The Sea of Memory: Exile and Identity in the Writing of Raffaele Cecconi

Abstract

This paper analyses the role of the sea in the literary work of Raffaele Cecconi, an Italian writer of Zadar origin, showing how it represents one of the central symbolic nuclei of his writing. Through the analysis of the novel La Corsara and the poetry collections Da un mare all’altro, Una vita ladra, Ora che invecchio, D… come Dalmata and Filastrocche per adulti, the paper demonstrates that the sea is deeply connected with exile, memory and identity construction. In Cecconi’s texts, the sea is never merely a landscape element, but rather a liminal and dynamic space that both separates and connects the two Adriatic shores. The analysis also shows how, in Cecconi’s later works, the sea gradually becomes a universal figure of existential precariousness and of the crisis of contemporary identity.