The Poet s Mystery

The poet’s mystery by Antonio Fogazzaro was published in 1888 and it is set in a totally unreal Nuremberg. The novel tells of the love between a poet and a sweet and delicate English girl, Violet Yves. After a number of obstacles, they marry but Violet dies during the honeymoon. The artificiality of the event, the exaggerated sentimentality and the themes Fogazzaro wanted to express the impossibility of love on this earth that is meaningful only in another life, the necessity of renunciation give the novel an aura of improbability.
In this short novel, we find patterns and themes typical of Fogazzaro: a taste for aristocratic backgrounds in which they refined and sensitive characters act, the tendency to create ambiguous situations, erotic, religious, and spiritualistic theories.

Keywords: The Poet s Mystery, Antonio Fogazzaro, Faligi