Translation of Italian Poet Giovanni Pascoli's Collection, Myricae (1911)

FAIN: FT-291356-23

Piero Garofalo
University of New Hampshire (Durham, NH 03824-2620)

Research and writing leading to an annotated translation of Italian poet Giovanni Pascoli’s collection Myricae (1911). 

Giovanni Pascoli (1855–1912) is a foundational voice in Italian literature. I am translating Pascoli’s first and most influential poetry collection, Myricae (Tamarisk), which consists of 156 poems. Never translated into English, the work is fundamental for understanding the development of modern Italian verse. Pascoli derived the title from Vergil’s Fourth Eclogue (“not everyone cares for shrubs and humble tamarisk,” line 2), which he understood as rejecting “simple poetry” for an elevated style. Pascoli counters this rhetoric by employing simple poetic forms to express complex content. The collection draws on everyday objects (e.g., a plow, a broom, a pickax), the landscape, the Anthropocene, the natural world (species of flora and fauna never mentioned in Italian literature find their first appearances here), the disenfranchised to explore themes of change, loss, and wonder. Today, Pascoli’s poetry has emerged as a significant ecocritical voice in the environmental humanities.