Selected Poems and Verses

Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888-1970) is among the most important representatives of the so-called hermetic poetry; but he was also a symbolist-imagist poet (the reference goes to the imagist poetry of the literary current of Ezra Pound very similar as a poetic conception to that of Ungaretti) strongly innovating as can be seen in his first poetic collection. In this anthology we have collected some of the most significant verses taken from the poems of the two collections that are considered the most important by Ungaretti, "Gaiety" (1931) and "The Feeling of Time" (1936). In this way we think of giving a summary and brief image of this author's main poetry which is essential not only for the Italian literature of the twentieth century but for the modern and avant-garde poetry in general.