Abstract

In the long path of the myth of Narcissus from Ovid's "Metamorphoses" to the present day, many details of the original story are lost, like the highly dramatic case of the dispersed image in the water's reflection. This motif is repeated in many poets, from Dante to D'Annunzio, but always disconnected from the plot of the mythical tale. Eventually the link suddenly reappers in Ungaretti's "Allegria" and then in Montale's "Ossi di seppia": the reappropriation and the reformulation of classicism are, in fact, the characteristic elements of the modernist poetry.