Le poesie giovanili in Italiano di Vincenzo Maria Pellegrini

Abstract

The article provides an overview of the poems written in Italian by Vincenzo Maria Pellegrini (1911-1997) between 1932 and 1935. It focuses especially on the two anthologies he published in his youth, namely Pensieri, Accenti e Sillabe (1933) and Vele allo Orizzonte (1935), and the main topics he wrote about in his verses. It illustrates how Pellegrini’s poems on his favourite subjects, i.e. poetry itself, Malta and Italy as his native and spiritual homelands, love, nature and religion, reflect his youthful literary enthusiasm and political activism, and shows the extent of the influence exerted on him by Giosuè Carducci. The article shows how Pellegrini strongly endeavored to hone his literary skills in his early anthologies by imitating his canonical models while exploring new forms of poetry, such as the short sonnet (‘sonetto breve’) he invented.