Umberto Saba, born Umberto Poli in Trieste in 1883 and dead in Gorizia in 1957, was an Italian poet and novelist. He wrote in a city that then belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a crossroads of languages and cultures. His work matters because it turned away from the pursuit of a pure, absolute language and chose a voice close to everyday life.
His father, a Christian, converted to Judaism to marry his mother and left the family before Umberto was born. Until the age of three the boy was looked after by a Slovene nursemaid, Peppa, in whose home he found a refuge he would remember all his life. Back in his mother's household he suffered many traumas that, over the years, developed into a serious neurosis.
He studied literature in Pisa and spent time in Florence, seeking contact with the most lively currents of Italian culture. He married Carolina Wölfler, known as Lina, and they had a daughter. In 1910 he published Poesie, now signed Saba, a pen name whose origin is debated: some scholars connect it with Hebrew words, others with his nursemaid's surname. After the First World War he bought a bookshop in Trieste, which supported his family.
Il canzoniere, his great project, gathered his whole output in chronological order; the first edition appeared in 1921 and was later enlarged. From 1929 he underwent psychoanalysis, and the experience shows in verses more attentive to lost childhood. In the 1930s his lyric became leaner and more restrained, influenced by Ungaretti and Montale.
Fascist racial laws forced him to flee Trieste, first to Florence and then to Rome. After the war he returned to the city, where his health worsened. In his last years he converted to Catholicism and also wrote prose, including the novel Ernesto, published in 1975, after his death.
Key works
- Poesie (1910): his first book of verse, published under the name Saba.
- Trieste e una donna (1912): poems marked by unease and the suffering of love.
- Il canzoniere (1921): the great collection of his poetry, enlarged in later editions.
- Ernesto (written 1953, published 1975): an erotic novel partly drawn from his own life.
Curiosities
A Slovene nursemaid
His early childhood was spent with the nursemaid Peppa, a Slovene woman whose home he later described as a kind of lost paradise.
A debated pen name
He adopted the name Saba, which some scholars link to a Hebrew word meaning grandfather or well-fed, while others see in it a echo of his nursemaid's surname.
Original Filopedia text based on Wikipedia (es) and Wikipedia (en) and Wikidata.