"A Finger of Time". Tardiness and destiny in Milo De Angelis

Abstract

The article deals with the characteristics of the late style in the poetry of Milo De Angelis, analyzing its beginnings in the mid-nineties, starting from the collection Biografia sommaria (1999), and developments until the publication of Incontri e agguati (2015), his most recent work. The study focuses on the changes produced by lateness in the oeuvre of the poet, which transformed his style from mental, opaque, and self-communicative into a register which is more inclusive, at times more distended, but still never restless, nor less lyrical or less dramatic. In practice, De Angelis’ late style produces an enrichment of his poetic vision, now capable of embracing elegiac dimension and tragic tension. Finally, the article investigates the figure of an author for whom the passage of time and the conscience of the approach of the end lead the poet to reobserve, from a posthumous perspective, his own adolescence and his own past, which constitute the basis of the character and destiny of a man and of a poet.