ppoli61

@ppoli611674629039 · 06 Nov 2020

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Giovanni Pascoli

#peopletoknow #poetry

'Penso a Livorno, a vecchio cimitero

di vecchi morti; ove to dormir con essi

niuno più scende; sempre chiuso; nero

d'alti cipressi.

Tra i loro tronchi che mai niuno vede,

di la dell'erto muro and delle porte

ch'hanno obliato i cardini, si crede

morta la Morte,

anch'essa. Eppure, in a bell dì d'Aprile,

sopra quel nero vidi, roseo, fresco,

vivo, valley muro sporgere un sottile

ramo di pesco.

Figlio d'ignoto nocciolo, d'allora

sei tu cresciuto tra gli ignoti morti?

Ed ora invidi i mandorli che indora

L'alba negli orti?

Od i cipressi, gracile e selvaggio,

dimenticati, col tuo riso allieti,

tu trovatello in un eremitaggio

d'anacoreti? ”

Suddenly, in 1887, Giovanni Pascoli (1855 - 1912) got the news that the ministry had transferred him from Massa to Livorno, where he got an assignment at the Niccolini Guerrazzi high school. Dismayed, he confided in Carducci who urged him to go anyway. We know all about the transfer thanks to the writings of his sister Maria, “Along the life of Giovanni Pascoli”.

After the killing of his father and the other tragic family bereavements, Giovannino took Ida and Maria, the two sisters, with him and moved with them to the Tuscan city. On October 31, he leaves by train, the sisters join him on a cart loaded of furniture, with the bird cage of Ciribs. The family kitten escapes from the basket and is not found. He will be returned by a good neighbour the following week.

From the bright country accommodation in Massa they find themselves catapulted to the fourth floor of a squalid apartment in via Micali. Giovanni starts teaching in high school, he also gives many private lessons but the money is never enough, including bills of exchange to be paid, furniture to buy and books essential for teaching and studying.

The family lives in a straitened financial situation, Giovanni does not immediately integrate into the workplace and feels little esteemed by his colleagues. He continues to aspire, like all Livorno teachers, to a place in the Academy, but in the meantime he also Accepts an assignment in a boarding school in Ardenza. He has only half an hour's break in which he runs home to have a bite to eat but ends up, as Maria tells us, to bite bread and salami in a carriage. He also takes a student home whom he prepares for exams without success.

There is little free time, with two dependent sisters there is only room for making ends meet. Despite this, it is here that part of the Myricae collection takes shape, then published by the publisher Raffaello Giusti, it is here that anti-rhetorical, adhering to things Pascoli's poetry is outlined.

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 a poem he describes her with clothes too short for her age.

'Lia giovinetta, ardisci dunque, parla;

di': “Cara madre, corta è piú la gonna

che non convenga; or pensa ad allungarla.

Fiere pupil seguono molest

i passi miei di giovinetta donna;

ond'io vorrei piú schermo della veste”.

Troppo o so bene quale a me talora

da to derivi immemore malia,

che gli occhi avvallo, e il volto trascolora;

di che tu avvampi, o giovinetta 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 by economic thoughts, the life of the brother and sisters is peaceful. The poet Giovanni Marradi frequented the house; Pietro Mascagni music the lyric “Evening of October”.

“Lungo la strada vedi sulla siepe

Ridere a mazzi le vermiglie bacche:

nei campi arati tornano al presepe

tarde le vacche.

Vien per la strada un povero che il lento

Passo tra foglie stridule trascina:

nei campi intuona una fanciulla al vento:

fiore di spina!”

Incursions to the tavern in Via Maggi, along with Carducci, or walks to Piazza Cavour to buy sweets that cheer the evenings. The house is filled with birds but the favorite is always Ciribì.

When the economic problems subside a little, they all move to a house with a garden, always in via Micali. Giovanni wins the Veianus, a Dutch Latin poetry competition, but is forced to bring the medal to the pawn to solve the problem of a certain bill of exchange and the sisters end up putting themselves in the hands of a usurer.

The Labronic stay ends in 1895 with a nomination in another city. Livorno, who had greeted him coldly, pays him esteem and honuors, calling him back in 1911 to have him give a speech at the Academy on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the unification of Italy.

The link with the city remains and its influences can be felt in numerous poems, including Il Ugolino.

“Ero all'Ardenza, sopra la rotonda

dei bagni, e so che lunga ora guardai

un correre, nell'acqua, onda su onda,

di lampi d'oro. E alcuno parlò: “Sai? ”

(era il Mare, in un suo grave anelare)

“io vado sempre e non avanzo mai”.

E io: “Vecchione,” (Mon l'eterno Mare

succhiò lo scoglio e scivolò via, substantial

piangendo) “e l'uomo avanza, sì; ti pare? ”

E l'occhio, vago qua e là mi corse

alla Meloria...”