California Italian Studies

This essay focuses on the story “Uno spirito in un lampone” to highlight I. U. Tarchetti’s contribution to the fantastic as a means of exploring the nightmares that haunt modern progress. Adopting a method of inquiry inspired by ecocritical principles and aimed at grounding the text in its own complex context, the author addresses two main questions: What are the cultural and social productions, conditions, and issues that inspire Tarchetti’s work? And how does his writing—in particular, his reflections on and emplotment of the relationship between reality and the imagination—contribute to the development of the fantastic mode? Through close textual analysis and wide-ranging contextual exploration, the essay shows how Tarchetti’s story puts into question the natural order and, by pointing to a connection between the treatment of women and the treatment of nature, exposes imbalances and abuses in the established order of social structures and institutions.