Veronica Copello

Heroic poems are important in the literary and human experience of Luigi Pirandello, beginning from his first collection of poems (Mal giocondo, Palermo 1889). In this collection two poems, Romanzi II and IX, show a thematic and lexical similarity with Orlando furioso, cantos VI-VIII, as well as a close existential confrontation with Gerusalemme liberata, cantos XIII and XVIII. Likewise, in both poems of Pirandello, the charm of a fairy woman luring a knight to his ruin reveals its very illusory and deceptive nature. Yet, such allure inspires a desire for eternal beauty, existing only in the Earthly Paradise. Pirandello’s youthful intuitions become afterwards object of academic study: three different editions of Gerusalemme liberata (now in Rome, Library of the Istituto di Studi Pirandelliani) bear a set of marginal annotations in his hand, which he used in his course on literary style at the Istituto Superiore di Magistero.