Campana, Dino

Born Aug. 20, 1885, in Marradi, Tuscany; died Mar. 1, 1932, in Castel Pucci, Tuscany. Italian poet.

Campana led a wandering life, attempting many professions. In Orphic Songs (1914), the only collection of his poetry and rhythmic prose published during his lifetime, he expressed the spiritual crisis in which Italian culture found itself prior to World War I. Anxiety, escape from the commonplace, and futile flights toward the unattainable are his main poetic themes. He often sacrifices logical construction for melodiousness. His poetry has a powerfully morbid, irrational basis, and the images take on symbolic meanings. He spent the last 14 years of his life in a mental hospital.