D’Annunzio, Fedra e un volgarizzamento ovidiano

Abstract

Through the study of the preparatory papers of d’Annunzio’s Phaedra preserved in the Archivio Privato del Vittoriale, the article aims to demonstrate the leading role of the medieval vulgarisation of Ovidian’s Metamorphoses by Arrigo Simintendi for the composition of the tragedy. Through a careful work of compulsion and auscultation of the fourteenth-century text, d’Annunzio recovers formal and lexical tesserae to build Phaedra’s hendecasyllables, to recreate congenial images, to provide the most appropriate sounds and musicality, and to suggest psychological insights through the comparison between his characters and the mythological archetypes dear to his theatre, of which Ovid’s masterpiece is an admirable compendium. Ultimately, the essay suggests that the influence of Simintendi’s vulgarization and the method of compulsion extends beyond the tragedy of 1909.

Keywords

• Compositional method. D’Annunzio’s theatre. Fedra. Medieval and contemporary sources. Ovidio’s Metamorphoses