Abstract

The admiration for different forms of flight pervades Guido Gozzano's poems and prose. As a collector and a poet-scientist, in "Epistole entomologiche" he describes aspects and habits of various kinds of butterflies. The flight is exalted in his pages: indeed, even a girl's bicycle can fly and the graceful movement of a woman skating on the ice resembles a flight. The flights of birds alternate with those of insects: from the flight of the butterfly in the opening poem of "La via del rifugio" (1907, one of his latest poems) to that of a dove bewildered by the roar of the war to the royal eagle unintentionally shot by a soldier. Either visible or metaphorical, the flight is a leading idea of Gozzano's inspiration.