ABSTRACT

A Jungian's repertoire of symbols provides a resolution as the poet, from the palus putredinis of collective history, retreats to the maternal body, an archetypal image of oneness but also a space that implies a new beginning. Since, the choice of narrating through dream the daily experience of bourgeois life and conjugal domesticity is an important example of Edoardo Sanguineti's many innovations, it merits further consideration. Yet, the thematic presentation of a psychic, sensory economy of bourgeois domesticity extends far beyond its formal aspects and points towards the deeper ideological implications of Sanguineti's choice of a dream-text. Capriccio italiano represents a gesture of calculated provocation aimed at the cultural and social institutions of post-World War II Italy. Through the dream-text and the exegetical hints that Sanguineti gives us in many points of the novel, including the aforementioned epigraph and the description of the mirror scene, Capriccio lays bare its transformation of oneiric representation into a critical practice.