One such artist was the Italian poet, Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888-1970), whose collection L'Allegria was composed while the poet himself was engaged in the brutal, dehumanizing, life-and-death combat of the trench warfare of World War I." (Frank Hugus, University of Massachusetts Amherst) Wally Swist has published over forty books of poetry and prose. This skillful and faithful translation of L'Allegria exposes Swist's love and ardor for the poetry of Giuseppe Ungaretti, most especially, L'Allegria, his "cheerfulness" in the face of adversity.

A major new translation of one of Italy's greatest modern poetsGiuseppe Ungaretti (1888-1970) was a pioneer of the Modernist movement in Italian poetry and is widely regarded as one of the leading Italian poets of the twentieth century. His verse is renowned and loved for its powerful insight and emotion, and its exquisite music. Yet, unlike many of his peers, Ungaretti has never been adequately presented to English readers. This large bilingual selection, translated with great sensitivity and fidelity by Andrew Frisardi, captures Ungaretti in all of his phases: from his early poems, written in the trenches of northern Italy during World War I, to the finely crafted erotic and religious poetry of his second period, to the visceral, elegiac poetry of the years following the death of his son and the occupation of Rome during World War II, to the love poems of the poet's old age. Frisardi's in-depth introduction details the world in which Ungaretti's work took shape and exerted its influence. In addition to the poet's own annotations, an autobiographical afterword, "Ungaretti on Ungaretti," further illuminates the poet's life and art. Here is a compelling, rewarding, and comprehensive version of the work of one of the greatest modern European poets.