Oltre la lirica, verso il teatro: l’Eliot del primo Pagliarani

The presence of Eliot in Elio Pagliarani’s poetry has already been highlighted by critics: however, what is still missing is an investigation of the actual influence that the critical writings of the Saint Louis poet had on Pagliarani’s first phase, in which the theoretical effort is prominent. The paper aims to propose some preliminary remarks on the definition of this relationship. It dwells on the link between poetry and theatre, which is very strong in Eliot and has consequences on a poet like Pagliarani, who thinks of his poetry within a recitative horizon; this is followed by a reading of The Three Voices of Poetry, which presents a poetic classification that can be usefully integrated with Pagliarani’s approach to writing. Finally, the examination of the prose brings to an attempt to recognise the formal influences of Eliot’s poetry on La ragazza Carla, a poem written during the 1950s, when Pagliarani studied Eliot’s work closely.