Cartoline dal paradiso : drogue, invasion et autodestruction chez Elsa Morante
Cahiers d’Études Italiennes February 10, 2026 Marie Fabre
Drugs and addiction are a neglected but central theme in Elsa Morante's later work, especially after her political and existential turn in the 1960s when she experimented with sedatives and psychedelics. This article examines the drug-leitmotif in the second part of "Il mondo salvato dai ragazzini" (1968), titled "La commedia chimica." There, the physical sensations of LSD and mescaline are articulated through cultural references to Rimbaud and Beat literature. The poems reveal difficult mind/body relationships in Morante's work and provide access to the ambivalences structuring her last two novels, "La storia" and "Aracoeli."