The Library
From flesh to soul : the dichotomy of the body in Alfonso Varano, Salomone Fiorentino, And Giacomo Leopardi
Tools
Tools
Tools
Di Martino, Simona (2022) From flesh to soul : the dichotomy of the body in Alfonso Varano, Salomone Fiorentino, And Giacomo Leopardi. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
|
PDF
WRAP_THESIS_DiMartino_2022.pdf - Submitted Version - Requires a PDF viewer. Download (2719Kb) | Preview |
Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b3883965
Abstract
This thesis advocates the existence of a sub-cluster in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Italian poetry, often imperfectly labelled as ‘sepulchral’, focusing on the co-existence between the physicality of death, as explored by coeval science, and the religious longing for eternal life. By dynamically relying on Dante’s model, these texts explore the tension between belief and secularisation characterising the Enlightenment age, embodied by the corpse as an object of supreme ‘abjection’ and, at the same time, of devotional contemplation. Moreover, my thesis hypothesises the existence of a direct literary lineage running from the works of Alfonso Varano (particularly Visioni sacre e morali, 1789) and Salomone Fiorentino (Fiorentino’s Elegie di S. F. in morte di Laura sua moglie, 1790) to Giacomo Leopardi’s early poetic experiments, and particularly to his youthful, Dante-inspired poem Appressamento della morte (1816). As a consequence, I detect a so-far under-investigated strain in Italy’s literary history, enabling me to provide a different assessment of Leopardi’s sources in composing this poem, beyond its overt Dantean inspiration.
| Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subjects: | P Language and Literature > PQ Romance literatures | ||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Body and soul in literature, Italian poetry -- 18th century -- History and criticism, Italian poetry -- 19th century -- History and criticism, Varano, Alfonso, 1705-1788 -- Criticism and interpretation, Fiorentino, Salomone, 1743-1815 -- Criticism and interpretation, Leopardi, Giacomo, 1798-1837 -- Criticism and interpretation, Death in literature | ||||
| Official Date: | April 2022 | ||||
| Dates: |
|
||||
| Institution: | University of Warwick | ||||
| Theses Department: | School of Modern Languages and Cultures | ||||
| Thesis Type: | PhD | ||||
| Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
| Supervisor(s)/Advisor: | Camilletti, Fabio | ||||
| Sponsors: | University of Warwick. School of Modern Languages and Cultures | ||||
| Extent: | xxvii, 249 pages | ||||
| Language: | eng |
Request changes or add full text files to a record
Repository staff actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
