Giovanni Pascoli

Pascoli stands in the doorway. He is both a last romantic and Italy's first modern poet. Beloved for his poems of family and the nest, he is also one of the first voices of modern depth psychology. Steeped in the Italian landscape and drawn into the spell of little creatures, he catches the natural world with scientific accuracy, becoming one of our earliest ecological poets. A revolutionary who writes with emotion about the rural poor, he also reports on the first wave of Italian immigrants to the new world. This collection assembles Giovanni Pascoli's central and prophetic study of the imagination, O Little One, an extensive selection of poems delineating his long career, and a late and previously untranslated essay on the poetry of dead languages. The translator's introduction examines Pascoli's place as a liminal figure, situated at the conjunction of multiple worlds, casting a visionary light on whatever he beholds.