Giovanni Raboni
Encyclopedia
^
Giovanni Raboni was an Italian poet
, translator and literary critic.
, the second son of Giuseppe, a clerk at Milan commune, and Matilde Sommariva. In October 1942, after the first bombings of Milan, the family moved to Sant'Ambrogio Olona, near Varese
, where Raboni concluded his primary and intermediate school. His father's love for French and Russian classics made him read and appreciate Proust
, Dickens
, Dostoevskij
and when his cousin Giandomenico Guarino, knowledgeable about contemporary literature and poetry, found shelter in Sant'Ambrogio too after 8 September 1943 armistice, Raboni met the works by Piovene, Buzzati
, Ungaretti
, Quasimodo
, Cardarelli
, and Montale
about whom he said: I know I owe much to Montale, I realise this upon rereading him, even if I did not love him as much as Eliot
and Sereni
, but he affected me a lot... especially his expression of the limits, of the fact that we cannot demand too much in 20th century of poetry as a source of truth.
Having completed law studies, he was a lawyer for some years, but at the end of the 1950s he felt more attracted to literature and poetry. He met in Milan Vittorio Sereni
, Antonio Porta
, Giovanni Testori
, Giorgio Strehler
and began working for periodical and newspapers, at first in the editorial staff of Aut aut, a magazine edited by Enzo Paci, then writing for Piergiorgio Bellocchio's Quaderni Piacentini and Roberto Longhi's Paragone
and finally for Corriere della Sera
for which worked several years.
Raboni became was appreciated as both a literary critic and a translator of classic works: he translated in Italian some works by Gustave Flaubert
, and by Guillaume Apollinaire
, Les Fleurs du mal
by Charles Baudelaire
for Einaudi
publishing house, Jean Racine
and Proust's In Search of Lost Time
in Mondadori's "I Meridiani" collection.
In 1961 he published two short poetry collections, Il catalogo è questo and L'insalubrità dell'aria, followed by Le case della Vetra in 1966, Cadenza d'inganno in 1975, Nel grave sogno in 1982 and, in 1988, the anthology A tanto caro sangue. In 1970s he began editing the poetry series "I quaderni della Fenice" for Guanda publishing house, acting as a kind of talent-scout for new poets. Milan (especially the memory of the old city, before the recent town plannings) is in the heart of his matters:
In June 1971 he was one of the 800 intellectuals who signed, in L'Espresso
magazine, a manifesto against Luigi Calabresi
, a police officer falsely suspected of having killed the anarchist Giuseppe Pinelli
. In October he was among those who signed a "self-denunciation", to express solidarity with some journalists of Lotta Continua
newspaper, defending their strong anti-government positions.
Among his literary critic essays are Poesia degli anni sessanta (Poetry of the 1960s) published in 1968, Quaderno in prosa in 1981. La fossa di Cherubino (1980) collects his proses.
Raboni was interested in theater too: was in the directorial committee of Piccolo Teatro di Milano and wrote several plays, such as Alcesti o la recita dell'esilio and Rappresentazione della croce (2000). His activity as a poet went on with Canzonette mortali (1987), Versi guerrieri e amorosi (1990), Ogni terzo pensiero (1993, with which he won the Viareggio Prize
for poetry), Quare tristis (1998), and Barlumi di Storia (2002).
Giovanni Raboni died in Parma on 16 September 2004 after a heart attack.
His wife, poet Patrizia Valduga, wrote the afterword to his last poetry collection Ultimi versi, published posthumously in 2006; one of his last poems is "Canzone del danno e della beffa" (Song of the harm and the hoax), also published posthumous on Corriere della Sera in 2004.
Andrea Cortellessa, on an article of Manifesto in the days after his death, remembers the poet’s “obsessive mournful compulsion on his last poetic verses”, with these significant lines from Quare tristis: "Who dreams himself / alive with his own dead / maybe he doesn’t live also there /in his dream,/ and you must let him lie – not still /wake up, not until // out, in the light, remains that squeaky / burden, that blinding plate…"
Giovanni Raboni was an Italian poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, translator and literary critic.
Biography
Raboni was born in MilanMilan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, the second son of Giuseppe, a clerk at Milan commune, and Matilde Sommariva. In October 1942, after the first bombings of Milan, the family moved to Sant'Ambrogio Olona, near Varese
Varese
Varese is a town and comune in north-western Lombardy, northern Italy, 55 km north of Milan.It is the capital of the Province of Varese. The hinterland or urban part of the city is called Varesotto.- Geography :...
