In the varied panorama of styles and movements that characterize twentieth-century Italian literature, Alfonso Gatto cannot be firmly anchored to one movement because he was influenced by several. His poetry is, however, some of the finest from the years between the two world wars. His early poetry shows the influence of surrealism, and his sometimes dense language and imagery group him with the hermetic school of poetry. Ernestina Pellegrino sensed in his work "i toni di un certo crepuscolarismo ... in quell'insistenza della 'sera,' ora 'armoniosa,' ora 'tranquilla'" (the tones of a certain crepuscularism in that insistence on "evening," which is at times "harmonious," at others "tranquil"). Gatto's lyric tone and subject matter are personal and varied, but he was not an innovator of forms, preferring to concentrate on typical Italian meter. In an autobiographical article published in La Fiera letteraria, he described his poetry: "le mie...