In this article, you will find ten of the best Italian poems with English translations. Reading them will be a perfect way to get closer to Italian poetry and the Italian language.
The history and evolution of the Italian language owe a great deal to poetry. The birth of the language that is still spoken today in Italy comes precisely from the most important poems, such as Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. Discovering Italy through verses is a special way to fully appreciate Italian culture and understand more about Italian people.
Today, we will travel through Italy accompanied by the rhymes with which the poets and poetesses, who have inhabited and lived it over the years, have decided to tell about it.
The best Italian poems with English Translation: a selection
We begin with Alda Merini, a woman from Milan who dedicated her entire existence to poetry, defining it as “saving”. Born in 1931, her eccentricity was considered uncomfortable and to be “treated” in those years.
The great strength of her works and of her as an artist and woman derives, in fact, from her ability to transform the traumatic experience she lived through in the asylum into something purely artistic.
Through her writings, the reader is plunged into a world in which marginalization, disappointment, and suffering are told in a crystal-clear and very definite way.
However, she never leaves aside the theme that she says saved her: love. In the poem “I Need Feelings,” all these elements emerge.
Ho bisogno di sentimenti
Io non ho bisogno di denaro.
Ho bisogno di sentimenti,
di parole, di parole scelte sapientemente,
di fiori detti pensieri,
di rose dette presenze,
di sogni che abitino gli alberi,
di canzoni che facciano danzare le statue,
di stelle che mormorino all’orecchio degli amanti.
Ho bisogno di poesia,
questa magia che brucia la pesantezza delle parole,
che risveglia le emozioni e dà colori nuovi.
La mia poesia è alacre come il fuoco
trascorre tra le mie dita come un rosario.
Non prego perché sono un poeta della sventura
che tace, a volte, le doglie di un parto dentro le ore,
sono il poeta che grida e che gioca con le sue grida,
sono il poeta che canta e non trova parole,
sono la paglia arida sopra cui batte il suono,
sono la ninna nanna che fa piangere i figli,
sono la vanagloria che si lascia cadere,
il manto di metallo di una lunga preghiera
del passato cordoglio che non vede la luce.
I Need Feelings
I need feelings
I don’t need money
I need feelings,
words, carefully chosen words,
flowers said thoughts,
roses said presence,
dreams that inhabit trees,
songs that make statues dance,
stars that whisper in lovers’ ears.
I need poetry,
this magic that burns the weight of words,
that awakens emotions and gives new colors.
My poetry is as lively as fire,
it flows through my fingers like a rosary.
I don’t pray because I am a poet of misfortune
who, at times, silences the pains of birth within the hours,
I am the poet who screams and plays with his screams,
I am the poet who sings and finds no words,
I am the dry straw on which the sound beats,
I am the lullaby that makes children cry,
I am the vanity that falls,
the metal cloak of a long prayer
of past sorrow that does not see the light.
In these verses, Merini explores the importance of emotions in our lives and how they shape our experiences.
Through the use of language and images, always very clear, Merini creates a vivid portrait of the human experience, capturing the complexity and depth of our emotions.
This Italian love poem testifies to Merini’s ability as a writer and her capacity to convey the complexity of the human experience in a powerful and moving way.
Unfortunately, it seems that suffering was truly her great companion to share life with: Alda died at the age of 78 due to bone cancer.
But her poems still fill the hearts and ears of those who listen to them today, and it will be so for a long time.
11 years before Alda Merini, in 1922, another character was born in Rome who changed the history of Italian artistic life in the 20th century: Pier Paolo Pasolini. His work spans various genres, such as poetry, essays, novels, and films.
Pasolini’s poetry reflects his social, political, and cultural views.
Like Merini, he also puts his struggles as an outcast individual in Italian society at the center of his work, and his sharp and raw language captures the essence of the Italian working-class lifestyle, often criticizing the wealthier class and moving towards themes of identity, sexuality, and religion.
One of the compositions that best expresses his need to criticize contemporary society is “To My Nation,” published in 1961.
