Abstract
Alessandro Achilli
The Quest for the Self in Vasyl’ Stus’s Poetry
The Author translates and discusses some poems from Vasyl’ Stus’s collection Palimpsesty. The work of this major Ukrainian poet, who died in a Soviet prison in 1985, is almost unknown in Italy, while his fame in other countries is linked mainly to his dissident activity, which has been the cause of his somewhat narrow reception as a fi ghter-poet. Stus’s literary achievements are rooted in the wide tradition of European poetry and thought. The Author presents those poems, in which the lyrical subject focuses on himself and on the exploration of his inner world, condensing it in spatial and geometrical forms. The peculiar imagery of this poetic world, which is reduced to a small number of obsessively recurring motifs, is also examined. The Author hopes to arouse curiosity and interest in this little studied chapter of the Ukrainian-Slavic-European poetic history of the Twentieth century.
