Halcyon

D'Annunzio Gabriele

Gabriele d'Annunzio (1863-1938), the most influential and controversial Italian poet of the last hundred years, published his masterpiece "Halcyon" in 1903. It is a carefully organized sequence of eighty-eight lyrics which, to gain their full effect, must be read as a whole. "Halcyon" is a "solar diary" of a summer spent in Tuscany, part of the time with the legendary Eleanora Duse. The poems evoke specific times and places; more importantly, they conjure up emotions, memories and myths associated with each place. Beginning in early summer, they move through the seasons, changing in verse-form and mood, always delighting in the sensuous qualities of language.

J. G. Nicholls's translation makes the richness and subtlety of d'Annunzio's poetry accessible to the English-speaking reader, and his introduction illuminates the complex themes and structure of the work. He provides a full glossary of places and references.

About the Author

Gabrielle D'Annunzio was a poet emphatically reveared in his native Italy during the Facsist years under Mussolini. Initially refered to by nationalists as Il Vate ("the Poet") this ultimately escalated to Il Profeta ("the Prophet") after he lead sections of the Italian army to seemingly miraculous victories in World War I. D'Annunzio is often seen as a precursor of the ideals and techniques of Italian fascism and was considered by many as a serious alternative leader to Mussolini in the early 1920s. His literary work offers breadth of subject to the reader; including much desciption of natural landscape and the life of the peasant, all given in an idiosyncratically suggestive manner.

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