Piero Bigongiari: two poems

Piero Bigongiari, who was born at Navacchio (Pisa) in 1914, is one of Italy's leading poets. He belongs, along with Mario Luzi and Alessandro Parronchi, to that group of poet-critics, frequently designated as the Florentine Hermetics, who, precociously establish ing themselves in the thirties, dominated Italian poetry in the forties, and even today, in spite of strong reactions from succeeding generations, continue to exercise a strong influence on contemporary poetry. The poetic oeuvre of Bigongiari, collected under the title of Stato di cose, includes La figlia di Babilonia (1942); Rogo (1952); II corvo bianco (1955); Le mura di Pistoia (1958); and Torre di Arnolfo (1965), from which the two poems translated are taken.1 More recently, a sixth volume, Antimateria (1972), has been added to these. The critical corpus of Bigongiari ranges widely over both Italian and French literature, but of especial importance are his studies on Leopardi, elaborated over a period of twenty-five years, and those on contemporary poetry itself, both Italian and French. Professor Bigongiari, who now holds the chair of history of modern and contemporary Italian literature in the University of Florence, delivered, on 30 October 1972, a public lecture on 'The origins of twentieth century Italian poetry', under the auspices of the Italian Cultural Institute and Trinity College, in Dublin.