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Life is not a Dream
Salvatore Quasimodo, winner of the Nobel Prize of Literature in 1959 "for his lyrical poetry, which with classical fire expresses the tragic experience of life in our own times". He, together with Montale,Ungharetti and Saba is one of Italy's most reputed members of the so-called Hermetic School. His poetry which once had received considerable interest from American scholars has been rapidly waning from the intellectual and literary circles. Aside from a hard sought transaltion of his poems by Jack Bevan, and a more limited one where Marco Sonzogni and Gerald Dawe render into English the early works we haven't much to rely on today. Allen Mandelbaum was a fierce advocate of the Sicilian poet's crisp lyrical style and found in him an emissary to contemplate the place of the poet in times of apocalyptic frustrations such as have besieged Europe since soon after the Second World War. Here we have, by far, the best rendition of his works and the most representative selection "available". The classicism which was an integral essence of the poetry of loss and fragmentation, alienation and dejection finds in Mendalbaum an exponent without equals, as his later ventures into Vergil, Ovid, Dante and Homer have confirmed. In this specific publication of 1960 by Noonday we also find two prose pieces, "Discourse on Poetry" and "Dante" which both illuminate the poetic inspiration and the function it proposed to serve.
Traditional literary critique divides Quasimodo's work into 2 major periods: the hermetic period up until World War II, and the post-hermetic era until his death. Although these periods are distinct, they are to be seen as a single poetical quest. This quest or exploration for a unique language will take him through various stages and various modalities of expression; In fact here we witness traces of expressionism, symbolism, and even surrealism turning leaf and plucking flowers to stare death in the face and ask questions of an absent guide while concentrating an intensity of meaning and sound in each word uttered or silenced. Language is not a symptom of a psychological neurosis here, or the flagrant tone of a death swoon, rather we experience a semblance of eternity that through restraint, compassion and dignity makes of chaos but the mask that hides beauty behind its confusion. Laments break and cries stir amid a serene languour that whelms the solitude of the times.

Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra
trafitto da un raggio di sole:
ed e' subito sera.

Each heart is alone on this earth,
impaled upon a ray of sun:
And suddenly it's night.

Each poem is given opposite its Italian original, and Allen Mandelbaum worked closely with Quasimodo on this selection. Salvatore Quasimodo died in 1968. A complementary read would be "The Poet and the Politician, and Other Essays", where his five most important essays on the poet and poetry are translated by Thomas G. Bergin and Sergio Pacifico. Here also is the nobel laurate lecture "The Poet and the Politician" which is widely regarded as one of the three most influential essays delivered at the academy (with Heinrich Böll and Solzhenitsyn being the other two), so much so that many claim it beckoned the direction the Academy was to adopt. Timeless! ... Read more