Giovanni Pascoli (1855–1912) is renowned as one of the founders of modern Italian poetry. Embodying the Zeitgeist of fin-de-siècle Italy, his works are inspired by French Symbolism and Decadentism. They also draw on the classical tradition so alive in Italian culture. His unique poetic voice is filled with traditional metrical forms, an uncanny use of onomatopoeic language, and a multilingual vocabulary. He fills his depiction of nature with haunting images and a disquieting sensitivity.
Convivial Poems (Poemi Conviviali) is named for Il Convito, the literary journal where these twentu poems first appeared. The collection represents one of Pascoli’s highest achievements. Like T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, James Joyce’s Ulysses, and contemporary post-modernist works, it revisits the classical world to draw new symbols for the modern condition.
Alexandros
Alexandros is the Greek spelling of Alexander, and the protagonist of this poem is Alexander the Great. Here, Alexander has reached the end of known world, of which he has conquered a vast portion, driven as he was by a desire to gain not only power, but also knowledge, and to go where no one else had gone before. As he contemplates the ocean, the ultimate frontier, he muses on the meaning of desire. All things desired and longed for seem greater before we obtain them: dream is far better than reality. At the end of his long and victorious journey, Alexander is confronted with the illusory nature of human ambition.
The translators:
Elena Borelli teaches Italian and Intercultural Studies at King’s College London, UK. Her research focuses on the culture and literature of the late nineteenth century in Europe.
She has published extensively on the notion of desire and issues of translation and reception during that time, as well as on the poets Giovanni Pascoli and Gabriele D’Annunzio. She is also a translator, producing (together with James Ackhurst) translations from contemporary and modern poets for The Journal of Italian Translation.
James Ackhurst is a writer and translator based in Wellington, New Zealand. He has published translations (produced with Elena Borelli) in The Journal of Italian Translation and poems, stories, and criticism in takahe, Turbine, Poetry New Zealand, Snorkel, Pericles at Play, Poetry Salzburg Review, Quadrant and The Pantograph Punch.
An Ancient Language for a Modern Soul: Poemi Conviviali by Giovanni Pascoli
A podcast containing the poems read by actors and translators, with scholars and translators discussing the themes and characters of Poemi Conviviali. The poems are accompanied by harp music written specifically for the poems.
https://www.poemiconviviali.com/
Press Reviews
From Reading in Translation
Borelli and Ackhurst’s translation restores the knotty and convulsive energy that animates Pascoli’s figures, less epic heroes and more fragile human beings, who stare into the abyss of modern life with bubbling restlessness, existential angst, and occasionally serene resignation.
From Gradiva
The highlights of this book are too numerous to be listed, so I will give a brief recount. In her introduction, Borelli claims that Alexandros is an “exquisite poem” (xii), and it remains thus in English, as well.
From Annali di Italianistica
Convivial Poems imbues vibrancy and life into Pascoli’s verse through a refreshing diction that speaks to the present.
Translators Aloud is a YouTube channel devoted to sharing the work of literary translators, for both published and unpublished works.