‘Negletta prole’: Leopardi’s legacy in Morante’s Aracoeli

Abstract

This contribution addresses Giacomo Leopardi’s so far neglected legacy in Elsa Morante’s Aracoeli (1982), by unveiling the existence of two direct Leopardian hypotexts in the novel: the ‘Ultimo canto di Saffo’ (1822) and the ‘Dialogo della Natura e di un Islandese’ (1824). Focusing, in particular, on the correspondences between Aracoeli and Leopardi’s ‘Ultimo canto di Saffo’, the contribution points to the mourning aspect of the two œuvres, in which the narrative and lyrical voices (respectively, Manuele and Saffo) chant a cathartic elegy through which their wretchedness, far from being erased, leaves space for a resolving conciliation.