"I have already said that the poet and writer help change the world... one need only think of the reactions that poets provoke, both in their own societies and elsewhere."
The Italian poet Salvatore Quasimodo originally planned to be an engineer but lack of finances forced him to interrupt his education. His first collection of poems, 'Acque e terre' (Waters and Lands), appeared in 1930, and beginning in 1938, he devoted himself entirely to writing.
During the Second World War Quasimodo experienced the need of the poet to feel one with the people and to declare himself as such in his poems. To him the role of the poet in society was a neccessarily active one. His later works show a change from individualism toward a more social-minded poetry.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 1959 "for his lyrical poetry, which with classical fire expresses the tragic experience of life in our own times."
Italian author and poet, and Nobel Laureate Salvatore Quasimodo died in Naples, Italy #OTD in 1968 (aged 66).
"Insomnia" by Salvatore Quasimodo
Necropolis of Pantalica
Necropolis of Pantalica
A happy wafting of winged
creatures at odds with green light;
the sea in the leaves.
creatures at odds with green light;
the sea in the leaves.
I am out of tune. And time
rends all that is born to joy in me;
keeps scarcely its echo in voices of trees.
rends all that is born to joy in me;
keeps scarcely its echo in voices of trees.
Love for me lost,
memory not human; celestial
stigmata shine on the dead,
starred bodies fall in the rivers;
an hour grows hoarse with gentle rain,
or stir a song in this eternal night.
memory not human; celestial
stigmata shine on the dead,
starred bodies fall in the rivers;
an hour grows hoarse with gentle rain,
or stir a song in this eternal night.
For years and years I have been asleep
in an open cell of my land,
shoulders of seaweed against grey waters:
in an open cell of my land,
shoulders of seaweed against grey waters:
meteors thunder in the unmoving air.
*
Poets have always drawn inspiration from the wild fancies of dream life. We spend a third of our lives asleep, and throughout history our nocturnal visions have engaged the interpretive talents of our greatest writers. This treasury of poets–Sidney, Donne, Blake, Keats, Wordsworth, Whitman, Rilke, Plath, Graves, Roethke, Bishop, Moore, Updike, and many more–encompasses lullabies, invocations, aubades, songs, epigrams, and stories, in every conceivable mood from the broadly comic to the tragic. It includes poems about daydreams and nightmares, about falling asleep and about waking up, about insomnia, night thoughts, monsters of the dark, twilight, dawn, and the rebirth of morning. From Auden’s “Lullaby” to Rossetti’s “Nuptial Sleep,” from Salvatore Quasimodo’s “Insomnia” to Thom Gunn’s “Annihilation of Nothing,” Poems of Sleep and Dreams evokes the whole haunting, magical spectrum of sleep and dream.
夸西莫多在西西里島莫迪卡出生，1908年父親前往墨西拿協助地震後的救災工作，舉家移居該城。1917年他創辦了《新文學雜誌》（Nuovo giornale letterario），發表第一批詩作，1919年遷往羅馬完成工程課程，1930年獲一家工程公司聘請到雷焦卡拉布里亞工作，同年他出版了第一部詩集《水與土》（Acque e terre），並因此獲得諾貝爾獎。夸西莫多其他詩集包括《消逝的笛音》（Oboe sommerso，1932年發表，包含了他1930年至1932年間的所有作品）、《日復一日》（Giorno dopo giorno，1946年發表）等。
作品列表[編輯]
- 《水與土》（Acque e terre，1930年）
- 《消逝的笛音》（Oboe sommerso，1932年）
- 《厄拉托與阿波羅》（Erato e Apòllìon，1938年）
- 《新詩》（Poesie，1938年）
- 《Lirici Greci》（1940年）
- 《Ed è subito sera》（1942年）
- 《Alle frande dei salici》（1943年）
- 《Con il piede straniero sopra il cuore》（1946年）
- 《日復一日》（Giorno dopo giorno，1946年）
- 《生活不是夢》（ La vita non è sogno，1949年）
- 《Il falso e vero verde》（1954年）
- 《Il fiore delle "Georgiche"》（1957年）
- 《La terra impareggiabile》
- 《Il poeta e il politico e altri saggi》（1960年）
- 《Dare e avere》（1966年）
作品的中譯[編輯]
- 諾貝爾文學獎全集編譯委員會/編譯，《薩瓦多爾‧誇西莫多》，台北市：九五文化，1981年。
- 呂同六/譯，《夸西莫多抒情詩選》，成都市：四川文藝，1992年。
- 李魁賢/譯，《塞弗里斯/夸齊莫多》，桂冠，2001年。
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