Quasimodo e la «ricerca impetuosa dell’uomo». Dalla traduzione dei classici alla poesia del dopoguerra

Quasimodo wrote that “the war caught by surprise a poetic language that was maturing a connection with the objects of the earth to reach the universal.” With these words, the poet retrospectively reflected on his own history and that of his poetry, highlighting a moment of transition in which a polemical departure from pre-war poetics – then fully ‘mature’ and already tending towards ‘decadence’ – was taking shape. This transitional phase spans the period from Poesie (Edizioni Primi Piani, Milan, 1938) to the beginning of a new era in his poetry, marked by the publication of the plaquette Con il piede straniero sopra il cuore (I Quaderni di “Costume”, Milan, 1946). In this contribution, I will offer some reflections on this crucial stage of Quasimodo’s poetic journey, focusing on the experiences that most defined it, beginning with his profoundly formative encounter with classical poetry, and Virgil’s work in particular.