"Bimbo semplice che fui / dal cuore in mano e dalla fronte alta": sui modi di dire nella poesia di Guido Gozzano

In this paper, we will focus on a few poems by Guido Gozzano, which are taken from the only poetic collections published by the author during his lifetime: La via del rifugio (1907) and I colloqui (1911). Several collocations will be examined, i.e. some sequences of words linked together by more or less solid, more or less fixed connections. Of these, moreover, we will attempt to outline very briefly the history, the evolution in the field of Italian literature from its origins up to contemporary times, because it is precisely from the diachronic study of such material that it will be possible to derive information on the function it plays in Gozzani's poetry. On the other hand, as Uberto Motta stated: «studying the "sources" of a text, reconstructing its references and the comparisons generated from the words and images of which it is composed, [...] allows us to relocate it within the system [...] into which it was conceived». As we will try to demonstrate, idiomatic expressions, because of their fixedness, participate in that operation which allows the poet of I Colloqui to «satisfy the radical need [...] to possess something that is now past, immobile». Therefore, the presence of this phenomena of crystallisation of language (literary and daily), of a word which can no longer mutate, which becomes a certain and secure anchorage, takes on absolute importance. A word which, thanks to its own immobility, is perceived by Gozzano as a stable landing place, and ends up constituting the one and only reassuring «way of refuge».