Letture di un racconto: “Carmen” e la figura del cerchio

Abstract

The success of Mérimée’s story has not diminished over time and today it still offers multiple readings that go beyond the realm of literature into those of music, theatre, movies and art in general. Thanks to its particular structure, the young gipsy’s transgressions, and the freedom she invokes, no reader has escaped from her attraction, which is the incarnation of the poetry of seduction which transcends all codes, including linguistic and erotic ones. The eighteenth-century tragedy which Carmen represents is the symbol of a character whose destiny is guilt and innocence at the same time. Her ambivalence is her attraction. Angelic and demoniac at the same time, she becomes the forerunner of the femmes fatales which are so common at the end of the nineteenth century. The symbol of the circle, as in the ring Carmen wears, sets the story everywhere, and the final silence prepares for a new reading and interpretation.