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Margherita Guidacci

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Margherita Guidacci
Guidacci in the 1940s
Guidacci in the 1940s
Born(1921-04-25)25 April 1921
Florence, Italy
Died19 June 1992(1992-06-19) (aged 71)
Rome, Italy
OccupationPoet
Alma materUniversity of Florence (1943)
Period1950–1992
Notable works
Notable awards
  • Biella Poesia Award
    1978 Il vuoto e le forme
  • Caserta Prize
    1987
    (complete works)
Spouse
Luca Pinna
(m. 1949; died 1977)

Margherita Guidacci (Italian pronunciation: [marɡeˈriːta ɡwiˈdattʃi]; 25 April 1921 – 19 June 1992) was an Italian poet.

Early life and career

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House where Margherita Guidacci lived, located at Via della Mattonaia 43 in Florence

Born in Florence,[1] Guidacci graduated from the University of Florence in 1943 and traveled to England and Ireland in 1947.

After moving to Rome upon marriage, the poet taught English language and literature at the Liceo scientifico Cavour for ten years, from 1965 to 1975.[2] Guidacci obtained the libera docenza ("free teaching") in the English language and literature in 1972, and from 1975 to 1981, she taught English and American Literature at the University of Macerata and the College of Maria Assunta attached to the Vatican.[3]

Poetry and translations

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The poetry of Margherita Guidacci is deeply spiritual but not in the religious sense. Rather her poems include profound sentiments and a view of life as a search for regeneration and resurrection from death. Guidacci regarded life as a passage and its desolation and pain a means toward transformation beyond death.[citation needed]

Guidacci is noted for her Italian translations of English poets, including John Donne's sermons and Emily Dickinson's poetry.[4] T. S. Eliot[5] and Elizabeth Bishop are among other poets Guidacci translated into her native language.[6]

Literary awards

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In 1978, Guidacci was awarded the Biella Poesia literary prize for her collection Il vuoto e le forme. Guidacci traveled to the United States in 1986, and was the recipient of the 1987 Caserta Prize for her complete works. Among literary prizes Guidacci was awarded are: Carducci Prize, 1957; Ceppo Prize, 1971; Lerici Prize, 1972; Gabbici Prize, 1974; Seanno Prize, 1976.[7]

Paparazzi

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The English usage of the word paparazzi is credited to Margherita Guidacci's translation of Victorian writer George Gissing's travel book By the Ionian Sea (1901). A character in Margherita Guidacci's Sulle Rive dello Ionio (1957) is a restaurant-owner named Coriolano Paparazzo. The name was in turn chosen by Ennio Flaiano, the screenwriter of the Federico Fellini film, La Dolce Vita, who got it from Guidacci's book. By the late 1960s, the word, usually in the Italian plural form paparazzi, had entered the English lexicon as a generic term for intrusive photographers.[8][9]

Personal life

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Guidacci married the sociologist Luca Pinna in 1949, and they moved to Rome (where she would live until her death) in 1957. He died in 1977.[2]

Published works

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  • Guidacci, Margherita (1980). Brevi e lunghe: Poesie (Collana letteraria ; 5) (in Italian). Libreria Editrice Vaticana. ISBN 978-88-209-1328-1.
  • Guidacci, Margherita (1989). Il buio e lo splendore (I Garzanti poesia) (in Italian). Garzanti. ISBN 978-88-11-63905-3.
  • Guidacci, Margherita (1999). Prose e interviste (Egeria) (in Italian). Editrice C.R.T. ISBN 978-88-87296-62-4.

Translations

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  • Guidacci, Margherita (1989). A Book of Sibyls: Poems. Translated by Ruth Feldman. Rowan Tree Press. ISBN 978-0-937672-26-6.
  • Guidacci, Margherita (April 1992). Landscape With Ruins: Selected Poetry of Margherita Guidacci. Translated by Ruth Feldman. Wayne State Univ Pr. ISBN 978-0-8143-2352-6.
  • Guidacci, Margherita (2004). Selection of Modern Italian Poetry in Translation. McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 0-7735-2697-8.[10]
  • Guidacci, Margherita (1993). In the eastern sky: Selected poems of Margherita Guidacci. Dedalus. ISBN 978-1-873790-22-9.
  • Guidacci, Margherita (1975). Poems from Neurosuite. Translated by Marina La Palma. Kelsey Street Press.
  • Guidacci, Margherita. Le Retable d'Issenheim. ARFUYEN.
  • Guidacci, Margherita (1992) [1921]. L'altare di Isenheim. Rusconi, Milano, 1980, Gambetti, 1997.
  • Guidacci, Margherita. Isenheimski oltar. Translated from the Italian by Gérard Pfister. Jezik/Language: Croatian.

References

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  1. ^ (in French) Mort de Margherita Guidacci, Angèle Paoli
  2. ^ a b Encyclopedia of Italian literary studies: A-J, index, Volume 1 edited by Gaetana Marrone, Paolo Puppa, Luca Somigli
  3. ^ Italian Women Writers Margherita Guidacci
  4. ^ Rizzo, Patricia Thompson. Emily Dickinson and the "blue peninsula": Dickinson's reception in Italy The Emily Dickinson Journal - Volume 8, Number 1, Spring 1999, pp. 97-107
  5. ^ T. S. Eliot Collection, 1905, 1917-1979 Archived 2010-06-06 at the Wayback Machine. Harry Ranson Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin
  6. ^ Encyclopedia of Italian literary studies Margherita Guidacci; Biography; published essays, translations, poems
  7. ^ An Encyclopedia of continental women writers, Volume 1; By Katharina M. Wilson
  8. ^ Word Origins and History Archived 2010-12-20 at the Wayback Machine paparazzi
  9. ^ The Hollywood Scandal Almanac, by Jerry Roberts, p. 120
  10. ^ Payne, R.L. (2004). Selection of Modern Italian Poetry in Translation. MQUP. p. 186. ISBN 9780773571846. Retrieved 2015-04-13.
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