LO SPLENDIDO VIOLINO VERDE DI A. M. RIPELLINO Saggio di commento

This dissertation consists of a commentary to 44 selected works from Angelo Maria Ripellino’s (1923- 1978) fifth collection of poems, Lo splendido violino verde (The magnificent green violin), published in 1976. Every poem is preceded by a short introduction where the themes of the poem are dwelt upon, literary historical and biographical references are deciphered, and the metric structure is elucidated; then comes a line-by-line commentary in the form of footnotes, where rhetorical, linguistic aspects and intraand extra-textual references are carefully analysed. The candidate has greatly benefited from the perusal of a so-far unexplored archival source, the handwritten notebooks of Ripellino, preserved in Archivio del Novecento, Università La Sapienza (Rome). These notebooks have enhanced the genetic aspect of many of the analysed poems, inasmuch as they contain annotations and portions of verses, which are clear antecedents of the poems themselves. Moreover, they have elucidated the relation between the author’s poetical production and his essays and scholarly studies, and the rich subtext of erudite references beyond the poems. Newly discovered sources in this respect include passages from medieval, modern and contemporary Italian as well as foreign literature; drama, cinema, visual art and music; all enriching and deepening the lyrical voice of Ripellino. The dissertation is opened by an introduction where the results of the analysis of individual texts are gathered and interpreted, revealing thematic and stylistic undercurrents. A particular focus has been given to the language, i.e. the linguistic appearance of the poems, where a remarkable quantity of words from different literary works has been borrowed by Ripellino and mixed with technical jargon, everyday terminology and several foreign words, thus creating, so to speak, a striking linguistic expressionism.