«A cui non manca che la fortuna d’avere avuto il natale in tempo più felice»: Teresa Bandettini's "La Teseide" (1805)

Abstract

Although Teresa Bandettini (1763-1837) was celebrated, during her lifetime and by posterity, above all for her talent as a poet improviser, which earned her admission to Arcadia under the name of Amarilli Etrusca, her ambitions lay in "thought" poetry: in particular in the epic-mythological poem La Teseide, published in 1805 and now almost forgotten. This contribution will explore the making of the text and highlight the aspects that in terms of subject matter, narrative development and style denote Amarilli’s integral adherence to a "classicist" poetics. Specifically, the narrative articulation of the poem and the characterisation of Theseus will be examined, and some examples of rewriting from Latin and vernacular classics will be offered, whose strategy may also have been conditioned by the poet’s experience as an improviser.