Sirene novecentesche. Il caso di Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa e Curzio Malaparte

This article focuses on Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s short story La Sirena and Curzio Malaparte’s novel La pelle. Common to both texts is the presence of the mythological figure of the siren, central in Tomasi’s tale and the protagonist of chapter VII of Malaparte’s novel. This paper thus examines the role that this classical figure, with its long tradition, plays in two twentieth-century Italian literary works, set in contiguous historical periods. The study specifically explores the significance of reintroducing the classical mermaid in such a late era. The underlying thesis of this paper is that supernatural narratives often use fantastical elements to express real historical anxieties experienced by the author or the community, enriching them with additional symbolic meanings.