Supervisors info:
Γεώργιος Μικρός, Καθηγητής Τμήματος Ιταλικής Γλώσσας και Φιλολογίας, Φιλοσοφική Σχολή ΕΚΠΑ
Ιωάννης Τσόλκας, Καθηγητής Τμήματος Ιταλικής Γλώσσας και Φιλολογίας, Φιλοσοφική Σχολή ΕΚΠΑ
Γιαννούλα Γιαννουλοπούλου, Καθηγήτρια Τμήματος Ιταλικής Γλώσσας και Φιλολογίας, Φιλοσοφική Σχολή ΕΚΠΑ
Summary:
Gabriele d'Annunzio was one of the most controversial figures in modern Italian literature who, even today, 81 years after his death, has fervent readers and scholars of his varied work. Vate, which means both a bard and a prophet, as his admirers used to majestically call him adding a dose of mysticism to his personality, insisted on displaying a tendency to persist around the idea of Death. After all, Death and Art are eternal brothers, as he gleefully mentions in his poem Il Gombo from his poetic collection Alcyone (1903).
The selection of works in the present work is not accidental since they are two of the most characteristic examples of his writing, where Death is the great protagonist, the subject of D'Annunzio's concern and study. The two works, Contemplazione della Morte (1912) and Notturno (1916), were written in two very important periods of his life, when his emotional burden is high. The first work was written during his escape to France being persecuted by his creditors in Italy, while the second was written during his active involvement with the irredentist manifestations of Italy in the early 20th century.
In both works, Death plays a central role as the writer engages in an informal confrontation with Him through the descriptions of the tragic loss of people who were close to him.
In the present work, which has a dual nature, we attempt to show, on the one hand, what emerges through the contrastive stylistics of the two works, and, on the other hand, to verify with measurable evidence derived from the stylometric analysis, what contrastive stylistics highlights as a key literary conclusion concerning the author's view of Death and the way he ultimately deals with it.
Keywords:
Gabriele d’Annunzio, Notturno, Contemplazione della Morte, stylometric analysis, contrastive stylistics, Italy, Novecento, Death
