The Allegorical Eclogues: A collection of classical mythology short stories

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDITION. Are modern-day humans, with their fears, desires and ambitions so different from their ancestors of thousands of years ago? The writings that have come down to us from the great Greco-Roman classics of the past seem to suggest otherwise. Building on the reflections and symbolism of the ancients, this collection of short stories uses classical allegories to address questions and themes that are ever-present in history and intrinsic to humanity itself. The first edition of this book, published in Italian under the title 'Le Ecloghe Allegoriche' in May 2014, when the author was only 18 years old, featured ten eclogues, ten short stories, as a homage to the 'Bucolics' by the great Roman poet Virgil, father of Italian national epic. In this new 2024 edition, the first one available in English, the book was enriched with a new foreword by the author and three extra eclogues from the same period of writing. In fact, these short stories are valuable above all for their sometimes acerbic and premature writing, which examplifies and lays bare the adolescent years in which they were written. The book also contains, among other things, one of the very first poems written by the author at the age of 12, 'My Future'. Each eclogue is also accompanied by a watercolour drawing by the author, emblematic of how artistic expression, especially during childhood and the early formative years of adolescence, must always be in constant search of forms, colours, sounds and languages. Of the many issues explored in these pages, love is undoubtedly the most recurring. Love scrutinised in its various forms and potentialities, love often misunderstood, misinterpreted, suffered, yet always questioned with sincere curiosity and sought out with teenage ardour. It is ultimately in the teenage years that love collides with us, with our knowledge, experience and sensitivity of the world in a whole new way, overwhelming and shocking with extreme force. A book of classical images and allegories to interpret, where the reader must be an active participant in the construction of meanings. Through these stories, written by the hand of a teenager, each of us is invited to seek a dialogue with our past selves, in order to understand our present selves and look to the future. After all, this is precisely what we do when we read and reread the classics of Ancient Rome and Greece. Visit the author's website for all the updates: www.possenti.eu