«Viridarium» 6

In this book, as in the previous five volumes in the Viridarium series, the topic (here “Metamorphosis”) is dealt with by specialists on various cultures and different historical periods. Oriental traditions preserve some of the most archaic conceptions of metamorphosis and they are the subject of the first two essays: the first is by Riccardo Fracasso, who studies mythological traditions and Chinese popular beliefs from the fourth century BC to the fifth century AD; while in the second Alessandro Grossato tackles vegetal transformations in Hinduism. Carlo Donà, on the other hand, adopts a broader comparative approach, embracing the whole of Eurasia, as he analyses the various forms and expressions assumed by the universal figure of the woman-serpent. In the next essay Ezio Albrile starts from alchemical gnosis, which conceives of the manipulation of metals as a metaphor for a physical mutation of the soul in order to examine some alarming modern revivals of the theme, and especially the description of phantasmal universes, induced by drug taking, in the visionary novels of Philip Dick. Cristina Noacco then provides a wide-ranging survey of the many Mediaeval French texts which tell stories of metamorphosis based on ancient literature or folklore and highlights their systematic re-interpretation in a courtly key. The last two chapters concentrate on a number of modern and contemporary revivals of the theme of metamorphosis: Gioia Paradisi analyses their “existential” value in the Farfalle (“Butterflies”) by Guido Gozzano, while Fiorenza Lipparini explores their radical aesthetic and logic-linguistic implications in contemporary literature, from Hofmannsthal and Kafka to the historic avant-garde, dwelling, lastly, on two startling short stories by Alberto Savinio.