Alda Merini

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Alda Merini (born March 21, 1931 Milan , † November 1, 2009 ibid) was an Italian poet and novelist.

Portrait of Merini, smoking a cigarette
Expressions of mourning after Merini's death at her house entrance

Life

Alda Merini was the middle child of a housewife and a manager of the Assicurazioni Generali Venezia . Since she did not pass the entrance examination in Italian for the traditional liceo Manzoni , she attended the Laura Solera Mantegazza technical college instead. Merini also devoted himself to playing the piano.

Through the mediation of Silvana Rovelli , Merini has been sponsored by Angelo Romanò and Giacinto Spagnoletti since she was 16 years old . The latter recorded two of the 19-year-olds' poems in Poesia italiana contemporanea 1909-1949 (1950), Luce and Il gobbo , and also wrote the foreword for their critically acclaimed collection of poems La presenza di Orfeo, published in 1953 . Her poems also appeared in the Quarta generazione edited by Luciano Erba and Piero Chiara , which also gave its name to a poetic movement. In 1951, on the recommendation of Eugenio Montales and Maria Luisa Spazianis, four of their poems were published in the book Poetesse del Novecento . Both Giorgio Manganelli , whom she met at Spagnoletti's house, and Salvatore Quasimodo were among her lovers. In 1953, however, Merini married a bakery chain owner named Ettore Carniti, with whom she gave birth to four children.

Her poems were very much appreciated by Pier Paolo Pasolini and Maria Corte . It was then also Corte who helped Merini to republish after her stay of twenty years in various psychiatric institutions. In 1981 Merini's husband died. After marrying the poet Michele Pierri two years later, she moved to his hometown. There in Taranto she wrote her first work in prose. She described in L'altra verità. Diario di una diversa diary-like scenes from her life.

The Navigli section in the Corso di Ripa Ticinese, she returned to a psychiatric institution for another stay. There it developed into the pazza della porta accanto , the madman next door. But she never seemed to lose her zest for life: “Io la vita l 'ho goduta tutta, a dispetto di quello che vanno dicendo sul manicomio. Io la vita l 'ho goduta perché mi piace anche l' inferno della vita, e la vita è spesso un inferno. Per me la vita è stata bella perché l 'ho pagata cara », (I have enjoyed my whole life, despite what they say about the insane asylums. I enjoyed life because I like hell in life and life is often hell. For me, life was beautiful because I had to pay dearly) she stated in an interview in 1994. After her death on All Saints' Day in 2009 in the San Paolo Hospital, she was buried on November 4th with a state funeral and mass in the Duomo in Milan . Her grave is in the Cimitero Monumentale cemetery next to Italian literary greats such as Alessandro Manzoni and Salvatore Quasimodo .

plant

The connection of eroticism with mysticism or religion, of light and shadow runs through the entire work of Merini. Her style shows an immense concentration and only became a bit more direct and spontaneous over time.

La Terra Santa is noticeably shaped by her hospital stays and is seen as her main work.

Prizes and awards

  • In 1993 she received the Premio Librex-Guggenheim "Eugenio Montale" for poetry
  • Premio Latina 1995 and finalist of the Premio Rapallo 1996 for La pazza della porta accanto
  • 1996 the Premio Viareggio
  • In 1996 she was proposed by the Académie française for the Nobel Prize for Literature
  • 1997 the Premio Procida-Elsa Morante
  • 1999 the Premio della Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri for the field of poetry
  • Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, Third Class on June 1, 2002
  • In 2002 she received for Magnificat. Un incontro con Maria the Premio Dessì for poetry
  • In 2007 she received the 'Elsa Morante Ragazzi' award for 'Alda e Io - Favole' in collaboration with the fable writer Sabatino Scia

Works

poetry
  • La presenza di Orfeo (Black 1953)
  • Paura di Dio (Scheiwiller 1955)
  • Nozze romanes (Black 1955)
  • Tu be Pietro (Scheiwiller 1962)
  • La presenza di Orfeo (Scheiwiller 1993, the edition contains all four works mentioned above)
  • La Terra Santa (Scheiwiller 1984)
  • Testament (Crocetti 1988)
  • Vuoto d'amore (Einaudi 1991)
  • Ballate non pagate (Einaudi 1995)
  • Fiore di poesia (1951–1997) (Einaudi 1998)
  • Superba è la notte (Einaudi 2000)
  • L'anima innamorata (Frassinelli 2000)
  • Corpo d'amore, Un incontro con Gesù (Frassinelli 2001)
  • Magnificat. Un incontro con Maria (Frassinelli 2002)
  • Poema di Pasqua (Acquaviva 2003)
  • La carne degli Angeli (Frassinelli 2003)
  • Più bella della poesia è stata la mia vita (Einaudi 2003 with VHS )
  • Clinica dell'abbandono (Einaudi 2004)
prose
  • L'altra verità. Diario di una diversa (Scheiwiller 1986)
  • Delirio amoroso (il Melangolo 1989)
  • Il tormento delle figure (il Melangolo 1990)
  • Le parole di Alda Merini (Stampa alternativa 1991)
  • La pazza della porta accanto (Bompiani 1995)
  • La vita facile (Bompiani 1996)
  • Lettere a un racconto. Prose lunghe e brevi (Rizzoli 1998)
  • Il ladro Giuseppe. Racconti degli anni Sessanta (Scheiwiller 1999)

documentation

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Merini's biography on italialibri.it
  2. ↑ Stefano Giovanardi, Alda Merini, la poetessa folle che cantava l 'amore e gli esclusi, November 2, 2009, La repubblica.
  3. ↑ Death notice on Merini's website ( Memento from November 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ A portrait of Alda Merini - Italy honors poet with state funeral in Milan Cathedral ( Memento of the original from February 29, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Europolitan.de, November 5, 2009 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.europolitan.de
  5. ↑ obituary Merinis site ( Memento of 3 November 2009 at the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ Prices according to biography on Merini's website ( Memento from December 25, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ Proof of the Quirinale
  8. ↑ synopsis of the film on Merinis site ( Memento of 18 July 2009 at the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Merini, Alda
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian poet
DATE OF BIRTH March 21, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Milan
DATE OF DEATH November 1, 2009
Place of death Milan