"A Spirit in a Raspberry" is the story of a baron who, after eating the fruit of a raspberry plant, starts to experience strange and contradictory feelings. He notes a feminine presence inside himself that causes him to remember the strange disappearance of a maid that occurred some time ago.
"A Spirit in a Raspberry" is part of an anthology called “Fantastic Tales” that is divided into two sections: “The Fatalists” and “Thoughts.” “Fantastic Tales,” written between 1867 and 1869, is a good example of the literary rigor and experimentation that characterizes Scapigliati’s work, with its strong vein of social and political denouncement that is joined to his predilection for the horrid and the macabre (a metaphor for corruption).
“Scapigliatura,” the literary and artistic movement named for this writer, has gained new validity today due to its polemical stance against a ruling class of corrupt politicians who no longer cares about upholding ideals of liberty and social equality. The poetry of Tarchetti and Scapigliati gets its vigor from the sub-strata of people at the margins of society: the homeless, “nomads,” foreigners and free thinkers who are often treated as if they were mentally ill.
