Vol. 19 No. 2 (2016)
Essays

Internal structure and significance of Giovanni Pascoli’s Il bolide

Nicolò Magnani
Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa

Published 2016-12-22

Keywords

  • Giovanni Pascoli,
  • Il bolide,
  • Canti di Castelvecchio,
  • Astral poetry.

Abstract

This essay contains a close examination of Giovanni Pascoli’s Il bolide and particularly tries to demonstrate its expressive and verbal strategies. It seeks to explain how the relationship among the categories of verbal tense, mood and aspect may give to the poem a precise logical and geographical place within the cycle of the Canti di Castelvecchio. A reading is ultimately proposed which explains the reason for the apparently static and forced textual system operating within the poem.