La critica tematica di Lionello Sozzi

Abstract

The article starts with what the author assumes “thematic criticism” to be, i. e. the acceptance by the critic of the author’s “intention” as a primary interpretative tool, and of his/her language as the transparent and unequivocal vehicle of that intention. This method is at the core of Lionello Sozzi’s latest books, of which Il paese delle chimere and Da Metastasio a Leopardi are the best specimens. The first volume is a vast, magnificent repertoire of the ways in which chimaeras and illusions permeate and vivify the writings of countless writers of most genres and epochs, the Eighteenth and Twentieth centuries being the author’s favourite domain: either as an object of repudiation, or as an incentive for demanding effort, the urge to produce fictions remains one of the main themes of the literature of all times. More limited in time, but no less diversified is the second volume, devoted to the Eighteenth century, where Sozzi’s exceptional breadth of interests embraces the comparative field of Italian, French, Spanish and German literatures.