Alla mia nazione
Non popolo arabo, non popolo balcanico, non popolo antico
ma nazione vivente, ma nazione europea:
e cosa sei? Terra di infanti, affamati, corrotti,
governanti impiegati di agrari, prefetti codini,
avvocatucci unti di brillantina e i piedi sporchi,
funzionari liberali carogne come gli zii bigotti,
una caserma, un seminario, una spiaggia libera, un casino!
Milioni di piccoli borghesi come milioni di porci
pascolano sospingendosi sotto gli illesi palazzotti,
tra case coloniali scrostate ormai come chiese.
Proprio perché tu sei esistita, ora non esisti,
proprio perché fosti cosciente, sei incosciente.
E solo perché sei cattolica, non puoi pensare
che il tuo male è tutto male: colpa di ogni male.
Sprofonda in questo tuo bel mare, libera il mondo.
To My Nation
Not an Arab people, not a Balkan people, not an ancient people,
but a living nation, a European nation:
and what are you? Land of infants, hungry, corrupt,
government officials employed by landlords, petty prefects,
lawyers greased with brillantine and dirty feet,
liberal officials, carrion like bigoted uncles,
a barracks, a seminary, a free beach, a brothel!
Millions of petty bourgeoisie like millions of pigs
graze, pushing themselves under the undamaged palaces,
among colonial houses now peeling like churches.
Precisely because you existed, now you do not exist,
precisely because you were conscious, you are unconscious.
And just because you are Catholic, you cannot think
that your evil is all evil: the fault of every evil.
Sink into this beautiful sea of yours, free the world.
These verses reflect Pasolini’s deep love for his country and the pain he feels in seeing it change. The poem is an ode to the beauty of Italy and its people, but it is also a lament for the loss of tradition and culture that Pasolini sees happening around him.
With these rhymes, he wants to encourage his fellow citizens to maintain their roots and remember their history, making every line a powerful reminder of the importance of Italian cultural identity and the need to preserve it.
The poet’s uncomfortable rhymes and his controversial lifestyle, unfortunately, lead to his young and brutal death, which is still shrouded in mystery today.
Taking a considerably notable leap back in time, we end up in 14th-century Tuscany and meet one of the most prominent poets for the importance and development of Italian poetry: Francesco Petrarca.
His most notable work in the field of poetry is undoubtedly Il Canzoniere, which contains one poem a day for an entire year. In Il Canzoniere, in addition to the main theme of love, some other themes can be identified, such as those of distance, internal dissent, loneliness, friendship, and those of a political nature.
To fully understand Petrarca’s poetry, let us consider one of his most famous sonnets, number XC dedicated to Laura, a woman omnipresent in his poetry who, however, never returned his love.
Sonetto XC
Erano i capei d’oro a l’aura sparsi
che ’n mille dolci nodi gli avolgea,
e ’l vago lume oltra misura ardea
di quei begli occhi, ch’or ne son sì scarsi;
e ’l viso di pietosi color’ farsi,
non so se vero o falso, mi parea:
i’ che l’esca amorosa al petto avea,
qual meraviglia se di sùbito arsi?
Non era l’andar suo cosa mortale,
ma d’angelica forma; e le parole
sonavan altro, che pur voce humana.
Uno spirto celeste, un vivo sole
fu quel ch’i’ vidi: e se non fosse or tale,
piagha per allentar d’arco non sana.
Sonnet XC
The blond hair like gold was scattered in the wind,
Which wrapped them in so many gentle turns,
and the beautiful light of those eyes shone extraordinarily,
which are now so lacking in brightness;
and the face seemed to assume an expression of benevolence towards me
But I cannot say with certainty whether this was true or false:
I who had lodged in my chest the dart of love,
what wonder if I immediately burned with love?
Her gait was not that of a mortal body,
but of an angelic spirit, and her voice
had a sound different from one only human;
a creature from heaven, a living sun
was what I saw; and even in the event that she no longer looked like that,
surely the wound caused by an arrow is not healed merely because the string of the bow, after the blow delivered, is loosened.
