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storyteller song collector poet
Eugenio Cirese was born on February 21, 1884, in Fossalto, Italy, a tiny hamlet located in the mountains of the Molise region of Italy. His parents, Luigi and Rosalina (Bagnoli) Cirese, had four other children, as well. Despite a large family, Cirese had a thoughtful and quiet childhood.
After completing his elementary education, Eugenio took a degree.
Eugenio began to teach elementary school. Eventually, he and his family moved to Castropignano, where Cirese taught the local children and wrote poetry.
His early poems, as fellow writer Pier Paolo Pasolini once remarked, according to Luigi Bonaffini, are songs in the folk tradition. Cirese's first volume of poems, Canti popolari e sonetti in dialetto molisano ("Folk Songs and Sonnets in the Dialect of Molise," 1910) contains not only his compositions in the sonnet form (a "high cultural" lyric form), but also his reworking of old folk songs (the "rough, but expressive" form of simple people, as he called it). In both forms, however, Cirese manages to speak in plain language about the mundane beauties of daily life.
Cirese continued to publish homey, nostalgic poetry as well as chronicles of his region in volumes such as Sciure de fratta ("Brushwood Flowers," 1910) and La guerra: Discurzi di cafuni ("The War: Conversations among Peasants," 1912). He once described this work as emerging "from the people, natural source of forms and concepts."
In 1914 he accepted a position as principal of a different elementary school from Giovanni Gentile, then became the minister of education in Italy. But from this position he was quickly swept into World War I. Cirese served in Macerata, where he met the writers Luigi Lodi and Raffaello Biordi. From this experience he developed a political consciousness that was to emerge in his later poetry. For example, in his next book, Ru cantone del la fata ("The Fairy's Rock," 1916), Cirese versifies the story of a folk myth: a young girl dies rather than succumb to a Lord's sexual demands. Like all of Cirese's poetry, the legend nostalgically draws on folk culture, but in its lines one can also see Cirese's recognition of political power and its significance in shaping folk culture.
Cirese had returned to his former position - as an elementary school principal - following his time in the army. He continued the work he had begun before the war, both as educator and as poet. In 1918 he published Suspire e risatelle ("Sighs and Snickers"), in which his early work is presented in full, along with some new work focusing on ordinary people moving through the events - both personal and political - of their lives. He also included some love songs in which political and cultural projects seem to give way to a more focused attention to language.
During this period, Cirese continued to celebrate and crystallize Molise culture, acting as ambassador, so to speak, for his region. In 1925, under the direction of Giuseppe Lombardo Radice, Cirese produced a volume entitled Genie buona ("Gentle People"), introducing educators and students to the rich culture and history of the Molise region. Since the trend in education had made the students4 particular background a matter of increasing importance, Cirese's primer attempted to educate others in the folk culture of the area he knew so well. In this text Cirese explains his region's history, its economic concerns, and its holidays, and in so doing he manages to convey much of his pride in his homeland.
Cirese also continued to focus on questions of homeland in his 1926 song. Canzone d'atre Петре ("Song of Other Times"), for which he composed both lyrics and music. The song became a hit of sorts: it was widely known and came to be accepted almost as a long-standing ballad from the people. According to Bonaffini.
In 1933 Cirese published a collection of his early folk poems, Rugiade, in which he again works to celebrate the unique cultural identity of the Italians in the Molise region.
In 1938 Cirese became a school inspector, and at the same time he collected a number of stories in the dialect he loved: Tempo d'allora ("Old Days"). Some two years later, he attempted to broaden his scope to include another of Italy's regions, Rieti, though in this effort he was hampered by his lack of personal history in the region. Nevertheless, it was in Rieti (his last home) that Cirese wrote his most famous volume of poems, Lucecabelle (1951), in which he both collects many of his early poems and publishes new verses. His late work focuses on "universal" themes, such as death or memory.
Following this dark passage, Cirese returned once more to the folk songs of his early years, publishing a collection of Molise songs called Canti popolari di Molise ("Popular Songs of Molise," 1953). He also founded a journal called La Lapa, in which he published various essays and writings that could help to distinguish an "authentic regional image," as Bonaffini explained it. Cirese died two years later, on February 8, 1955. But even then, Cirese's work continued, for his son published a second volume of Cirese's Molise folk songs in 1957.
Eugenio Cirese is best known for his poems and songs in the Molise dialect of the Italian language. As a collector and transcriber of the region's culture - and as a poet writing in the region's traditions - Cirese brought the Molise area's particular cultural flavor to international attention. Despite his focus on the traditions and tones of Molise culture, however, he identified himself as a poet for humanity at large.
It was Cirese's deep connection to the Molise folk culture that characterizes his work: it is through the particularity of the Molise dialect that Cirese was able to approach a poetry with "no boundaries."
Quotations: "If it is poetry, can have neither limits nor boundaries."
Eugenio was married to Aida Ruscitti with whom he had a son Alberto.
