Luciano Rebay collection of Giuseppe Ungaretti, 1964-1970, bulk 1927-1989

Summary Information

Abstract

Rebay and Ungaretti were close friends. Rebay held the first endowed Ungaretti chair of Italian literature and assembled this collection of recording and files.

Description

Scope and Content

Rebay and Ungaretti were close friends. Rebay held the first endowed Ungaretti chair of Italian literature and assembled this collection of recording and files.

The collection consist mostly of reel to reel tapes (18) and cassettes (22) of lectures given by Giuseppe Ungaretti at Columbia University, 1964, and University of Oklahoma, 1970. There are typed copies of his lectures on Giacomo Leopardi; photographs of Ungaretti; 2 meallions; and two books.

Arrangement

Arranged in six series.

Using the Collection

Conditions Governing Access

You will need to make an appointment in advance to use this collection material in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room. You can schedule an appointment once you've submitted your request through your Special Collections Research Account.

Box 1 and 2 are located off-site. You will need to request this material at least three business days in advance to use the collection in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room.

Conditions Governing Use

Reproductions may be made for research purposes. Permission to publish material from the collection must be requested from the Curator of Manuscripts/University Archivist, Rare Book and Manuscript Library (RBML). The RBML approves permission to publish that which it physically owns; the responsibility to secure copyright permission rests with the patron.

Preferred Citation

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Luciano Rebay Collection of Giuseppe Ungaretti; Box and Folder; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library

Accruals

Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. Contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Donated by the family of Luciano Rebay, Guiseppe Ungaretti Professor Information of of Italian Literature, Columbia University.

About the Finding Aid / Processing Information

Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Processing Information

Processed by Patrick Lawlor, 7/27/2018

Revision Description

2018-08-03 File created.

2019-05-20 EAD was imported spring 2019 as part of the ArchivesSpace Phase II migration.

Biographical / Historical

Giuseppe Ungaretti (born Feb. 10, 1888, Alexandria—died June 1, 1970, Milan) was born of Italian parents in the Egyptian seaport of Alexandria. Ungaretti studied in Paris in 1912, where he met Guillaume Apollinaire, Pablo Picasso, and Georges Braque. In Paris he fell under the influence of the French Symbolist poets, especially Stéphane Mallarmé.

Ungaretti fought in the trenches of World War I, and in his first book of poems, L'Allegria (1914–19; "Joie de Vivre"), he confronted that harrowing experience in verse that is both sparce and isolated. His tone and style changed in Sentimento del tempo (1933; "Sentiment of Time") where the verse is more expansive and rich, although strange and difficult.

Ungaretti is credited as the founder the influental Hermetic movement in modern Italian poetry.

From 1936 to 1942 Ungaretti taught Italian literature at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. The war and the loss of his son are expressed in his 1947 work Il dolore ( "Grief "). In 1942 Ungaretti returned to Italy and taught contemporary Italian literature at the University of Rome until his retirement in 1957. Important volumes published during this time are La terra promessa (1950; "The Promised Land") and Un grido e paesaggi (1952). Among his later volumes were Il taccuino del vecchio (1960; "An Old Man's Notebook") and Morte delle stagioni (1967; "Death of the Seasons").

In 1964, Ungaretti gave a series of lectures at Columbia University in New York City, and, in 1970, he was invited by the University of Oklahoma to receive its Books Abroad Prize. It was during this last trip that Ungaretti fell ill with bronchopneumonia. He returned to Milan wher he died.

Ungaretti translated into Racine's Phèdre, a collection of Shakespeare's sonnets, and works of Luis de Góngora y Argote, Stéphane Mallarmé, and William Blake.

Subject Headings

The subject headings listed below are found in this collection. Links below allow searches for other collections at Columbia University, through CLIO, the catalog for Columbia University Libraries, and through ArchiveGRID, a catalog that allows users to search the holdings of multiple research libraries and archives.

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