Abstract

Considering "L'Allegria" as the book that establishes the «poetic diary» as the emerging model of 20th-century lyric collections, the paper points out that what Ungaretti actually composed was a simulated diary. Diary simulation enabled Ungaretti to realize a deep redefinition of the traditional lyric pact, updating its ritual root and inscribing it in a nearly imperceptible but powerful mimeticfictional frame, capable of affecting both the macro-textual arrangement and the internal structure of the single texts.