Frattini, Alberto 1922–

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Frattini, Alberto 1922–

PERSONAL: Born March 29, 1922, in Florence, Italy; married; wife's name, Lea. Education: University of Rome, degree in modern languages, 1945, degree in philosophy, 1946.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Instituti Editoriali e Poligrafici Internazionali, via Carducci, 60, 56010, Ghezzano, Italy.

WRITINGS:

EDITOR

Giacomo Leopardi, Canti, Scuola (Brescia, Italy), 1960.

(With Pasquale Tuscano) Poeti italiani del XX secolo, Scuola (Brescia, Italy), 1974.

Poesie e tragedie di Alessandro Manzoni, Scuola (Brescia, Italy), 1981.

(With Marcella Uffreduzzi) Poeti a Roma: 1945–1980, Bonacci (Rome, Italy), 1983.

(With Franco Manescalchi) Poeti della Toscana, Forum/Quinta Generazione (Forli, Italy), 1985.

Giacomo Leopardi: il problema delle "fonti" alla radice della sua opera, Coletti (Rome, Italy), 1990.

Le problematiche dell'espressione e della comunicazione in prospettiva duemila, Studium (Rome, Italy), 1990.

Clemente Rebora, Ritratto, antologìa degli scritti, profilo antològico della crìtica, M. Boni (Bologna, Italy), 1994.

OTHER

Il problema dell'esistenza in Leopardi (criticism), Gastaldi (Milan, Italy), 1950.

Giorni e sogni, Pagine Nuove (Rome, Italy), 1950.

Leopardi e Rousseau (criticism), Pagine Nuove (Rome, Italy), 1951.

Poeti italiani del novecento (criticism), Accademia (Alcamo, Italy), 1953.

Fioraia bambina, Canzoniere (Rome, Italy), 1953.

Speranza e destino (poems; title means "Hope and Destiny"), Canzoniere (Rome, Italy), 1954.

La poesia della redenzione nel Tommaseo (criticism), Accademia (Alcamo, Italy), 1955.

Il canto XXXIII dell'inferno (criticism), Accademia (Alcamo, Italy), 1955.

Studi sulla poesia italiana del dopoguerra (criticism), Accademia (Alcamo, Italy), 1955.

Studi Leopardiani (criticism), Nistri-Lischi (Pisa, Italy), 1956.

Come acqua alpina (poetry; title means "Like Alpine Water"), Accademia (Alcamo, Italy), 1956.

Critici contemporanei (criticism), Gismondi (Rome, Italy), 1957.

La poesia e il tempo, Hermes (Rome, Italy), 1957.

Critica e fortuna dei "Canti" di G. Leopardi (criticism), Scuola (Brescia, Italy), 1957.

Cultura e pensiero in Leopardi (criticism), Ausonia (Rome, Italy), 1958.

Latomie (poems; title means "State Prisons"), Vallecchi (Florence, Italy), 1958.

Da Tommaseo a Ungaretti, Cappelli (Bologna, Italy), 1959.

Il canto XXVIII del Paradiso (criticism), S.E.I. (Turin, Italy), 1960.

Il canto XXVII del Purgatorio (criticism), Le Monnier (Florence, Italy), 1963.

La giovane poesia italiana, Nistri-Lischi (Pisa, Italy), 1964.

Il neoclassicismo e Ugo Foscolo (criticism), Cappelli (Bologna, Italy), 1965.

Salute nel miraggio (poems; title means "Health in the Mirage"), Storia e Letteratura (Rome, Italy), 1965.

Poeti e critici italiani dell'Otto e del Novecento (criticism), Marzorati (Milan, Italy), 1966.

Poeti italiani tra il primo e secondo Novecento (criticism), IPL (Milan, Italy), 1967.

Poesia nuova in Italia: Tra ermetismo e neoavanguardia (criticism), IPL (Milan, Italy), 1968.

Giacomo Leopardi (criticism), Cappelli (Bologna, Italy), 1969, revised edition, Studium (Rome, Italy), 1986.

Dai crepuscolari ai Novissimi, Marzorati (Milan, Italy), 1969.

Tra il nulla e l'amore (poem; title means "Between Nothingness and Love"), Società Edizioni Nuove (Rome, Italy), 1969.

Scoperta di paesi, IPL (Milan, Italy), 1969.

