The sonnet “Stravaganze d’amore” is the first in a collection of love sonnets written by Marino di Napoli around 1597, possibly in response to the comedic theater text of the same name composed by Cristoforo Castelletti. Writer Roberto Malini found this original and unpublished text in 2009 in a Naples antiques dealer’s shop, and after more than 400 years of oblivion, this passionate text was restored to the public. The poet describes the profound torment caused by love’s fiery ardor, a passion that is probably homoerotic in nature given the fact that no female figures are referred to and the poetic language is fraught with anxiety; this may well be because of the risks incurred by “sodomites” in Marino’s day. Thus, the sonnet’s splendid verses describe the lover’s heart as being filled with “pride, ardor and excessive self-confidence,” with “insanity and arrogance” but also with “torment and fear” that the beloved, who is a “tyrannical rio (river?),’ will not be satisfied. The bitter consequences for the poet-lover are that his “torment leaves him in a state of constant hunger.” “Amori”, the collection of poems that follows, is dedicated to a “beautiful and cruel” woman, but also to “secret loves” and “loving thefts” to which only the poet’s sighs testify.
