Tra mythos e logos: il gioco combinatorio dei miti nella poesia simbolista

The aim of this thesis is to find some invariants in the use of mythology in French poetry during the second half of the Nineteenth century, a period that brought about enormous changes in literature: among those, a major transformation in the use of mythology itself. The first chapter focuses on critical theories about the relationship between mythology and literature, in order to demonstrate how the "mythocritique" is not sufficient to the analysis of Symbolist poetry: the works of Michael Riffaterre and Jean de Palacio are more useful for the purposes of this thesis. The first part of the second chapter is dedicated to an overview of the function of mythology in the Romantic and Parnassian poetry and to a study of the theories about mythology in the Symbolist movement. The analysis itself is then subdivided into two parts; the first one (second part of the second chapter) concerns the most significant uses of mythology by Symbolist poets, while the second one (third chapter) shows how all these uses are constantly distorted. For the authors of the Symbolist movement, mythology, manifestation of the absolute, is an instrument for their metaphysic quest, but they bring its use to the extreme; however, they leave two major achievements to the poets of the Twentieth century: the constant fragmentation of mythology and its perception as a linguistic element, which allowed a transformation of its use.