A short poetry by Giuseppe Ungaretti, an Italian hermetic poet, was written on January 26, 1917, and has indelibly entered the history of Occidental literature. The title in Italian is “Mattina”, and I’ve translated it into English as “Morning Star”. The full text in Italian is “M’illumino di immenso” (four words), and I’ve found 5 different translations into English. My favorite one is “I’m enlightened by immensity”, and below you can read the reasons. More in general, the page serves to explain my opinion about “Mattina”, that, honestly, has no confirmation, and is notably different from the current interpretations of the work. First of all, I refer the circumstances of the creation of the cited literary milestone. During World War I, Giuseppe Ungaretti was a soldier at the military front of the Carso, and, on the day above cited, saw a dawn after a sleepless night. In the referred situation, the advent of the light of the morning inspired him a short text. He wrote it on a postcard, that he sent to Giovanni Papini, a writer and a friend. Later, as suggested by Mr. Papini himself, the short poetry was inserted into a collection named “Gaiety”, under the section “Shipwrecks”, and published. I’m not satisfied with the common interpretations, that are taught at school. For that, and thanks to the web, I have collected information useful to go deeper into the comprehension of “Mattina”.
Previously, what is the exterior aspect of immensity? Is it luminous or not? Scientifically speaking, immensity is made of dark matter at 27%, and of dark energy at 68%. Thus, immensity is dark at 95%. Secondly, Ungaretti was influenced by Symbolism, Dadaism, and Futurism. Moreover, he was a freemason, and a coauthor, together with Umberto Sereni, of a writing titled “The Act of Lucifer”. So, the, above referred, circumstances of the birth of “Mattina” might be enough clear: while they say that the work is an expression of hope and optimism, it seems to me that Ungaretti was talking about a moment of amplified consciousness, in the matter of who is holding the destiny of mankind at hands. Now, you can understand my translation into English of the title of “Mattina” as “Morning Star”. Equally, I can motivate my preference for the translation of the text as “I’m enlightened by immensity”. In my opinion, the poet didn’t want to underline the beauty of a peculiar morning, but, differently, he wanted to say that the dawn of a day of war might contain a teaching, about what is the destiny of mankind.
Coming to music, I’ve attempted to repeat a part of the expressivity of “Mattina”, by recording a mash-up based on samples taken from two simple, short, and successful songs. It is about the educational power of hard times. I’ve obtained simplicity and dramatic contrasts, some of the things that I’ve been searching for.
File name is “Blur & Caribou Vs Max Look DJ – filtered parody of human spirit (Oct 2024)”, length 4’40”, rhythm at 129,8 BPM, contains samples of Blur – song 2 (1997), which is a parody of Nirvana – smells like teen spirit, and Caribou – filtered grand piano (2020).
