Fate, [And Other Poems

by Ada Negri, Adelheid Maria Von Blomberg

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130 pages, Hardcover

First published June 28, 2011

About the author

Ada Negri was born in Lodi, Italy into an artisan family to Giuseppe Negri alongside his wife Vittoria Cornalba. She attended Lodi’s Normal School for Girls and earned an elementary teacher’s diploma. At eighteen, she took a position as schoolteacher in the village of Motta Visconti, on the Ticino, near Pavia. Her first volume of lyrics, Fatalità, (1892) confirmed her reputation as a poet, and led to her appointment to the normal school at Milan. Her second book of poems, Tempeste (1896), tells the helpless tragedy of the forsaken poor.

On 28 March 1896, she married industrialist Giovanni Garlanda of Biella, who had fallen in love with her from reading her poetry. By 1904 they had daughters, Bianca and Vittoria. The latter died in infancy. In 1913, Negri separated from her husband and moved to Switzerland with Bianca. Afterwards, she constantly moved. She was a frequent visitor to Laglio on Lake Como, where she wrote her only novel, an autobiographical work, Stella Mattutina (Morning Star), published in 1921, and in English in 1930. During an extended stay on Capri that began in March 1923, she wrote I canti dell'isola.

She became the first woman member of the Italian Academy in 1940. That achievement, however, also stained her later reputation since members of the Academy had to swear loyalty to the Fascist regime and were rewarded by it with various material benefits. On 11 January 1945, her daughter Bianca found Negri dead in her studio in Milan. She was 74 years old.

Her work was widely translated during her lifetime, with individual poems published in newspaper in the U.S. and elsewhere.

The actress Pola Negri (born Barbara Apolonia Chałupec), adopted the stage surname "Negri" in emulation of the poet. The actress Paola Pezzaglia was the ideal interpreter of her poetry on stage.

Reviews

[Carlo Mascellani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Esordio letterario della Negri. Una poesia schietta, sincera, che rifugge lo stile aulico per trasmettere messaggi semplici, ma straordinariamente intensi. Ricordi d'infanzia, l'amore passionale, la dolce e stimata figura materna, il disincanto dinanzi a una vita assai dura e dolorosa, l'amore per la genuinità operaia, per il lavoro onesto raffrontato al bieco arricchimento borghese, tristezza e speranza che si susseguono in un'anima profonda, sentimentale, oltre il cui sguardo malinconico sembra stagliarsi un intero universo d'emozioni.

[Francesca]

Non fu fatale l'incontro con Fatalità. Letto per amor d'archivio, l'archivio senza troppo amore. Tuttavia, è stata una lettura spedita, e per certi versi molto interessante: non rimpiango di aver letto quest'opera. Prima o poi, la rileggerò. Per ora, come detto, l'archivio senza patemi.

[Élise · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75/5
Alcune poesie molto belle e riuscite, altre purtroppo non all'altezza, ma sicuramente rimane un'opera che merita di essere letta da tutti.