Eleonora Duse and the Poetic World of Amy Lowell

The American poetess Amy Lowell (1874-1925) had a special admiration for the famous actress Eleonora Duse (1858-1924). In 1902 she remained enchanted by the staging of d’Annunzio’s plays in the United States, and had also a brief meet with her. It was the turning-point in her life: in fact, after this moment, she started her poetic production. After twenty years, when her literary carerre was at the highest level, she published some poems during the last American tour of the artist. She posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1926 with the collection What’s o’clock, which cointains a long poem for Duse. This paper analyzes Lowell’s poetic texts inspired by Duse (written in 1902, 1923, and 1924), considering the difficulties of their personal contact and the theatrical ambitions of the American poetess.