The mock-heroic poem of the Scàraba brothers. Intersections of prose and verse in the drafts of "Bau-sète!" by Luigi Meneghello

Abstract

The paper focuses on the relationship between prose and versification in the writing process of Bau-sète! by Luigi Meneghello, examining the drafts preserved at the Centro Manoscritti in Pavia. The study begins from the observation that numerous passages of the book, in the early stages of their manuscript development, present at least one version in verse, which is subsequently turned into prose or rhythmic prose. A systematic survey of the preparatory materials reveals that at least fourteen of the approximately ninety narrative fragments that make up the book undergo, in their genesis, one or more verse versions. These versions are characterized by a free and irregular versification, the use of syntactic inversions and a high-register vocabulary, as well as a wide presence of phonetic figures typical of poetic writing. In the transition to subsequent prose versions, these features are not eliminated but absorbed, giving rise to hybrid forms in which the previous verse structure remains recognizable even without being graphically marked. As an illustrative example, the paper focuses on the genetic development of the episode of the motorcycle race against the Scàraba brothers in chapter six, reconstructed through the different manuscript and typescript versions. From the initial drafts entirely in verse, the text moves through intermediate hybrid forms that alternate prose and verse, up to the final version in prose alone, now close to publication. The passage thus appears to originate as a sort of mock-heroic poem in verse, and numerous stylistic elements of that initial conception (such as syntactic inversions, lexical ornateness, and alliterative play) survive in the final version.