In these lines, the poet’s constant struggle against the love he finds himself feeling every day for Laura emerges, who, as mentioned before, does not reciprocate.
He uses powerful images and metaphors to convey his feelings, such as comparing his heart to a ship lost at sea.
This sonnet is particularly significant because it is one of the few poems in the collection that deals with the theme of love in a more realistic and less idealized way.
However, it can be said that the poem is divided into two parts: in the first eight verses, despair is the protagonist, while in the last six, a glimmer of hope appears because Petrarca seems to realize that perhaps one day his love may be returned.
Unfortunately, this hope is extinguished when Laura dies in 1348 due to an epidemic that struck all of Europe.
Returning now to Italian poetry of the 20th century, it is impossible not to mention Eugenio Montale.
Born in Genoa in 1896, his style is characterized by the use of complex images and metaphors that convey his deep understanding of the human condition.
His writings, through introspective and profound compositions, explore themes such as love, nature, and the complexity of relationships. Thanks to his ability to investigate the human psyche, Montale was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1975, thus writing an unforgettable piece of Italian history.
Although the poet’s themes vary greatly depending on his age and the period he lived in, it is perhaps with his debut ” Cuttlefish Bones” in 1925 that we can fully enter his world.
Especially with “Often the ache of living I have encountered” where his pessimistic sphere towards life emerges, but is also balanced, as in many of his other texts, by the need to face it anyway.
Spesso il male di vivere ho incontrato
Spesso il male di vivere ho incontrato
era il rivo strozzato che gorgoglia
era l’incartocciarsi della foglia
riarsa, era il cavallo stramazzato.
Bene non seppi, fuori del prodigio
che schiude la divina Indifferenza:
era la statua nella sonnolenza
del meriggio, e la nuvola, e il falco alto levato.
Often the ache of living I have encountered
Often the ache of living I have encountered
Was the choked brook gurgling
Was the wrapping of the leaf
parched, was the ragged horse.
Well I knew not, outside the prodigy
That hatches the divine Indifference:
was the statue in the drowsiness
Of noontide, and the cloud, and the hawk high raised.
Here, Montale, like a painter with clear and precise lines, paints a powerful portrait of life’s struggles and challenges.
Using simple and accessible language, he conveys the different, painful, and uncertain emotions that often accompany existence, never setting aside one of his fundamental themes: nature.
He mixes emotions and concrete visions in a truly remarkable way, shifting the reader’s sensations onto the images he creates.
This has been and still is the motivation for the success and great appreciation of the great Eugenio Montale by a very wide audience.
A few kilometers further south, in the same years, the poet Trilussa was born in Rome, a pseudonym created with an anagram of Carlo Alberto Camillo Salustri.
Known mainly for his humorous and satirical poems, which often depict the daily life of the Roman working class, Trilussa almost exclusively writes in Roman dialect.
Despite the dialectal form, his poems, precisely because they are appreciated by a huge amount of popular audience, are translated into more languages around the world.
Like many of his contemporaries, the central themes of his verses, full of metaphors and unusual comparisons, are the struggles of the working class and the corruption of the government present more or less in every city.
One of the texts that best describes his satirical, but at the same time lucid and very precise vision of society is certainly “The Donkey and the Lion”, where through metaphors he analyzes a very detailed fragment of economy and social life.
Er Somaro e el leone
Un Somaro diceva: – Anticamente,
quanno nun c’era la democrazzia,
la classe nostra nun valeva gnente.
Mi’ nonno, infatti, per avé raggione
se coprì co’ la pelle d’un Leone
e fu trattato rispettosamente.
– So’ cambiati li tempi, amico caro:
– fece el Leone – ormai la pelle mia
nun serve più nemmeno da riparo.
Oggi, purtroppo, ho perso l’infruenza,
e ogni tanto so’ io che pe’ prudenza
me copro co’ la pelle de somaro!
The Donkey and the Lion
A Donkey said: – In ancient times,
when there was no democracy,
our class was worthless.
