CESAREO, GIOVANNI ALFREDO. - Poet and critic, b. in Messina on 14 Jan. 1861, d. in Palermo on 6 May 1937. After a stormy youth, from 1898 for 37 years he taught Italian literature at the University of Palermo. Ineffable sorrows, which he regarded as expiation for his sins, gradually led him to religious conversion.
Initially indulging in the literary fashions of his time (Poesie, Bologna 1912), he revealed himself as an original poet in three volumes, I canti di Pan (ibid. 1920), I poemi dell'ombra (ibid. 1923), Colloqui con Dio (ibid. 1928), which are the story of a soul disturbed by mystery, torn by the conflict between spirit and sense, purified by suffering and religious yearning (cf. the lyric In Galilea).
Among his many volumes of criticism and literary history, the following are especially noteworthy: Le origini della poesia lirica e la poesia siciliana sotto gli Svevi (Milan 1924), La vita e l’arte di G. Meli (Palermo 1924), Studi e ricerche sulla letteratura italiana (ibid. 1929). He always meditated on art with the penetration of a philosopher and the experience of an artist, and with the Saggio su l’arte creatrice (Bologna 1919) he arrived at an idealistic conception of art: though this was later surpassed in his final critical writings, in which, for example, Dante’s poem is considered not only as a creation but as a revelation, not only as a product of human genius but as an effect of Grace.