Hermeticism (poetry)

Hermeticism in poetry, or hermetic poetry, is a form of obscure and difficult poetry, as of the Symbolist school, wherein the language and imagery are subjective, and where the suggestive power of the sound of words is as important as their meaning. The name alludes to the mythical Hermes Trismegistus, supposed author of mystic doctrines composed in the Neoplatonic tradition.

Hermeticism was influential in the Renaissance, after the translation of these Neoplatonic texts by Marsilio Ficino. Within the Novecento Italiano, Hermetic poetry became an Italian literary movement in the 1920s and 1930s, developing between the two world wars. Major features of this movement were reduction to essentials, abolishment of punctuation, and brief, synthetic compositions, at times resulting in short works of only two or three verses.

The term ermetismo was coined in Italian by literary critic Francesco Flora (although with a very generic and superficial connotation) in 1936 and recalls a mystic conception of the poetic word because it makes reference to the legendary figure of Hermes Trismegistus (Thrice-Great Hermes) going back to hellenistic times, with writings such as Asclepius and the Corpus Hermeticum attributed to him. During the same year (1936), Italian poet Carlo Bo published an essay on the literary magazine Il Frontespizio, by the title "Letteratura come vita (Literature as a way of life)", containing the theoretical-methodological fundamentals of hermetic poetry.

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