Abstract

The Bears’ Famous Invasion of Sicily is a well-known children’s story by Dino Buzzati, first published in 1945. Despite generally being considered a marginal work, its linguistic and textual form deserve special attention for the original attempt to merge prose with poetry and combine both with images. As a matter of fact, the switch from prose to verse is repeatedly exploited by Buzzati to open or close a narrative section, underline epic and pathetic scenes and introduce direct and free indirect speech. Both prose and verse are strictly connected to the images, which were painted by Buzzati himself and play a pivotal role in each chapter. The frequent use of rhythmic prose and captions ensures a gradual transition from one code to the other, thus giving the whole work a remarkable stylistic unity.