Salvatore Quasimodo

Salvatore Quasimodo ( born August 20, 1901 in Modica, Ragusa, Sicily, † June 14, 1968 in Naples) was an Italian poet and critic. In 1959, the Nobel Prize for Literature awarded him.

Life

Quasimodo, the son of a railway worker, spent his childhood and youth in Sicily. First, civil engineer, he studied from 1919 in Rome at the Polytechnic. Later he moved to the classics. After graduating, he worked in various jobs, including as a theater critic. From 1939 he worked as a journalist. In 1940 he was appointed professor of literature at the University of Milan.

Quasimodo is with his work on equal footing with Giuseppe Ungaretti and Eugenio Montale. His poetry comes from the symbolism and discussed his native Sicily with their traditions.

He has also distinguished himself as a translator of ancient Roman poet Catullus, Ovid and Virgil, the ancient Greek poet Sappho and Shakespeare, Pablo Neruda and Pericle Patocchi.

Works

  • Odore di eucalyptus (1933 )
  • Erato e Apollion (1936 )
  • Poetry (1938 )
  • Il falso e vero verde (1956 )
  • La terra Impareggiabile (1958 )

Translation in German (selection)

  • Poems 1920-1965. Italian- German, selected and translated by Christopher Ferber, with an afterword by Georges Guntert and comments by Antonio Sichera. Dietrich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Mainz 2010, ISBN 978-3-87162-071-3.
703391
de