The Crepusculars (Italian: Poeti Crepuscolari "twilight poets") were a group of Italian post-decadent poets whose work is notable for its use of musical and mood-conveying language and its general tone of despondency. The group's metaphorical name, coined in 1910 by literary critic Giuseppe Antonio Borgese to refer to a condition of decline, describes a number of poets whose melancholic writings were a response to the modernization of the early 20th century.^[1]

The crepusculars were not a centrally organized movement, and the writers in this group of poets were active in three different regions the country: Carlo Chiaves, Guido Gozzano, Nino Oxilia, and Carlo Vallini in the Piedmont region of Northwest Italy; Corrado Govoni and Marino Moretti in the Romagna region of Northeast Italy; and Sergio Corazzini and Fausto Maria Martini in Rome.^[1]

Their attitude represents a reaction to the content-poetry and rhetorical style of (Nobel Prize–winning poet) Giosue Carducci and Gabriele D'Annunzio, favouring instead the unadorned language and homely themes typical of Giovanni Pascoli.^[1] These poets refuse to pursue the ‘poetic mission’, distinguishing themselves from the authors of the previous generation. Guido Gozzano famously defined himself as a “thing with two legs also known as guidogozzano”, almost as if he felt ashamed to play the role of an enlightened artist.^[2] An affinity existed with the French symbolists (see Paul Valéry, Arthur Rimbaud, and Stéphane Mallarmé).^[1] It has been said that Guido Gozzano was the most competent exponent of the movement.^{[citation needed]}

The writer Guelfo Civinini is sometimes included as a member of the crepuscolari based on his 1901 work L'urna, but this has been contested by some scholars based on his other body of work.^[3]

Period

Crepuscolars were active roughly between 1899, year of the release of Cesellature by Tito Marrone, and 1911, year that saw the publication of Colloqui by Guido Gozzano.