Guido Gozzano died at thirty-two, having completed only two collections of poetry--La via del rifugio (The Road to Shelter, 1907) and I colloqui (The Colloquies, 1911); many of his works, poetry and prose, remained uncollected. La via del rifugio, while still tied to an Italian/ D'Annunzian tradition on the one hand and a foreign (mostly French/Belgian) tradition on the other (Maurice Maeterlinck, Paul Verlaine, Jules Laforgue), also indicates a certain independence. Gozzano borrowed heavily from other poets, at times paraphrasing, at times lifting entire verses. Yet he managed to manipulate, with irony, his constant borrowings and adapt them according to his own worldview and notions of poetry.

Gozzano was born on 19 December 1883 in Turin to an upper-middle-class family. His father, Fausto Gozzano, was an engineer; his mother, Diodata, daughter of the senator Massimo Mautino, was an actress. Gozzano attended the Liceo Cavour, the Istituto Ricaldone, and the Collegio...