"Più sonan forte, più mi piace". Appunti su Carducci e la musica

The aim of this paper is to illustrate the impact of music on Giosuè Carducci’s poetry. Despite repeated declarations of incomprehension and indifference, Carducci demonstrated to be sensitive to the influence of Italian and foreign musical production, reflected at multiple levels especially in his poetry of the Seventies and Eighties. A turning point in the development of Carducci’s musical taste is connected to the knowledge of Wagner’s work (in 1871 Lohengrin was represented in Bologna), which played a decisive role in encouraging a dialogue between the classical tradition and Germanic epic, as particularly evidenced by the ode "Presso l’urna di Percy Bysshe Shelley" (1884).