La nascita del verso libero tra Italia e Francia

The thesis aims to address the question of the origins of free verse in France and in Italy from a comparative perspective. It consists of four chapters, the first two concerning historical and theoretical problems, while the others two contain textual analysis. Chapter I starts from the observation of the different approach to the study of free verse by French and Italian scholars and it provides an historical and critical overview of the development of metrical studies in France between the XIX and the XX century and of changes in the theory and in the perception of verse during this period. This allows to develop the comparison between French and Italian studies about some important theoretical problems: the metrical nature of free verse, the distinction between verse and prose, the value of découpage and enjambement in defining the verse. Chapter II investigates some particular aspects of the complex relation between poetry translation, prose poetry and free verse in XIX century literature, which reflects the evolution in the idea of poetry and verse. The experiments in poetry translation and prose poetry, as well as the metrical reforms which are proposed in France and in Italy in the second half of the century (including Carducci’s “metrica barbara”), and the influence of Whitman’s poetry, cause the emergence of poetic forms which are preludes to free verse. Chapter III and IV concern some of the first French and Italian free-verse poets and propose an analysis of their first poems in free verses. The French poets examined in chapter III are Jules Laforgue, Gustave Kahn, Jean Moréas, Jean Ajalbert, Albert Mockel, Édouard Dujardin, Francis Vielé-Griffin. The Italian poets presented in chapter IV are Luigi Capuana, Giovanni Alfredo Cesareo, Gian Pietro Lucini, Alberto Sormani, Mario Morasso, Ada Negri, Romolo Quaglino, Agostino John Sinadino, Umberto Saffiotti, Angiolo Orvieto.