My grandfather, in fact, to be right
covered himself with the skin of a lion
and was treated respectfully.
– Times have changed, dear friend:
– said the Lion – now my skin
no longer even serves as a shelter.
Today, unfortunately, I lost the flu,
and now and then it is I who, out of prudence
cover myself with the skin of a donkey!
The donkey is one of the main characters in Trilussa’s poetry, reflecting the foolish donkey that, however, often, as in this case, prevails over brute force.
Analyzing the passage more deeply, we understand that the donkey is a simple and naive soul who is not afraid of the lion. The lion, on the other hand, is represented as a cunning and manipulative predator who tries to deceive the donkey to make him his prey.
Through this story, Trilussa emphasizes the importance of being aware of the intentions of those around us, but it is also a comment on human nature and the power of wit and intelligence compared to the mere use of force and the will to dominate the weaker ones.
Highlighting the cunning of those considered weaker against the power of the strong is one of the reasons why Trilussa’s poetry is still loved and appreciated by so many readers today.
Around the same years, the revolutionary Sibilla Aleramo was also wandering the streets of Rome.
She was born in Alessandria in 1876 and later moved to the capital from 1925 until the last day of her life in 1960.
The activism and feminism of the poetess transpire in all her texts, both narrative and poetic. The themes touched upon are usually related to gender, identity, and social norms.
The poetic emblem of her revolutionary nature against the traditional role of women and wives is certainly the composition “I am so good”.
Sono tanto brava
Son tanto brava lungo il giorno.
Comprendo, accetto, non piango.
Quasi imparo ad aver orgoglio quasi fossi un uomo.
Ma, al primo brivido di viola in cielo
ogni diurno sostegno dispare.
Tu mi sospiri lontano: «Sera, sera dolce e mia!» Sembrami d’aver fra le dita la stanchezza di tutta la terra.
Non son più che sguardo, sguardo sperduto, e vene.
I am so good
I am so good along the day.
I understand, I accept, I don’t cry.
I almost learn to have pride as if I were a man.
But, at the first shiver of purple in the sky
Every diurnal support dispels.
You sigh to me far away, “Evening, evening sweet and mine!” I seem to have in my fingers the weariness of all the earth.
I am no more than gaze, lost gaze, and veins.
Through these verses, Aleramo takes a journey between self-awareness and self-acceptance, placing at the center the powerful theme of the female experience in Italy in the 20th century.
With her writing, she gives voice to those who have no voice and illuminates the injustices and inequalities that women have long endured, creating with her readers an empathy dictated by a sense of vulnerability and intimacy.
This happens thanks to her “putting herself into play” with words, always dealing with strictly personal themes and topics.
Her great success is certainly due to the fact that she is not afraid to delve into the complexity of love and the female figure to bring her own experience back in a raw and direct way through her own verses.
When talking about contemporary Italian poetry, one cannot fail to mention the one who gave birth to one of the most influential currents of Italian literature, Giuseppe Ungaretti.
He began his career as a poet in the years preceding the First World War, and his early works were strongly influenced by the symbolist and futurist movements of the time.
Throughout his long and prolific career, Ungaretti produced a wide range of poems, including deeply personal and introspective works, as well as more political and social ones.
His poetry is often characterized by a spare and minimalist style and the ability to convey strong emotions and vivid images with carefully chosen words. This style, wrapped in mysterious and ambiguous meanings, is defined as Hermeticism, and he is undoubtedly one of its major exponents. The war greatly influences his writings, and in fact, in his collection “The Joy” published in 1931, one of the most famous poems of all time, “Wake,” appears, which tells of a night spent watching over a comrade killed in combat.
Veglia
Un’intera nottata
buttato vicino
a un compagno
massacrato
con la sua bocca
digrignata
volta al plenilunio
con la congestione
delle sue mani
penetrata
nel mio silenzio
ho scritto
lettere piene d’amore
Non sono mai stato
tanto
attaccato alla vita
Wake
An entire night
thrown close
to a comrade
slaughtered
with his mouth
gnashed
turned to the full moon
with the congestion
Of his hands
penetrated
into my silence
I wrote
letters full of love
I have never been
so
attached to life
Ungaretti knows how to create precise images even in very few lines, and here he does so by staging a photograph of a moment that for him can only be indelible.
