Senator for life
Carlo Bo
Bo in 1954
Senator for life
In office
18 July 1984 – 21 July 2001
Appointed bySandro Pertini
Personal details
Born(1911-01-25)25 January 1911
Sestri Levante, Italy
Died21 July 2001(2001-07-21) (aged 90)
Genoa, Italy
ProfessionProfessor, writer

Carlo Bo (25 January 1911 – 21 July 2001) was an Italian poet, literary critic, distinguished humanist, professor and senator for life from 1984.

Biography

Bo was born on January 25, 1911, in Sestri Levante, Italy.[1][2]

From 1929 to 1934, he attended the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Florence. Although he began studying classical literature, he soon switched to modern literature, in which he received his laurea in 1934.[3]

Bo wrote his first book in 1935, a monograph on Jacques Riviere.[4] Before the Second World War, in the year 1936, he published an essay on the literary magazine Il Frontespizio which gathered together the most relevant poets like Mario Luzi, and contemporary artists from Ottone Rosai to Giorgio Morandi and Quinto Martini. His essay was titled "Letteratura come vita (Literature as a way of life)", containing the theoretical-methodological fundamentals of hermetic poetry.[5][6]

In 1939 he began teaching French literature at the University of Urbino.[4] Bo was the rector of University of Urbino from 1947 until his death, for more than 50 years.[1][7]

Bo was appointed a senator for life on July 18, 1984, and has been a member of several parties.[6][8] He served with the Christian Democrats from 1987 to 1994; the Italian People's Party from 1994 to 2001; and The Daisy from 2001 until his death later that year.[2]

Bo died in Genoa on July 21, 2001.[1][2]

Legacy

His focus on hermetic poetry was to become a strong poetical movement comprising important poets, such as Salvatore Quasimodo and Eugenio Montale, both of whom would go on to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature (1959, 1975). Carlo Bo himself, however, never did and, at the age of 86, was rendered incapable of understanding Dario Fo's 1997 receipt of the Nobel Prize in Literature, saying "I must be too old to understand. What does this mean? That everything changes, even literature has changed."[9]

Bo is credited with writing roughly 40 books and would also found the national Gentile da Fabriano prize.[4][10]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Hanley, Anne (2001-07-24). "Carlo Bo". The Independent. Retrieved 2020-10-16.
  2. 1 2 3 "senato.it - Scheda di attività di Carlo BO - XIV Legislatura". www.senato.it (in Italian). Italian Senate. Retrieved 2020-10-20.
  3. ↑ "Biografia di Carlo Bo". Fondazione Carlo e Marise Bo per la letteratura europea moderna e contemporanea (in Italian). Retrieved 2022-06-23.
  4. 1 2 3 Wellek, René (1955). A History of Modern Criticism: French, Italian and Spanish criticism, 1900-1950. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-05451-4.
  5. ↑ Ziolkowski, Saskia Elizabeth (2020-01-06). Kafka's Italian Progeny. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1-4875-0630-8.
  6. 1 2 Moliterno, Gino (2002-09-11) [2000]. Encyclopedia of Contemporary Italian Culture. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-75877-7.
  7. ↑ Who's who in Italy (in Italian). Intercontinental Book and Publishing. 2009. ISBN 9788885246676.
  8. ↑ Daily Report: West Europe. United States Foreign Broadcast Information Service. April 1992.
  9. ↑ Gumbel, Andrew (10 October 1997). "Nobel Prize: Dario Fo, the showman, wins Nobel literature prize". The Independent. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  10. ↑ "FABRIANO / Premio Gentile da Fabriano, ecco i vincitori delle sezioni". QdM Notizie (in Italian). 2020-10-10. Retrieved 2020-10-16.
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