Important Italian Poets
- Giacomo da Lentini a 13th Century poet who is believed to have invented the sonnet.
- Guido Cavalcanti (c.1255 - 1300) Tuscan poet, and a key figure in the Dolce Stil Novo movement.
- Dante Alighieri (1265 - 1321) wrote Divina Commedia, one of the pinnacles of Middle Ages literature.
- Francesco Petrarca (1304 - 1374) famous for developing the Petrarchan sonnet in a collection of 366 poems called Canzoniere.
- Matteo Maria Boiardo (1441 – 1494) wrote the epic poem Orlando innamorato
- Ludovico Ariosto (1474 – 1533) wrote the epic poem Orlando furioso (1516).
- Torquato Tasso (1544 – 1595) wrote La Gerusalemme liberata (1580) in which he describes the imaginary combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade.
- Ugo Foscolo (1778 - 1827): best known for his poem "Dei Sepolcri"
- Giacomo Leopardi (1798 – 1837): highly valued for his Canti and Operette morali, author of L'infinito, one of the most famous poems of Italian literary history.
- Giosuè Carducci (1835 - 1907) won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1906
- Giovanni Pascoli (1855 - 1912)
- Gabriele D'Annunzio (1863 - 1938) poet and novelist of the Decadent Movement
- Guido Gozzano (1883-1916) poet of the Decadent Movement, best known for his collection "I colloqui" (1911)
- Umberto Saba (1883 - 1957)
- Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888 - 1970)
- Eugenio Montale (1896 – 1981) won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1975
- Salvatore Quasimodo (1901 – 1968) won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1959
- Cesare Pavese (1908 – 1950)
- Leonardo Sinisgalli (1908 – 1981)
- Alfonso Gatto (1909 – 1976)
- Antonia Pozzi (1912 - 1938)
- Mario Luzi (1914 – 2005)
Read more about this topic: Italian Poetry
Famous quotes containing the words important, italian and/or poets:
“It’s very good for an idea to be commonplace. The important thing is that a new idea should develop out of what is already there so that it soon becomes an old acquaintance. Old acquaintances aren’t by any means always welcome, but at least one can’t be mistaken as to who or what they are.”
—Penelope Fitzgerald (b. 1916)
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)
“The people fancy they hate poetry, and they are all poets and mystics.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)