INFLUENCES OF VITTORIO ALFIERI'S WORKS IN THE TRAGEDIES NEPOMOCENO ORSINO AND DAMIANO DI RAGUSA BY MARKO ANTUN VIDOVIC

In various Dalmatian authors that published their works in Italian language during the first half of 19th century, we may find the problematization of the dialectics of measure and excess. That is linked with the social situation in Dalmatia caused by the constant exchanges of various foreign rules in this region. Starting from Nikola Ivellio, the author of the poem Anarchy, in which the motif of the crowd that exceeds legal, social, and moral rules is depicted, we notice that the representation of oppression and exercising of power in a cruel and despotic way is also present in the texts of other authors of that period. The absence of moderation as well as intolerance are widely discussed in Marko Antun Vidovic's tragedies, Nepomoceno Orsino and Damiano di Ragusa. Vidovic (1795-1868) investigated the zeal of totalism and hierarchy and the exaggeration of one man's rule, probably, besides other, under the influence of Vittorio Alfieri's tragedies, like Filippo or Saul. Alfieri widely discussed this issues in his essay Della tirannide (1777-87), which addressed Italy's position under Napoleonic rule but also depicted the situation in the rest of Europe: "wherever I look in Europe I see in almost every region the faces of slaves ... every good man must believe, and hope, that inevitable change is not far off, whereby an almost universal liberty must supplant universal servitude". This essay, as well as Alfieri's tragedies, might have influenced Vidovic's work, so boundaries, limits, and restrictions become of a particular interest in the exegesis of the author's plays.