Giuseppe Giusti

Giuseppe Giusti (Italian pronunciation: [dʒuˈzɛppe ˈdʒusti]; 12 May 1809 – 31 May 1850) was an Italian poet and satirist.

Giusti was born at Monsummano Terme, a small town of the Valdinievole, now in the province of Pistoia.

His father, a cultivated and rich man, accustomed his son from childhood to study, and himself taught him, among other subjects, the first rudiments of music. Afterwards, in order to curb his too vivacious disposition, he placed the boy under the charge of a priest near the village, whose severity did perhaps more evil than good. At twelve Giusti was sent to school at Florence, and afterwards to Pistoia and to Lucca; and during those years he wrote his first verses.

In 1826, Giusti went to study law at the University of Pisa. He disliked the subject. Partly because of a political satire he wrote that displeased authorities, it took him eight years, instead of the customary four, before he eventually earned a law degree in 1834. On graduating, Giusti proceeded to establish himself in Florence, Italy, claiming to his parents it was to practice law, but he instead pursued his literary interests. Despite earning a degree, he would never practice law.

He lived gaily, though his father kept him short of money, and learned to know the world, seeing the vices of society, and the folly of certain laws and customs from which his country was suffering. The experience thus gained he turned to good account in the use he made of it in his satire.

His father had in the meantime changed his place of abode to Pescia; but Giuseppe did worse there, and in November 1832, his father having paid his debts, he returned to study at Pisa, seriously enamoured of a woman whom he could not marry, but now commencing to write in real' earnest in. behalf of his country. With the poem called La Ghigliottina (the guillotine), Giusti began to strike out a path for himself, and thus revealed his great genius. From this time he showed himself the Italian Béranger, and even surpassed the Frenchman in richness of language, refinement of humour and depth of satirical conception. In Béranger there is more feeling for what is needed for popular poetry. His poetry is less studied, its vivacity perhaps more boisterous, more spontaneous; but Giusti, in both manner and conception, is perhaps more elegant, more refined, more penetrating.

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