Metaphores - Dino Campana

Dino Campana was an Italian poet who was emotionally involved in an intense and tumultuous relationship with Italian feminist, Sibilla Aleramo. He suffered from disorganized schizophrenia and died in 1932 after being struck by partial paralysis to the right side of the body. Years before his death, Campana published the only book of poetry to his name, the Canti Orfici, of which most of his works were influenced by the vacancy and abandonment in his life as a child resulting from his mothers illness. His poems were radiated with dramatic images of annihilation and innocence. In Campana’s poems, he wrote in remembrance of his mother.

Most of Campana’s poems bring out the hollowness in his life stemming from his lonely childhood. The faint and subconscious memories of emptiness and loneliness still emanate from his use of certain words and phrases like “echoes”, “air”, “pale”, “faded”, “tears”, “weakened”, “quietly”.  In Journey We Called Love, Campana talks about a failed relationship with someone dear to him. He represents the relationship with roses that he and the anonymous person toiled hard to make and bring to life but in the end, the roses faded and were forgotten. This poem could have been to either of the two women in his life: Sibilla or his mother because he had faded forgotten memories with his mother and his relationship with Sibilla did not work out. “Roses are faded. The petals fallen” (151) In both cases, he had sad relationships which fell apart for different reasons like the petals on the symbolic rose. By the end of the poem, we see his recurring life themes of being lost and lonely.