BEGINNINGS AS AFTERTHOUGHTS: A READING OF ‘VIA SCARLATTI’ AS THE OPENING POEM OF VITTORIO SERENI’S <i>GLI STRUMENTI UMANI</i> (1965)

Abstract In 1965 Vittorio Sereni placed at the beginning of his third collection, Gli strumenti umani, a poem, ‘Via Scarlatti’, which had been published almost twenty years before, as the closing text of his previous collection, Diario d’Algeria (1947). This article explores the implications of such a choice, in relation to both the interpretation of the poem and to broader questions of beginnings and endings. In particular, it claims that the analysis of the positioning of ‘Via Scarlatti’ reveals something of Sereni’s own position towards the past, and it frames such a position in terms of afterthought. Issues of beginnings and endings are further explored by considering ‘Via Scarlatti’ in relation to other poetic possibilities, offered by the works of Umberto Saba and T. S. Eliot.