La dimensione partenopea nella poetica di de Rada

This article explores the Neapolitan dimension in the poetics of Girolamo De Rada, a foundational figure of Albanian Romanticism. Moving beyond the conventio nal critical focus on Arbëria and on De Rada’s positioning within the so-called “minor Calabrian Romanticism,” this study approaches Naples not merely as a biographical bac kground but as a creative and symbolic myth that profoundly shaped his poetic imagi nation. Drawing on unpublished archival sources—police records, periodicals such as “L’Omnibus” and “La Sirena”, and early editions of “Serafina Thopia”—the article highli ghts how De Rada’s Neapolitan experience forged a tension between poetry and revolu tion, desire and trauma, vision and censorship. Central motifs such as the myth of Psyche and the “Pelasgic Divinations” reveal Naples as both mother-city and stepmother, a place of inspiration and inner exile. By situating De Rada’s work in the ambivalent cultural landscape of Naples, this study reframes his contribution within the broader transnatio nal Romantic movement and the early construction of Albanian cultural identity.