Una poesia nuova, cioè antica. Foscolo dalle «Poesie» ai «Sepolcri»

The essay focuses on the relations between the Poesie (the twelve sonnets and the two odes) and the Sepolcri by Ugo Foscolo, emphasising their strong similarities on the form of the content (see, for instance, the crucial role of the antithesis both as a rhetoric figure and as a linguistic and literary form of Foscolo’s thought) and on a line of development along which the first works represent a preparatory stage for the second. Indeed, it is in the Sepolcri that Foscolo fully expresses his idea of lyric as a poetry which «canta con entusiasmo le lodi de’ numi e degli eroi». This idea could also be found in the Poesie, but, specially in the sonnets, it still coexisted with other characteristics of the «melica». The features of this original conception of the lyric (where ‘original’ does not mean new but indicates its similarity to the one of the origins) include a tension toward the sublime, expressed in the Sepolcri by means of two stylistic choices at least: the strong semantic value of the grammatical elements of the discourse and the utilization of the antithesis, by assigning opposite meanings to the same word. Thanks to these techniques, the author accomplish the effect that the sublime should have on the readers: make them strongly think.