, where Raboni concluded his primary and intermediate school. His father's love for French and Russian classics made him read and appreciate Proust
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
, Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
, Dostoevskij
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky was a Russian writer of novels, short stories and essays. He is best known for his novels Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov....
and when his cousin Giandomenico Guarino, knowledgeable about contemporary literature and poetry, found shelter in Sant'Ambrogio too after 8 September 1943 armistice, Raboni met the works by Piovene, Buzzati
Dino Buzzati
Dino Buzzati-Traverso was an Italian novelist, short story writer, painter and poet, as well as a journalist for Corriere della Sera. His worldwide fame is mostly due to his novel Il deserto dei Tartari, translated into English as The Tartar Steppe.-Life:Buzzati was born at San Pellegrino,...
, Ungaretti
Giuseppe Ungaretti
Giuseppe Ungaretti was an Italian modernist poet, journalist, essayist, critic and academic. A leading representative of the experimental trend known as Ermetismo , he was one of the most prominent contributors to 20th century Italian literature. Influenced by symbolism, he was briefly aligned...
, Quasimodo
Salvatore Quasimodo
Salvatore Quasimodo was an Italian author and poet. In 1959 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature "for his lyrical poetry, which with classical fire expresses the tragic experience of life in our own times". Along with Giuseppe Ungaretti and Eugenio Montale, he is one of the foremost Italian poets...
, Cardarelli
Vincenzo Cardarelli
Vincenzo Cardarelli, pseudonym of Nazareno Caldarelli was an Italian journalist, writer and poet.Cardarelli was born in Corneto, Lazio, to a family of Marche origin. His studies were irregular and he tried different jobs...
, and Montale
Eugenio Montale
Eugenio Montale was an Italian poet, prose writer, editor and translator, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1975.- Early years :...
about whom he said: I know I owe much to Montale, I realise this upon rereading him, even if I did not love him as much as Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
and Sereni
Vittorio Sereni
Vittorio Sereni was an Italian poet, author, editor and translator of Jewish heritage. His poetry frequently addressed the themes of 20th century Italian history, such as Fascism, Italy's military defeat in World War II, and its postwar resurgence.Born at Luino, Sereni graduated from the...
, but he affected me a lot... especially his expression of the limits, of the fact that we cannot demand too much in 20th century of poetry as a source of truth.
Having completed law studies, he was a lawyer for some years, but at the end of the 1950s he felt more attracted to literature and poetry. He met in Milan Vittorio Sereni
Vittorio Sereni
Vittorio Sereni was an Italian poet, author, editor and translator of Jewish heritage. His poetry frequently addressed the themes of 20th century Italian history, such as Fascism, Italy's military defeat in World War II, and its postwar resurgence.Born at Luino, Sereni graduated from the...
, Antonio Porta
Antonio Porta
Antonio Alejandro Porta Pernigotti is an Argentinian professional basketball player. He plays the point guard and shooting guard positions. He is 6 ft 2 ¾ in tall and he weighs 200 lbs...
, Giovanni Testori
Giovanni Testori
"'Giovanni Testori'" was a major Italian writer, playwright, art historian and literary critic. His literary works are characterised by linguistic experimentalism, featuring both lexicon and syntax that mix and fuse elements of the Lombard dialect with French and English...
, Giorgio Strehler
Giorgio Strehler
Giorgio Strehler was an Italian opera and theatre director.-Biography:Strehler was born in Barcola, Trieste to an Austrian father and a Franco-Slovene mother; he grew up speaking Italian but spoke French well and his German was passable. He became suddenly fatherless at the age of three, his...
and began working for periodical and newspapers, at first in the editorial staff of Aut aut, a magazine edited by Enzo Paci, then writing for Piergiorgio Bellocchio's Quaderni Piacentini and Roberto Longhi's Paragone
Paragone
Paragone , is a debate from the Italian Renaissance in which one form of art is championed as superior to all others. Leonardo da Vinci's treatise on painting, noting the difficulty of painting and supremacy of sight, is a noted example.-External links:* at Encyclopædia Britannica online...
and finally for Corriere della Sera
Corriere della Sera
The Corriere della Sera is an Italian daily newspaper, published in Milan.It is among the oldest and most reputable Italian newspapers. Its main rivals are Rome's La Repubblica and Turin's La Stampa.- History :...
for which worked several years.
Raboni became was appreciated as both a literary critic and a translator of classic works: he translated in Italian some works by Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style.-Early life and education:Flaubert was born on December 12, 1821, in Rouen,...
, and by Guillaume Apollinaire
Guillaume Apollinaire
Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki, known as Guillaume Apollinaire was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic born in Italy to a Polish mother....
