«Vous avez bu l'amour et la mort». Il mito di Tristano e Isotta nella rilettura di Bédier e Martin

Abstract

I Joseph Bedier’s Roman de Tristan et Iseut is studied in relation with the scientific and epistemological point of view of the author, and also with his antigermanism. The narration modernizes the formularity and corality typical of medieval poems, and shows characteristics belonging to the French symbolism, especially to Mallarme’s poetry and its clarte , in opposition to Wagnerian obscurity. In Le vin herbe Frank Martin intensifies the tendency to clarte and corality, the antiwagnerian implications of the romance, composing, during the second world war, his masterpiece, a hymn to consolation and solidarity. II The purpose of this study is to put Le vin herbe in the context of Martin’s long creative iter and of its related, complex cultural frame, and to reassess the common opinion of the composer’s neoclassical relationship with the great musical and literary works of art of the past, who so deeply fascinated him. A relationship which can be better understood in the light of Martin’s peculiar aptitude for approaching the past through some splendid creative interpretation of his own time.