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In 1990 Michele Sovente published the bilingual short poem, in Italian and Latin, Per specula aenigmatis with Garzanti Editore. Texts in two different languages appear on the same page, but they are never mere translations one of the other, the text is often reinvented. Therefore, the same contents are treated with different solutions, such as when an artist employs different painting techniques. Italian is colloquial, Latin is linked to ancient traces. Per specula aenigmatis is not only the first work published by Sovente for a prestigious publishing house like Garzanti, but also the first text in which Italian is accompanied by Latin.

The work is not divided into sections and the poems have no titles, but they are numbered in the Latin style for the poems in Latin and with Arabic numbering for the poems in Italian, thus creating a single long enigmatic narrative, full of references to myth and history. The flow of paronomasias, puns and linguistic squabbles, creates links between the ancient and dreamlike world represented by specula and the contemporary world.

The book garnered the enthusiasm of critics: Andrea Cortellessa defined it as "one of the most risky and fascinating adventures of our current poetry[1]"; Giuseppe Rocca made a radio drama out of it entitled In corpore antiquo, broadcast on Radiotre.

The main themes of the work are the relationship between the Phlegraean Fields with the Roman history, myths, the contrast between past and present, and the link between Latin and contemporary language.

We can see some of these characteristics in these poems: Epigrafe, Radici esplodevano sul mio cenotafio and Ergomet vates Sovente saepultam mei linguam.

 

 

                                               

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[1] A. Cortellessa, Michele Sovente, lo specchio oscuro, in “La fisica del senso”, Fazi Editore, 2006, p. 485.