The Crepuscolari were a group of Italian 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 by literary critic Giuseppe Antonio Borgese

Giuseppe Antonio Borgese

Giuseppe Antonio Borgese was an Italian writer, journalist and literary critic.-Biography:Borgese was born in Polizzi Generosa, near Palermo...

 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.

Their attitude represents a reaction to the content-poetry and rhetorical style of (Nobel Prize winning poet) Giosue Carducci

Giosuè Carducci

Giosuè Alessandro Michele Carducci was an Italian poet and teacher. He was very influential and was regarded as the official national poet of modern Italy. In 1906 he became the first Italian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.-Biography:...

 and Gabriele D'Annunzio

Gabriele D'Annunzio

Gabriele D'Annunzio or d'Annunzio was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist, and dramatist...

, favouring instead the unadorned language and homely themes typical of Giovanni Pascoli

Giovanni Pascoli

Giovanni Placido Agostino Pascoli was an Italian poet and classical scholar.- Biography :Giovanni Pascoli was born at San Mauro di Romagna , into a well-to-do family. He was the fourth of ten children of Ruggero Pascoli and Caterina Vincenzi Alloccatelli...

. An affinity existed with the French symbolists (see Paul Valéry

Paul Valéry

Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath...

, Arthur Rimbaud

Arthur Rimbaud

Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...

, and Stéphane Mallarmé

Stéphane Mallarmé

Stéphane Mallarmé , whose real name was Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism.-Biography:Stéphane...

). It has been said that Guido Gozzano

Guido Gozzano

Guido Gustavo Gozzano was an Italian poet and writer.-Biography:He was born in Turin, the son of Fausto Gozzano, an engineer, and of Diodata Mautino, the daughter of Senator Mautino, patriot and supporter of Giuseppe Mazzini and Massimo D'Azeglio...

was the most competent exponent of the movement. Other poets of the movement include Sergio Corazzini and Marino Moretti.