Studi di poesia e di critica (criticism), Marzorati (Milan, Italy), 1972.

Critica, strutture, stile, IPL (Milan, Italy), 1977.

Caro atomo (poetry; title means "Dear Atom"), Locusta (Venice, Italy), 1977.

Letteratura e scienza in Leopardi (criticism), Marzorati (Milan, Italy), 1978.

Il vento e le gemme (poems; title means "The Wind and the Jewels"), Piazza Navona (Rome, Italy), 1981.

La sfida nel labirinto (poems; title means "The Challenge within the Labyrinth"), Rebellato (Padua, Italy), 1982.

Poesia e regione in Italia, IPL (Milan, Italy), 1983.

Introduzione a Giorgio Vigolo (criticism), Marzorati (Milan, Italy), 1984.

Il sogno della morte (poems; title means "The Dream of Death"), Piovan (Padua, Italy), 1986.

Stupendo enigma (poems), IPL (Milan, Italy), 1988.

Giacomo Leopardi: Una lettura infinita, IPL (Milan, Italy), 1989.

Leopardi e noi, Studium (Rome, Italy), 1990.

Arcana spirale: poesie, 1943–1992, Sciascia (Caltanissetta), 1994.

Leopardi alle soglie dell'Infinito e altri saggi leopardiani, Instituti Editoriali e Poligrafici Internazionali (Pisa, Italy), 1998.

Avventure di Parnaso nell'Italia del Novecento (collected essays), M. Baroni (Viarregio, Italy), 2002.

Contributor of poetry and articles to periodicals, including Cultura-e-Scuola and Riscontri.

SIDELIGHTS: The works of Italian poet Alberto Frattini incorporate "clear references to metaphysical as well as phenomenological and existentialist elements that unite individuals in a common humanity," according to Pietro Pelosi in a Dictionary of Literary Biography essay. The seeming influence of the neorealistic school in works such by Frattini as Come acqua alpina and Latomie comes more from his avoidance of rococo rhetorical flourishes and overly dramatic language than it does from the ideology behind his poems. In fact, his writings are rooted in feeling and cognition. "The importance of Frattini's poetry," said Pelosi, "lies precisely in the profoundly felt adherence of thought and sentiment to language; the result is limpid lyrics that exclude experimentalism in order to articulate his dignity and mission, even in verses that denounce the pain of living."

Spirituality has been important to Frattini since he began writing poetry in the mid-1950s. The scion of a prominent Italian family, he began penning verse at age six. His talents, Pelosi noted, were carefully and discreetly nurtured by his parents, both of whom had keen aesthetic and moral beliefs. According to Pelosi, Frattini was also influenced in his early years by his mother's cousin, Ernesto Buonaiuti, "a much-discussed figure in his day and the proponent of a renewed Christianity based on its old roots. Frattini attended many of Buonaiuti's lectures, which dealt with the interrelationship of poetry, thought, and culture." Frattini's own adherence to Christian spirituality in his works comes in part from Buonaiuti's influence, and in part, said Pelosi, from his relationship with his wife Lea, who "belonged to a Catholic cultural milieu and had written her doctoral thesis on Christian inscriptions."

"Like all genuine art," Pelosi added, "Frattini's poetry is the product of its time while transcending it, because his vision of time is an ethical and universal one." In collections such as Speranza e destino, Come acqua alpina, Salute nel miraggio, Tra il nulla e l'amore, La sfida nel labirinto, and Stupendo enigma, the poet combines a strong anthropocentrism with an equally powerful sense of spirituality. In Come acqua alpina, images of internal and external landscapes combine to form a reflection of the writer himself—reminiscent, observed Pelosi, of the medieval "Great Book of Nature," in which scholars hoped to come to a complete understanding of God. In "Anche se non puoi salpare," a poem included in the collection La sfida nel labirinto, the poet argues that knowledge often comes with a sense of arrogance, and that true wisdom is gained by accepting the absurd and the ridiculous. Even in Stupendo enigma, a collection in which, according to Pelosi, "the forms of daily life fade into more metaphysical reflections," the poet comes closer to God through encounters with the natural world. In general, Frattini sees human experiences and emotions in the natural world as symbols of the soul's instinctive drive toward God as well as "toward the external world and other human beings," Pelosi declared, and this same instinctive drive, brought about through encounters with the natural world, leads to "an act of communion with all of creation."