Dannunzian aesthetics and the necrophilic imagination in Le vergini delle rocce

Abstract

Le vergini delle rocce (1895) represents the culmination of Gabriele D’Annunzio’s Aestheticist Roman phase, uniting thematics, narrative, and poetry in the textual fabric of his ‘poema in prosa’. Privileging atmosphere over plot, the novel luxuriates in the beautiful language, landscape, and characters that surround the protagonist, Claudio Cantelmo. This article argues that the production of this beauty depends on D’Annunzio’s adoption and elaboration of a necrophilic aesthetic, one that is linked to Claudio’s assertion of his poetic fantasy and its reliance on the eponymous virgins—Massimilla, Anatolia, and Violante. Through readings of the prologue and the tale-within-a-tale of Umbelino and Pantea, a story of incestuous passion, murder, and necrophilia, the article explores the novel’s complicated interweaving of aesthetics, death, and beauty.

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