Per effetto di mentite spoglie. Una nota sullo stile e sulla poetica di Toti Scialoja

This paper offers a brief stylistic outline of Toti Scialoja’s verses, which are slowly gaining a reputation also among literary critics that in the past have hesitated to acknowledge their relevance for the Italian literary history. This was partly due to the unconventional writing technique that these verses display, using massive alliterations and strict metrical arrangements, and partly to Scialoja’s unusual poetic career, which started with nonsense nursery rhymes during a rest from his painting activity. The following pages aim to demonstrate how Scialoja’s artistic production is indebted to the materials and substances used, both in paintings and in poetry lines. However, only poetry will be dealt with here, focussing on the semantic outcomes that the play with sounds warrants to Scialoja’s poems.