Cartoline dal paradiso : drogue, invasion et autodestruction chez Elsa Morante
Cahiers d’Études Italiennes February 10, 2026 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.4000/cei.14383 via DOAJ
Summary
Drugs, particularly sedatives and psychedelics, play a significant role in the second half of Elsa Morante's work, especially after her existential and political shift in the 1960s. The article examines the drug theme in the latter part of Il mondo salvato dai ragazzini, focusing on La commedia chimica, which explores intimate experiences with LSD and mescaline. This exploration reveals complex mind/body relationships and ambivalences present in Morante's later novels.
Study at a glance
| Key finding | The drug motif becomes central in Morante's later works, particularly through the exploration of LSD and mescaline in Il mondo salvato dai ragazzini. |
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Abstract
The importance of drugs as a theme in the second half of Elsa Morante’s work is rarely emphasized. Beginning with the author’s existential and political turn in the 1960s, a decade that saw her experiment with a series of sedatives and psychedelics, drugs and addiction become omnipresent in the lives of some of the key characters in her novels and short stories. This article focuses on the drug-leitmotif’s appearance in the second part of Il mondo salvato dai ragazzini (1968). In this section, aptly named La commedia chimica, the physical sensations of an intimate experience of LSD and mescaline—the letters of both are hidden within the texts—are articulated through cultural encoding: through Rimbaldian memory, containing Beat reminiscences. The poems presented here allow us to reflect on the difficult mind/body relationships in Morante’s work, offering access to the themes and insoluble ambivalences structuring her last two novels, La storia and Aracoeli.