Mario Luzi, Italian poet, Died at 91

  Writers

Mario Luzi was an Italian poet who died on the 28th of February 2005 at the age of 91, born on the 20th of October 1914; he spent his youth in Castello, where he started his primary school.

In Florence he studied at the liceo classico Galileo, and also in Florence he obtained his degree in French literature with a final dissertation about François Mauriac.

This was an important period for Luzi. In 1940, he published Avvento notturno; in 1945 he went back to Florence and there he taught at the liceo scientifico.

In 1946 he published Un brindisi e Quaderno gotico, in issue 1 of Inventario, in 1952 Onore del vero, Principe del deserto e Studio su Mallarmé.

In 1955 he began teaching French literature at Florence University in the facoltà di scienze politiche (political studies institute).

Luzi’s later verse, with its dramatic dialogues and ruminations on change, was typified by the collection Nel magma (1963; enlarged 1966; “In the Magma”).

His other volumes of poetry include Dal fondo delle campagne (1965; “From the Bottom of the Field”), Su fondamenti invisibli (1971; “On Invisible Foundations”), Al fuoco della controversia(1978; “At the Fire of Controversy”), Per il battesimo dei nostri frammenti (1985; For the Baptism of Our Fragments), and Frasi e incisi di un canto salutare (1990; “Phrases and Digressions of a Salutary Song”).

Luzi was also noted for his translations of French and English literature.

He also wrote dramatic poems (Rosales, 1983) and translated the work of English and French poets, notably Shakespeare and Racine.

As poet, dramatist, critic, and intellectual, Mario Luzi was deeply invested in the civic and spiritual life of the Novecento. His writing has always been anthropology in the form of words.

The conference with which we celebrate the centennial of his birth aims at exploring the many facets of his life as writer and as man in relation to the historical horizon that Luzi contributed not only to animate but also to transform and imagine in new ways, as an exemplary incarnation of the creative energy of the “Verbum”.

Simultaneously with the ‘production’ opera while also having the dramaturgy. Mario Luzi is also playwright. The first is “Stone Dark” (1946) to last “The Flower of Pain” (2003) run almost sixty years of theater.

Between these extremes are the dramas “The Book of Hypatia”, “Rosales”, “Hystrio”, “Purgatory night washes the mind”, all included in the edition garzanti.

These texts follow “Ashes and ardor” and “Happiness troubled” in 1995 and 1997 of 1999 “Opus Florentinum” and “Passion.

Way of the Cross” (1999). Were many students who have been allowed interviews during the last years of his life. Many of these students came from many different parts of Italy.