Camillo Sbarbaro

Camillo Sbarbaro was an Italian author known for his contributions to the Hermetic movement in poetry. He cultivated a style that was purified of unessential elements, as seen in his works Pianissimo (1914) and Trucioli (1920). This movement, influenced by French Symbolism and the aftermath of World War I, sought new forms of expression. Hermetic poets focused on the acoustic qualities of words, emotional restraint, and fragmented utterances, often enhancing words through contextual isolation and disruption of syntax. This approach created an obscurity that allowed poets to express pessimism covertly, turning them into an elite group. In contrast to this style, the poetry of Umberto Saba offered a simpler and more direct appeal.1