“Quando rovaio si ristette”. Ekphrasis and Melancholy in “Il club delle ombre” by Carlo Emilio Gadda
Keywords:
Carlo Emilio Gadda, Il club delle ombre, ekphrasis, Vanitas, melancholyAbstract
Carlo Emilio Gadda’s short story Il club delle ombre, written in 1949 and included in the collection Accoppiamenti giudiziosi, centers on an art history teacher marked by grief over the death of her brother during the war. Although she is drawn to the youthful vitality of her students, the protagonist is ultimately unable to overcome her melancholic state and embraces the sphere of eros, remaining trapped in an unresolved inner conflict between mourning and attraction to life. This melancholic dimension is further emphasized by a dense network of both explicit and cryptic pictorial references, through which the protagonist assumes the traits of either a Pre-Raphaelite heroine or a Penitent Magdalene, while the landscape and key scenes evoke Baroque Vanitas.
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