Background

Maria Luisa Spaziani was born on December 7, 1924, in Turin, Piemonte, Italy.

Education

In her youth, Maria Spaziani traveled to Paris and Cologne, two cities that proved to be compatible with her inner sense of an ideal poetic landscape. She studied at the University of Turin, where she specialized in modern philology and, in particular, in French language and literature. In 1948, Spaziani produced a dissertation on Marcel Proust.

Career

In 1942, Maria Spaziani began her literary career by founding the periodical Il dado, which lasted into the following year. In Il dado, Spaziani published original writings as well as translations from works in French, English, and German. Five years later she returned to Paris, where she found poetic inspiration. She engaged in contacts with the masters of artistic creation who was then living in Paris. She soon had the opportunity to capture the excessive interest and extraordinary knowledge of French literature, by means of translations into Italian of some of the most significant works of René Valenciennes, André Gide, Jean Racine, and Marguerite Yourcenar.

In 1954, she published her first two poetry volumes, Primavera a Parigi (Springtime in Paris), and Le acque del Sabato (The Sabbath's Waters), both of which show the influence of Eugenio Montale. In these early works, Spaziani readily established herself as a somber, contemplative artist.

In the 1960s, Spaziani produced Il gong (The Gong) and Utilita della memorial (The Usefulness of Memory), two prize-winning collections that served to solidify her status among Italy's prominent poets. In the ensuing decade, however, she began demonstrating an increasing inclination to consider both the limitations of poetic expression and the more insidious aspects of human experience. Cecilia Rose declared in World Literature Today that in Transito con catene (Passage with Chains), Spaziani expresses "a concern for the eternal dilemmas of mankind: whether it is worthwhile to be born; whether there is an afterlife." Although Maria Spaziani questions the nature of human existence, she also continues to value poetry as what Lucia Marino, writing in World Literature Today, called "the incantation that wards off external chaos and darkness."

Giovanna d'Arco is a volume comprised of nearly 14,000 verses about Joan of Arc, the French mystic and warrior who was condemned as a heretic and burned at the stake. Writing in World Literature Today, Michela Montante observed that the "point that Spaziani seems to be making is that each of us must follow our own destiny. In fact, if we turn away from it, we are doomed to boredom and despair." Among Spaziani's other writings are plays, including La vedova Goldoni (The widow Goldoni), wherein a prostitute and Maria Nicoletta Connio, widow of famed playwright Carlo Goldoni, discuss their sexual experiences.

Spaziani's last work, Donne in poesia (Women in Poetry), is a collection of twenty imaginary interviews with nineteenth- and twentieth-century women poets, with the intent of filling the historical silence that to a certain extent engulfs them. The interviewer, a male alter ego of Spaziani, with the help of the more neutral voice of the narrator, inquires about the dramatic experience of the poets and the hidden details of their lives and deaths, and analyzes the reasons behind their poetic practices.

In 1964, Maria Spaziani became a professor of French language and literature at the University of Messina. She also contributed to periodicals, including La Stampa.

Achievements

• Maria Spaziani was a recipient of numerous awards. She was nominated thrice for the Nobel Prize for Literature: in 1990, 1992, and 1997. Spaziani published many poetry books and critical studies, notably on French drama since the eighteenth century. She also had many translations to her name.

Works

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• book

  • Star of Free Will

    (Amidst the many literary movements that have characterize...)

    1996
  • Sentry Towers

    (Sentry Towers is a welcome addition to the growing body o...)

  • Tell the Oak Tree to Grow Faster

    (This is the first book of Maria Luisa Spaziani's aphorism...)

    2009
  • Painted Fire: A Selection of Poems, 1954-2006

    (Maria Spaziani seizes on the objects of everyday life and...)

    2010
  • Tutte le poesie 2012

Personality

Maria Spaziani had a deep poetic sensitivity, a humanistic insatiable curiosity, some astonishing intellectual skills, and an open and cosmopolitan spirit.

Interests

• Writers

  Stéphane Mallarmé, Salvatore Quasimodo, Dino Campana, Eugenio Montale, Giuseppe Ungaretti

Connections

Maria Spaziani's life-long friend was poet Eugenio Montale. She met him during a lecture at Teatro Carignano in Turin, in January 1949.

Friend:

Eugenio Montale

Maria Spaziani was encouraged to write poetry by Eugenio Montale, who also influenced her style. She was a President of the International Eugenio Montale Society.