“Madrigale a Nefertiti” by Vittorio Sereni

Abstract

This contribution offers a close reading of Madrigale a Nefertiti, a short poem in Traducevo Char, the fourth section of Vittorio Sereni's last collection, Stella variabile (1982). The analysis, mainly metrical and stylistic but with a few lunges at the author's lexical choices, touches on some central and long-standing themes of Serenian poetry: the theme of beauty (the beauty of nature and poetic form) and the tragic impossibility of the lyric subject to draw on it; the theme of encounter and dialogue with the other; the theme of nihilism, exclusion and inappartence. These last aspects, typical of the Serenian Tragic, in our text and in general in Stella Variabile increase in level compared to the previous collections as is proposed to demonstrate - in the second part of this contribution - the close comparison between Madrigale a Nefertiti and Appuntamento a ora insolita, a crucial text in the collection Gli strumenti umani (1965).