Editing Andrea Zanzotto (section)

====University====
In 1939, he enrolled in the College of Letters at the [[University of Padua]] where he studied under Diego Valeri and the Latinist, Concetto Marchesi.

With Valeri's encouragement, he immersed himself in the writings of [[Charles Baudelaire|Baudelaire]] and discovered [[Arthur Rimbaud|Rimbaud]] as well as (thanks to Luigi Stefanini) the poetry of [[Friedrich Hölderlin|Hölderlin]], which he read for the first time in Vincenzo Errante's translation.

Meanwhile, he began to study [[German language|German]] so that he might read Hölderlin, [[Johann Wolfgang Goethe|Goethe]] and [[Heinrich Heine|Heine]] in the original.

In 1940, he worked for the first time as a substitute teacher in [[Valdobbiadene]]. He discovered at that time that within the regime and above all in the student clubs, there were many who nevertheless acted with practical autonomy, or in contrast to himself, as he came to be informed by his friend, Ettore Luccini, history and philosophy teacher at the ''liceo classico''.

In this period, they put out the magazine ''Il Bo'' in Padua, marked by a notable non-conformist stance, as well as the University of Treviso periodical, ''Signum'' (along with Giorgio Strehler, [[Mario Luzi]] and Mario Tobino, among others), which exhibited a superficial adherence to the positions of the regime.

The news of the outbreak of [[World War II]] was met in the town with great consternation, the economic crisis came to the fore, and Zanzotto's family had to sell half of the house at Col Santa.

In 1941 the substitute teaching position in Valdobbiadene was not renewed, but Zanzotto managed to find one in [[Treviso]] with a middle school.

At the Young Fascists University of Treviso (Gioventù Universitaria Fascista), within which there were also people practising anti-fascism, he made, in 1942, a "presentation" on [[Eugenio Montale]], where he interpreted the pessimism of the author in a political and ethical light.

He received his diploma in [[Italian literature]] on 30 October 1942, with a thesis on the work of [[Grazia Deledda]]. Professor Natale Busetto was his advisor (''relatore'').