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Giovanni Pascoli

Ordinary life of a famous poet

By Patrizia PoliPublished 2 years ago 4 min read
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“I am thinking of Livorno, of an old cemetery

of old dead; where to sleep with them

no one goes down; always closed; black

of tall cypresses.

Among their trunks that no one ever sees,

beyond the hollow wall and doors

who have forgotten the hinges, it is believed

Death dead,

it too. Yet, on a fine April day,

over that black I saw, rosy, fresh,

alive, from the wall stick out a thin

peach branch.

Son of an unknown core, ever since

Did you grow up among the unknown dead?

And now you envy the almond trees that gilds

dawn in the gardens?

Or the cypresses, frail and wild,

forgotten, with your laughter gladdened,

you foundling in a hermitage

of anchorites? “

In 1887, Giovanni Pascoli (1855–1912) suddenly received the news that the ministry had transferred him from Massa to Livorno, where he had obtained a position at the Niccolini Guerrazzi high school. Dismayed, he confides in Carducci who still urges him to move towards change. We know everything about the transfer thanks to the writings of his sister Maria, “Along the life of Giovanni Pascoli”.

After the killing of his father and other tragic family deaths, Giovannino took Ida and Maria, the two sisters, with him and moved with them to the coastal city. On October 31, he leaves by train, the sisters join him on a cart loaded with furniture, with the cage of the Ciribì bird. The family kitten escapes from the basket and is not found. A good neighbor will deliver it back next week.

From the bright rural accommodation in Massa, they find themselves catapulted to the fourth floor of a squalid apartment in via Micali. Giovanni begins teaching in high school, he also gives many private lessons but there is never enough money, including bills to pay, furniture to buy and books that are essential for teaching and studies.

The family lives in great straits, Giovanni does not integrate immediately into the workplace and feels little esteemed by his colleagues. He continues to aspire, like all Leghorn teachers, to a place in the Academy, but in the meantime he also accepts a position in a boarding school in Ardenza. He only has a half hour break in which he runs home to eat a bite but ends up, as Maria tells us, to bite into bread and salami in the carriage. He also takes home a student who unsuccessfully prepares for exams.

Free time is short, with two dependent sisters you only have to think about making ends meet. Despite this, it is here that the Myricae collection takes shape, later published by the publisher Raffaello Giusti, it is here that he delineates his anti-rhetoric, adhering to things poetry.

And it is in this period that Giovanni falls in love with Lia, a young singer, daughter of a musician who lives in front of the high school. In one of her poems he describes her with too short dresses for her age.

“Lia young girl, dare therefore, speak;

Say: “Dear mother, the skirt is shorter

that is convenient; think about lengthening it.

Firy pupils follow troublesome

my steps as a young woman;

so I would like more screen than this dress “.

Too much do I know which one to me sometimes

from you you derive forgetful spell,

that the eyes endorse, and the face fades;

of which you blush, O young Lia! “

Family vicissitudes, the possibility then avoided that his sister Ida marries an unwelcome young man, make him turn his back on love to focus on family duties.

Even if burdened with economic thoughts, the life of the siblings is peaceful. He goes to the house of the poet Giovanni Marradi; Pietro Mascagni plays the opera “Evening in October”.

“Along the way you see on the hedge

Laughing the vermilion berries in bunches:

in the plowed fields they return to the crib

the slow cows.

A poor man comes along the road that the slow

Step between shrill leaves drag:

in the fields a girl senses in the wind:

thorn flower! “

There are frequent forays to the fiaschetteria in via Maggi, together with Carducci, or strolls to piazza Cavour to buy sweets that brighten the evenings. The house is filled with birds but the favorite is always Ciribì.

When the economic problems calm down a little, they all move to a house with a garden, also in via Micali. Giovanni wins the Veianus, a Dutch contest of Latin poetry, but is forced to commit the medal to solve the problem of a certain bill, and the sisters end up putting themselves in the hands of a usurer.

The Labronian stay ended in 1895 with an appointment in another city. Livorno, which had received him coldly, paid him esteem and honors, recalling him in 1911 to make him give a speech at the Academy on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the unity of Italy.

The link with the city remains and its influences are felt in numerous poems, including Count Ugolino.

“I was at Ardenza, above the roundabout

of the beach resorts, and I know what a long time I looked

a running, in the water, of wave upon wave,

of flashes of gold. And some spoke: “You know?”

(it was the Sea, in one of its grave longings)

“I always go and never advance.”

And I: «Old one,» (but the eternal Sea

sucked the rock and slipped away, perhaps

crying) “and the man advances, yes; you think?”

And the eye, vague here and there ran

to Meloria … “

sad poetry
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About the Creator

Patrizia Poli

Patrizia Poli was born in Livorno in 1961. Writer of fiction and blogger, she published seven novels.

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