Giuseppe Ungaretti was born in
1888 in
Alexandria,
Egypt from Italian parents. In
1912 he moved to
Paris, where he studied for a few years, without however getting a degree, and in
1914 he joined the Italian army. He fought in the
Great War and his traumatic experiences there shaped his most famous work of poetry,
L'allegria[?] (Mirth). In the poems of this collection he explores pain, the sufferings of war with great delicacy and beauty. One of his most famous poems is called "Soldati" (Soldiers):
Soldati
Si sta come
d'autunno
sugli alberi
le foglie
Soldiers
One is as
on trees
of autumn
the leaves
He continued to write for the rest of his life, dying in Milan in 1970.