The Tale of Tales by Pompeo Sarnelli: from the frame of the Posilecheata to a narrative case study

Abstract

The contribution analyses Pompeo Sarnelli’s Posilecheata (1684), in the first instance situating the collection of fairy-tales in the Neapolitan dialect narrative tradition of the 17^th century. Attention then focuses on the third cunto of the collection, defined by the author as the ‘true’ cunto de li cunti, and thus presenting itself as an attempt to rewrite the Basilian masterpiece. Through the analysis of the narrative procedures of the cunto, it is possible to observe how the Posilecheata occupies a middle ground somewhere between imitation of the model and another objective, also advanced by the author in his Guida de’ forestieri (1685), which is that of promoting the monumental and landscape heritage of Naples. Indeed, to the plot of the cunto, the author interweaves etiological tales about the city’s monuments and places, which, having in turn become fairy-tale characters, act in the threads of the tale.