The beginnings of Alessandro Parronchi's literary and critical endeavors occurred in Florence in the 1930s. At first, with his contemporaries Mario Luzi and Piero Bigongiari, he followed in the foot-steps of the hermetic poets from the early years of the twentieth century. His early verses show how he assimilated and elaborated the hermetic style, adding his personal tone. Parronchi's images spring from the traditional poetic vocabulary, modified by new meanings, the way the hermetic poets approach the language. He adopted their use of the word as a symbol of the deepest, often ambiguous, emotions; their freely structured verses; their lyricism; and, most of all, their sensitivity. His early poetry traces the hermetic technique of translating reality into a highly subjective poetic language of obscure images that creates a rarefied, metaphysical atmosphere. What he also shares with the early works of hermetic poets (especially Giuseppe Ungaretti, Salvatore Quasimodo, and...