The way he captures the fragility of life and the brutality of war is impeccable, juxtaposing them with the need to transcribe love even in such a raw and desperate moment as a night next to a dead comrade.
This, like many of his other poems, is a fundamental testimony of the story of the war that has inevitably shaped his life.
For each of us, when it comes to Italian literature and poetry, the first light bulb that comes to mind almost certainly has the face of the supreme poet, Dante Alighieri, born in Florence in 1265.
Between the 11th and 12th centuries AD, the Tuscan poet defined the guidelines of our language with a poem that still today can be said to influence the world’s collective imagination: The Divine Comedy.
However, it is right to remember that Dante went far beyond this masterpiece, with other sonnets and poems of comparable beauty. Certainly, unrequited love for Beatrice is almost always the central theme of his writings, and by analyzing one in particular, we can refer to “So kind and so honest she seems,” contained in “New Life” his first work attributed to him dating back to around 1290.
Tanto gentile e onesta pare
Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare
la donna mia quand’ella altrui saluta,
ch’ogne lingua deven tremando muta,
e li occhi no l’ardiscon di guardare.
Ella si va, sentendosi laudare,
benignamente d’umiltà vestuta;
e par che sia una cosa venuta
da cielo in terra a miracol mostrare.
Mostrasi sì piacente a chi la mira,
che dà per li occhi una dolcezza al core,
che ’ntender no la può chi no la prova:
e par che de la sua labbia si mova
un spirito soave pien d’amore,
che va dicendo a l’anima: Sospira.
So gentle and so honest she seems
So gentle and so honest she seems
my woman when she greets others,
that every tongue becomes trembling mute,
and eyes do not dare to look.
She goes, hearing herself lauded,
benevolently of humility clothed;
and seems as if it were a thing come
from heaven to earth to show miracles.
She shows herself so delightful to those who gaze upon her,
that it gives for the eyes a sweetness to the heart,
that no one who cannot try it can understand it
and it seems that from her lip there moves
a gentle spirit full of love,
which goes saying to the soul: Sigh
In this shining example of the stilnovo style (“new style”), Dante praises Beatrice, the angel-woman whom he has always defined as a mediator with the divine. Starting precisely from this theory, the focus is on the fact that here the poet praises not so much the beauty of the woman, but rather the beauty of her soul.
Throughout the sonnet, a multitude of rhetorical figures alternate, always aimed at praising the figure of this woman who, unfortunately for him, will never reciprocate his love.
In addition to the theme of love, spirituality, and death emerge in each of his compositions, aspects that will make his poetry timeless, making it still today one of the most important Italian poets of all time.
Let’s return to the present day with Mariangela Gualtieri from Emilia Romagna. This poetess through the sound of words knows how to transport readers and listeners into universes where the rhythm, careful and marked, of syllables, always echoes.
Through her writings, one perceives how important it is for her to experience poetry not only intellectually, but also emotionally and physically.
In addition to her poetry collections and the multiple theatrical works she performs at the Teatro Valdocca, which she founded, she has also written an essay that deals precisely with the importance of reading poetry, “Phonic enchantment. The art of saying poetry.”
One of the texts that best expresses her awareness of the importance of the body in poetry is “There Is in Man’s Laughter,” contained in the 2010 collection “Beast of Joy”.
C’è nel riso dell’uomo
C’è nel riso dell’uomo
la meraviglia
sotto la pelle dei pezzi di pane
da mangiare subito
si vedono le corde vive nei bracci
poi verrà la pioggia
a lavare le schiene
infilare la tosse nei petti
There is in man’s laughter
There is in man’s laughter
There is in the laughter of man
the wonder
Under the skin of the pieces of bread
to be eaten at once
you see the living ropes in the arms
then the rain will come
to wash the backs
tuck the cough into the chests
Poetess Mariangela Gualtieri dedicates these short verses to the simple beauty that lies in the laughter of human beings who perform equally simple gestures. The importance of such physical writing certainly derives from her theatrical experiences, which enrich her texts, making them unique in Italy today.
