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- Title
Gli zingari di A.S. Puškin: poema byroniano, ma non troppo.
- Authors
Doti, Jacopo
- Abstract
Written in 1824 and first published in 1827, Pushkin's narrative poem The Gypsies is the last of a series of poetical works collectively known as «Southern poems» by analogy with Byron's celebrated cycle of «Eastern tales». At that time, the Russian poet was growing cold about the egotistic solipsism of the prototypical Byronic hero. Thus, he decided to put him to the proof, testing his self-proclaimed striving for freedom. He brings him to a pseudo-Edenic, para-Rousseauian milieu (a Gypsy camp), where he is supposed to find rest for his tormented soul. His love for a genuine child of nature, the charming Zemfira, seems at first the final answer to his quest for redemption. However, as a civilized man, he cannot bear for a long time the burden of the absolute freedom. The murder of his unfaithful spouse unmasks his inveterate egoism, thus decreeing both his banishment from the community and the inanity of his aspirations. This pseudo-Byronic plot functions as a mere pre-text for an ethic and theoretic reflection on the concept of freedom, whose polemical target are both Rousseau's primitivism and Byron's postures and impostures. In doing that, Pushkin foreshadows the future struggles of the Russian man in order to find its own way to freedom.
- Publication
Questione Romantica, 2016, Vol 8, Issue 1/2, p131
- ISSN
1125-0364
- Publication type
Article