Giuseppe Jovine
Giuseppe Jovine was an Italian writer and educator born in 1922 in Castelmauro, a town in the Molise region of Italy, which significantly influenced his literary work. His early education at the Salesian Institute in Macerata, combined with his exposure to both Christian and Marxist philosophies, shaped his intellectual development. Jovine was part of a notable literary group alongside his cousin, Francesco Jovine, and poet Eugenio Cirese, committed to elevating the Molise dialect as a literary language. He published his first article at the age of sixteen and later pursued studies at the University of Florence, maintaining an independent stance from the prevailing political and literary movements of his time.
Throughout his career, Jovine engaged actively in public life, serving as mayor of Castelmauro and later as an educator in Rome, where he taught philosophy and literature. He produced a rich body of work, including poetry and fiction in the Molise dialect that captures the nuances of peasant life with warmth and irony. His notable works include the poetry collection "La pavone" and the short story collection "La sdrenga," which reflect his lifelong exploration of peasant culture. Jovine’s contributions to literature, culture, and education remained influential until his death in 1998.
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Giuseppe Jovine
Writer
- Born: November 20, 1922
- Birthplace: Castelmauro, Italy
- Died: 1998
Biography
Giuseppe Jovine was born in 1922 in Castelmauro, a small town in the Molise, the provincial region of Italy which is the subject of much of his writing. At the age of eleven, he was sent to study in Macerata, Italy, at the Salesian Institute, run by a Christian missionary order. His five years of education there laid half of the foundation for his dual philosophy, which combined Christianity with Marxism. He was not the first writer in his family; the reputation of his older cousin, the novelist Francesco Jovine, preceded him. Jovine, his cousin, and the poet Eugenio Cirese formed a triumvirate of writers dedicated to developing the dialect of Molise as a literary language.
At the age of sixteen, Jovine entered the Liceo Classico, a college in Chieti, Italy; in the same year he published his first article, a critique of the poet Gabriele d’Annuncio’s Contemplazione della morte. He continued his education by completing two years of schooling at the University of Florence. Like his professors, Giorgio Pasquali and Giuseppe de Robertis, Jovine remained aloof from both fascist politics and literary structuralism. His scholarly concerns focused on the interrelationship between dominant and subordinate cultures, including the relationship of the Italian and Molise cultures. In1942, Jovine delivered public speeches about the need to reconcile Christian and Communist principles. In the same year he joined the Italian army, remaining in Italy through the end of World War II and participating in the postwar civilian reconstruction. In 1944, at the age of twenty-two, he became mayor of his hometown, Castelmauro.
In 1948, Jovine qualified as a secondary school teacher and moved to Rome, where he would remain until his death in 1998. In Rome he taught philosophy, Italian, and Latin from 1948 to 1974, and was a a secondary school principal from 1973 to 1992. He also wrote literary criticism and political and social analysis in standard Italian, while publishing original poetry and fiction, as well as numerous translations, in the Molise dialect. He ran for regional and national political office, lectured widely in Italy and abroad, and, with Tommaso Fiore, coedited the journal Il Risvegliodel Mezzogiorno from 1970 to 1973.
Jovine’s poetry and short stories in his native Molise dialect are warm, affectionate, and richly ironic studies of peasant life, filled with the hilarious observations and believable characters of a natural storyteller. The poetry collection, La pavone (1970; The Peacock, 1993) and the short story collection, La sdrenga (1991), are considered to be his masterpieces and the epitome of his lifelong meditations on peasant culture as an all-encompassing moral universe.