We conclude our journey to discover the most influential poets of the boot with a fellow countryman of Gualtieri, who preceded her by about three centuries and who certainly could not be missing from the list.
Ludovico Ariosto was born in Reggio Emilia in 1474. With his poems, he influenced not only Italian but also international literature.
His most famous work is undoubtedly the poem, considered a masterpiece of the Renaissance, “Orlando Furioso.” But the poet did not limit himself to that work, writing numerous other dramatic, lyrical, or satirical sonnets, equally exciting.
Let us consider one of the most appreciated poems of his collection “Satires” called “The Fable of the Moon“.
La Favola della Luna
Nel tempo ch’era nuovo il mondo ancora,
e che inesperta era la gente prima,
e non eran l’astuzie che sono ora;
a piè d’un alto monte, la cui cima
parea toccasse il cielo, un popol, quale
non so mostrar , vivea nella valle ima ;
che più volte osservando la ineguale
luna, or con corna or senza, or piena or scema ,
girar il cielo al corso naturale ;
e credendo poter dalla suprema
parte del monte giungervi, e vederla
come si accresca e come in sé si prema ;
chi con canestro, chi con sacco per la
montagna, cominciar correre in su,
ingordi tutti a gara di volerla.
Vedendo poi non esser giunti più
vicini a lei, cadeano a terra lassi,
bramando invan d’essere rimasti giù.
Quei ch’alti li vedean dai poggi bassi,
credendo che toccassero la luna,
dietro venian con frettolosi passi.
Questo monte è la ruota di Fortuna,
nella cui cima il volgo ignaro pensa:
ch’ogni quIete sia, né ve n’è alcuna.
The Fable of the Moon
In the time that the world was new yet,
And inexperienced were the people before,
And were not the wiles that are now;
At the foot of a lofty mountain, whose summit
Appeared to touch the sky, a people, which
I cannot show , lived in the same valley ;
Who several times observing the unequal
Moon, now with horns or without, now full or wan ,
Turning the sky to the natural course ;
And believing he could from the supreme
Part of the mount to reach it, and see it
How it grows and how in itself it presses ;
Who with basket, who with sack for the
Mountain, begin to run up,
Greedy all in competition to want it.
Seeing then that they had not come
Near to her, they fell to the ground lax,
Wishing in vain that they had stayed down.
Those who high saw them from the low hillocks,
Believing that they were touching the moon,
Behind them came with hasty steps.
This mountain is the wheel of Fortune,
In whose summit the unsuspecting crowd thinks:
That every good is, nor is there any.
As often happens in Ariosto’s “Satires“, even here the inspiration is of an autobiographical and everyday life nature.
The game of the book lies in exploiting an invented letter, from a close relative or friend – in this case the cousin – to respond by confessing freely. Ariosto thus expresses his point of view on different aspects of his daily life. In this text, he reveals his opinion regarding the life of a courtier that he is forced to lead in order to take care of his family. He does not define it as a prestigious element to boast about, but rather as an act of servitude that infringes on his freedom.
Throughout his life, perhaps precisely because of these and other statements, Ariosto will be defined as a distinctly humble man dedicated to work, qualities that still today earn him a place as one of the most established poets in Italian literature.
Conclusions
Through reading these Italian poems with English translation, one can understand how long the history of Italian poetry is and how varied its contents are.
If you are a student of Italian language, I recommend delving deeper into this topic by studying the best contemporary Italian poems, whose language is almost identical to that spoken today.
If you are interested in Italian poems in Italian from past eras, use a manual that includes not only the text of the poems, but also the text of the paraphrases to help with interpretation.
Further readings
The most important Italian poets of all time
The most beautiful Italian love poems
12 Best Italian novels translated in English
