Umberto Saba

Paolo Frascà (University of Toronto)

Ed. by Jo Ann Cavallo, Columbia University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.6.1: Italian Writing and Culture, 453-present.
Vol. editors: Carla Bregman (Independent Scholar - North America), Jo Ann Cavallo (Columbia University)

Dates

Born 9 Mar 1883
Died 25 Aug 1957
Activity 1905-1957

Places

Born in Italy
Active in Italy

Activities

Primary

Poet

Other

Novelist

Resources

Saba's Works

Save to Bookshelf

Umberto Saba was a Jewish-Italian poet and novelist best known for

Il Canzoniere

[

Songbook

]

(in multiple versions and editions), a collection of his poetic production between 1900 and 1954, and

Storia e cronistoria del Canzoniere

[

History and Chronicle of the Songbook

]

(1948), an exegetical exploration of his own poetry. He also wrote aphorisms and short stories collected in

Scorciatoie e raccontini

[

Shortcuts and Little Tales

] (1946) and

Ricordi-racconti

[

Memories-Tales

] (1956), as well as an unfinished homoerotic novel,

Ernesto

, published posthumously in 1975. Saba is particularly remembered for his lyrical and prosaic style that relies on direct and accessible language.

Saba was born Umberto Poli on 9 March 1883 in Trieste, which at the time was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. His

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

4215 words

Citation: Frascà, Paolo. "Umberto Saba". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 June 2019 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=14146, accessed 09 May 2024.]

View recommended reading for this article

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here