Suggestioni rimbaudiane nell’opera di Elsa Morante: un’ipotesi di lettura

Abstract

The paper intends to analyse the influence of Arthur Rimbaud's works on Elsa Morante's texts and, specifically, on Il mondo salvato dai ragazzini, a book published in 1968 that stands out for its remarkable heterogeneity, multiformity and complexity. Starting from the reading marks (annotations, underlinings, reminders) found in the writer’s volumes of the Oeuvres (now availables for consultation), the aim is therefore to reconstruct the traces of a dialogue that is not only based on some extracts of verses or intertextual references, but also on shared experiences (ecstatic and hallucinatory journeys), models (Baudelaire, Nerval, Michelet, the texts of oriental spirituality)
languages and theoretical conceptions. The paper will then observe, always by making references to Rimbaud, how it can actually be possible to trace a path in Morante's vision of art and its role in reality from the book under examination – Il mondo salvato dai ragazzini – to Aracoeli, her last apocalyptic novel.