Back to Search Start Over

On the Island of Philoctetes. Leopardi and the romantic topos of imprisonment.

On the Island of Philoctetes. Leopardi and the romantic topos of imprisonment.

Authors :
Camarotto, Valerio
Source :
BETWEEN; nov2021, Vol. 11 Issue 22, p27-47, 21p
Publication Year :
2021

Abstract

The theme of imprisonment is deeply rooted in the Romantic tradition and has a peculiar declination in Leopardi. Starting from a note of the Zibaldone on the confinement of Philoctetes on the island of Lemnos (Zib. 4282), this contribution aims to show how Leopardi, inclined to represent himself as a prisoner and/or anchorite, and while investigating on the anthropological status of modernity, makes use of some topical polarities (such as immobility/action, darkness/light, interior/exterior) that are significantly recurrent in contemporary Italian and European literature from Manzoni to Byron, from Stendhal to Hugo. Nourished as much by a fruitful re-elaboration of Platonic-Christian coordinates (think of prison-life in the Dialogo di Plotino e Porfirio), as by the vigilant observation of current times - see, for example, the annotation on penitentiaries in the United States in Zib. 4045 -, the motif of imprisonment revolves prevalently around two distinct but related nuclei. On the one hand, the 'fall' of the human race and the annihilating effects of civilisation; on the other, the possible comfort that, paradoxically, isolation and restriction can offer to a corrupted and altered modern human being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
20396597
Volume :
11
Issue :
22
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
BETWEEN
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
154420564
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.13125/2039-6597/4839