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• "Nordic Mists" on the Strait. The roots Northern Sicilian Romanticism

  28-46

  Daniela Bombara

  Views:

  167

  The present essay aims at tracing the influences of Northern European Romanticism on the works of some Sicilian authors of the early Nineteenth century. The objective is to debunk the myth of a “lower” level of the Italian Romantic literature when compared to the Nordic literature, as it is not focused on the representation of the dark areas of the self, of supernatural, fantastic, and irrational themes that are present in reality. Some ballads by Felice Bisazza (1809- 1867) and Vincenzo Navarro (1800- 1867) are examined. In these works the narration of popular legends highlights a ghostly and horrifying universe, mirroring real situations, such as the violence of the noble class and patriarchy, or the injustice of social inequality. A play by Giuseppe La Farina (1815- 1863), entitled L’abbandono di un popolo (1845), will be then considered; the author portrays the anti-Spanish revolt of 1676 in Messina by focusing on the disturbing and underground forces that intersect with the revolutionary movements. Lastly, the production by Tommaso Cannizzaro (1838- 1921) as translator will be analyzed: the writer makes the fascinating world of Scandinavian mythology available to the Sicilian and Italian public, through the translations of some cantos by the medieval Edda antica.

• For a dream grammar in the "Decameron". Forms and structures of the oneiric themed novels

  96-109

  Tancredi Artico

  Views:

  325

  This paper takes into account the oneiric issue in Giovanni Boccaccio Decameron, with the aim of defining Boccaccio’s overall “grammar of dreaming”: besides an accurate investigation on Decameron’s sources, which range from classic to Medieval literature, it retraces the narrative constructions of the short-novels with oneiric subjects, hypothesizing the existence of two main schemes. In the short-tales on a vision (which are the most known), it is almost always replied the scheme of the “tale in the tale”, due to the creation of a imaginary world with its own rules. Meanwhile, in the short tales of deceiving, the dream is useful to trick the naive antagonist, making him believe something unbelievable. In both cases, it has a deep influence on the so-called “statute of reality” (Amedeo Quondam): in the first, there is the invention of a new reality; in the second it is deconstructed instead.