Folgore, Luciano, 1888-1966

Italian Futurist (up to 1919), poet, dramatist, editor and columnist, and translator.

From the description of Luciano Folgore papers, 1890-1966. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 78803176

Biographical/Historical Note

Luciano Folgore was born in 1889; his family name was Vecchi and his parents named him Omero. As if in response to this name (Old Homer), he showed, very early, a talent for verse and began having poems regularly accepted for publication at the age of fifteen. While these first poems were of a traditional rhymed and metered form, by 1908 Vecchi had become a Futurist who wrote in the avant-garde mode. Accordingly, he adopted a pseudonym, Luciano Folgore (light/lightening bolt). From 1909 to 1919, he actively participated in all the Futurist events and battles as a member of Marinetti's inner circle. He also published three volumes of Futurist poetry: Il Canto dei Motori (1912), Ponti sull'Oceano (1914), and Città veloce (1919).

In 1919, Folgore distanced himself from the Futurists, perhaps in response to their increasingly explicit political alliances, without ever denouncing or personally rejecting them. He became a humorist, publishing the two volumes of poetic parodies which critics consider his best work, Poeti contraluce (1922) and Poeti allo specchio (1926). He later published a parody of Italian novelists, Novellieri allo specchio (1935). During the 1920s, '30s, and '40s, Folgore regularly gave talks on humor that included passages from these volumes; eventually he delivered these talks on the radio.

Folgore had a parallel career as a newspaper editor and columnist. During his Futurist period, he wrote for Lacerba, La Voce, and other avant-garde publications. From the '20s through the '50s he was on the staff of Il Travaso, while contributing humor pieces to several other Italian newspapers. From 1918 through 1954 he had a weekly column in La Tribuna Illustrata entitled "Musa Vagabonda." This column, for which Folgore adopted another pseudonym, "Esopino" (Little Aesop), was written in the form of a rhymed, metered humor poem, and these poems were incorporated into Folgore's talks.

Folgore was also a dramatist. During his Futurist period, he wrote pantomimes and ballets which were performed by the Teatro della Pantomima Futurista. He subsequently wrote dozens of plays, many of them one acts, but a number of them full-length, the most well-known of which was Piovuta dal cielo (1941). In the 1950s, he collaborated with composers in writing musicals.

Beginning in the 1940s and continuing for the rest of his life, Folgore wrote radio scripts for children's serial programs such as Il segretario dei piccoli, Radio Lilliput, and La bacchetta magica, as well as numerous special programs. These scripts often featured poems for children, which were collected in volumes such as Mamma voglio l'arcobaleno (1947) and É arrivato un bastimento (1960). He also wrote scripts for children's television programs.

Finally, Folgore was a translator. He translated and adapted works by Calderon, Shakespeare, Dickens, Pushkin, Kataieff, and others. He also translated and gave readings of Latin American poets of the post-war period.

Folgore died in 1966, by which time he had published more than twenty books, including poetry and short story collections, two novels, and collections of epigrams and fables. He had written at least seventy plays, a thousand radio and television scripts, and a thousand newspaper columns or articles. While little of this work is considered of lasting literary significance, Folgore's productivity was, apparently, a psychological necessity for him. Afflicted with chronic melancholia, Folgore confessed that the only way he could face a new day was to begin, while shaving, to compose a poem or epigram in his head.

From the guide to the Luciano Folgore papers, 1890-1966, (Getty Research Institute)