Alle soglie del modernismo: Emilio Praga e Arrigo Boito
On the Threshold of Modernism: Emilio Praga and Arrigo Boito

Summary/Abstract: In his study the author analyzes the poetic works of Emilio Praga and Arrigo Boito, two of the leading figures of Milan’s “scapigliatura”, a remarkable group of writers who made their literary debuts in the 1860s. He singles out primarily the fact that the chief source of inspiration for these two writers came from Paris, being dual in nature: first, their works were inspired by Gautier, Baudelaire and Nerval, authors paving the way to Parnassianism and Symbolism, and then by Murger, Champfleury and Duranty, writers who had outlined the path leading towards Zola’s Naturalism. However, both in case of Praga and Boito the actual transformation of those literary stimuli was not a mere imitation of foreign models, but rather a point of departure for creating their own original poetics. Praga’s adoption of the Baudelairean subject of spleen and ideal and of Murger’s sentimental “Realism” presage the Symbolist-decadent poetic as well the “crepuscular” one. By paying special attention to form and through his consistent stylistic work Boito shaped the first Italian version of Parnassian poetry.

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