Pick two poets who seem to have nothing to do with each other — a Gothic American and a pastoral Englishman, say — and see where the catalogue actually joins them: overlapping years, shared ground, distinctive themes, and the poems that secretly rhyme.
Amy Lowell
Gabriele D'Annunzio
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
Amy Lawrence Lowell emerged from the staid drawing rooms of Boston's Brahmin society to become one of the most controversial and influential poets of early twentieth-century America. Born on February 9, 1874, into one of New England's most distinguished families, she would spend her fifty-one years challenging literary conventions, championing new poetic forms, and leaving an indelible mark on American literature. He…
“Only a vigorous tree has the vitality to put forth new branches.”
On March 12, 1863, in the coastal city of Pescara in the Abruzzi region of Italy, a child was born who would come to embody the restless, turbulent spirit of his age like no other writer of his generation. Baptized Gaetano, he would forever be known by the name his family gave him in childhood—Gabriele—a name that seemed to foreshadow the angelic, almost otherworldly presence he would project throughout his life. Gab…
“Bisogna fare della propria vita come si fa un’opera d’arte.”
About 6,664 km separate Boston, Massachusetts, USA from Pescara, Abruzzo, Italy. Different countries, different weather — unless a poem carries one landscape into the other.
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
Amy Lowell: boston, imagist movement, ada dwyer russell, sword blades and poppy seed, patterns, the taxi, can grande's castle, tendencies in modern american poetry. Gabriele D'Annunzio: pescara, abruzzi, maria hardouin di gallese, eleonora duse, il piacere, canto novo, laudi del cielo del mare della terra e degli eroi, alcyone.
The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.
Notable events from the years they were both alive.
Amy Lowell: Longing, Tenderness, Wonder. Gabriele D'Annunzio: Wonder, Spirituality, Longing.
Install V2Melody
Add a home-screen icon for quicker listening in a simple app window.