Mare, arte e letteratura - Tesina

Il mare e il suo valore simbolico nella letteratura e nell'arte

Introduzione.............................................................................................. 2

Samuel Taylor Coleridge: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner...... 3

I. Théodore Géricault: La zattera della Medusa............................ ...8

II. Theodor Storm: Der Schimmelreiter.............................................10

III. Gabriele D'Annunzio: L'onda .........................................................11

IV. Rafael Alberti: El mar/ La mar.........................................................15

V.

Introduzione

Cosa diciamo quando pronunciamo la parola mare?

Parliamo di un immenso mostro (inglese) che divora qualsiasi cosa trova (da Alessandro Baricco, Oceano Mare, 1993), di quel luogo che è l'origine della vita, ci fa sentire protetti, ci attira verso di lui, ci dà molto senza chiedere nulla in cambio (spagnolo) (da Romano Battaglia, Storia di Settembre, 1991).

È l'immagine dell'infinito che porta allo smarrimento (arte e italiano).

Il mare non ha padrone e non ha paese ed è di tutti quelli che lo sanno ascoltare (tedesco) (Giovanni Verga).

Tutte le immagini, che si ricavano dalle parole degli autori citati, ci trasmettono l'idea, da una parte di immensità, infinitezza e di inquietudine per la forza e le insidie che il mare può nascondere e dall'altra, essendo una grande distesa di acqua, che è l'elemento che dà la vita e in cui la nostra vita è iniziata, può anche dare un senso di grande protezione.

In ogni caso si tratta di un'immagine, forse tra le più suggestive che la natura offra e, proprio perché suggerisce altro, forse il mare è, come afferma Borghes, “un antico idioma che non riesco a decifrare” e lo spettacolo del mare in sé ha un fascino fortissimo, sia nella realtà che nella rappresentazione poetica e artistica, fascino che mi ha sempre emotivamente coinvolto.

1.1 Samuel Taylor Coleridge: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

It is an ancient Mariner,

And he stoppeth one of three.

«By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,

Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?

The Bridegroom’s doors are opened wide,

And I am next of kin;

The guests are met, the feast is set:

May’st hear the merry din.»

He holds him with his skinny hand,

«There was a ship,» quoth he.

«Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!»

Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

He holds him with his glittering eye—

The Wedding-Guest stood still,

And listens like a three years’ child:

The Mariner hath his will.

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:

He cannot choose but hear;

And thus spake on that ancient man,

The bright-eyed Mariner

«The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,

Merrily did we drop

Below the kirk, below the hill,

Below the light-house top.

The Sun came upon the left,

Out of the sea came he!

And he shone bright, and on the right

Went down into the sea.

Higher and higher every day,

Till over the mast at noon—»

The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,

For he heard the loud bassoon.

The bride hath paced into the hall,

Red as a rose is she;

Nodding their heads before her goes

The merry minstrelsy.

The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,

Yet he cannot choose but hear;

And thus spake on the ancient man,

The bright-eyed Mariner,

«And now the storm-blast came, and he

Was tyrannous and strong:

He struck with his o’ertaking wings,

And chased us south along.

With sloping masts and dipping prow,

As who pursued with yell and blow

Still treads the shadow of his foe,

And forward bends his head,

The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,

And southward aye we fled.

And now there come both mist and snow,

And it grew wondrous cold:

And ice, mast-high, came floating by,

As green as emerald.

And through the drifts the snowy clifts

Did send a dismal sheen:

Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken—

The ice was all between.

The ice was here, the ice was there,

The ice was all around:

It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,

Like noises in a swound!

At length did cross an Albatross,

Through the fog it came;

As if it had been a Christian soul,

We hailed it in God’s name.

It ate the food it ne’er had eat,

And round and round it flew.

The ice did split with a thunder-fit;

The helmsman steered us through!

And a good south wind sprung up behind;

The Albatross did follow,

And every day, for food or play,

Came to the mariners’ hollo!

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,

It perched for vespers nine;

Whiles all the night, through the fog-smoke white,

Glimmered the white moon-shine.»

«God save thee, ancient Mariner!

From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—

Why look’st thou so?» —With my cross-bow

I shot the Albatross

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a poem by Coleridge.

1.2

Coleridge was born in Devon in 1772.

He was influenced by the French Revolution.

He studied in London and in Cambridge but he never graduated.

In 1797 he met in London the poet William Wordsworth and together wrote the “Lyrical Ballads”.

The Lyrical Ballads: is a collection of poems and it was published in 1798; it marked the beginning of the Romantic movement in England.

Coleridge used opium as drug for chronic rheumatism but he became dependent on it.

He died in 1834 in London.

This poem was published in 1798 and it is written in the form of a medieval ballad.

It talks about the story of an old mariner who killed an albatross and his punishment.

The mariner met 3 gentlemen at a wedding-feast but he stopped only one of them and started to tell his story.

The mariner is old, has a glittering eye which is hypnotic.

He arrived with his ship in the South Pole with a storm and there was an albatross, that is a bird of good omen and it's a God's creature.

It helped the mariner and the sailors, but the mariner killed the albatross.

Then arrived snakes-monsters and a ghost-ship, the other sailors died while the mariner lived.