Frequently characterized by a violent wrenching of rhythm within a sometimes extreme metrical experimentation, and by an aggressive, eccentric, and cacophonous linguistic expressionism uncommon in the Italian lyric tradition, Clemente Rèbora's difficult verses--in particular those of his first volume of poetry, Frammenti lirici (Lyrical Fragments, 1913)--present the reader with perhaps the most intense utterances of twentieth-century Italian poetry. Representing a radical break with Gabriele D'Annunzio's aestheticizing heroism (though D'Annunzian elements are absorbed and transmuted by Rèbora) and the crepuscular renunciatory mode (low-keyed and melancholically self-ironic at its best), as well as differing from the exhibitionistic anarchical vitalism of futurism, Rèbora's tensive new style is thematically linked to a highly charged moral and mystical impulse even in his "secular" phase, that is, before his conversion to Catholicism in 1929. His poetry reflects urgently and persuasively the crisis in values and the desire for renewal...