, Les Fleurs du mal
Les Fleurs du mal
Les Fleurs du mal is a volume of French poetry by Charles Baudelaire. First published in 1857 , it was important in the symbolist and modernist movements...
by Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
for Einaudi
Giulio Einaudi
Giulio Einaudi was one of the most important publishers in Italian history.-Biography:Giulio Einaudi was born in Dogliani in 1912, the son of Luigi Einaudi, future president of the Italian Republic, and his wife Ida.He attended the Massimo d'Azeglio liceo classico, and became a student of noted...
publishing house, Jean Racine
Jean Racine
Jean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
and Proust's In Search of Lost Time
In Search of Lost Time
In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past is a novel in seven volumes by Marcel Proust. His most prominent work, it is popularly known for its considerable length and the notion of involuntary memory, the most famous example being the "episode of the madeleine." The novel is widely...
in Mondadori's "I Meridiani" collection.
In 1961 he published two short poetry collections, Il catalogo è questo and L'insalubrità dell'aria, followed by Le case della Vetra in 1966, Cadenza d'inganno in 1975, Nel grave sogno in 1982 and, in 1988, the anthology A tanto caro sangue. In 1970s he began editing the poetry series "I quaderni della Fenice" for Guanda publishing house, acting as a kind of talent-scout for new poets. Milan (especially the memory of the old city, before the recent town plannings) is in the heart of his matters:
| (it) ...e sì, il Naviglio è a due passi, la nebbia era più forte prima che lo coprissero, la piazza piena di bancarelle con le luci a acetilene, le padelle nere delle castagne arrosto, i mangiatori di chiodi e di stoviglie non era certo un posto da passarci insieme a una ragazza. Ma così come hanno fatto, abbattere case, distruggere quartieri, qui e altrove (la Vetra, Fiori Chiari, il Bottonuto), a cosa serve?[...] |
(en) ...Yes, Naviglio is near, and was more mist-shrouded before its shingle, and the square full of acetylene lighted stalls, black pans for roast chestnuts, and nail and crockery swallowers it wasn’t good to come there with your girl-friend. But so as they have done, to destroy buildings, to destroy quarters, here and elsewhere (Vetra, Fiori Chiari, Bottonuto) what’s the reason?[...] (Giovanni Raboni, from Le case della Vetra, Mondadori, Milan 1996) |
In June 1971 he was one of the 800 intellectuals who signed, in L'Espresso
L'Espresso
l'Espresso is an Italian newsmagazine. It is one of the two most prominent Italian weeklies, the other being Panorama. Since the latter has been acquired by right-wing tycoon and politician Silvio Berlusconi, l'Espresso enjoys the reputation of being the main politically independent newsmagazine...
magazine, a manifesto against Luigi Calabresi
Luigi Calabresi
Luigi Calabresi , recipient of a gold medal of the Italian Republic for civil valor, was a commissioner of Italian police in Milan....
, a police officer falsely suspected of having killed the anarchist Giuseppe Pinelli
Giuseppe Pinelli
Giuseppe "Pino" Pinelli was an Italian railway worker and anarchist activist, who died in the custody of Italian police in 1969 after being arrested. Pinelli was a member of the Milan Circle "Ponte della Ghisolfa". He was also the secretary of the Italian branch of the Anarchist Black Cross...
. In October he was among those who signed a "self-denunciation", to express solidarity with some journalists of Lotta Continua
Lotta Continua
Lotta Continua was a far left extra-parliamentary organization in Italy. It was founded in autumn 1969 by a split in the student-worker movement of Turin, which had started militant activity at the universities and factories such as Fiat...
newspaper, defending their strong anti-government positions.
Among his literary critic essays are Poesia degli anni sessanta (Poetry of the 1960s) published in 1968, Quaderno in prosa in 1981. La fossa di Cherubino (1980) collects his proses.
Raboni was interested in theater too: was in the directorial committee of Piccolo Teatro di Milano and wrote several plays, such as Alcesti o la recita dell'esilio and Rappresentazione della croce (2000). His activity as a poet went on with Canzonette mortali (1987), Versi guerrieri e amorosi (1990), Ogni terzo pensiero (1993, with which he won the Viareggio Prize
Viareggio Prize
The Viareggio Literary Prize is a prestigious Italian literary award, whose first edition was in 1930, and is named after the Tuscan city of Viareggio...
for poetry), Quare tristis (1998), and Barlumi di Storia (2002).
Giovanni Raboni died in Parma on 16 September 2004 after a heart attack.
His wife, poet Patrizia Valduga, wrote the afterword to his last poetry collection Ultimi versi, published posthumously in 2006; one of his last poems is "Canzone del danno e della beffa" (Song of the harm and the hoax), also published posthumous on Corriere della Sera in 2004.
Andrea Cortellessa, on an article of Manifesto in the days after his death, remembers the poet’s “obsessive mournful compulsion on his last poetic verses”, with these significant lines from Quare tristis: "Who dreams himself / alive with his own dead / maybe he doesn’t live also there /in his dream,/ and you must let him lie – not still /wake up, not until // out, in the light, remains that squeaky / burden, that blinding plate…"
External links
- Official website (partially in Italian)
- Biography and some poems
- Some poems