-- Guy de Maupassant
Taormina is indeed the pearl of the Mediterranean, a place where one can relax and enjoy the physical beauty -- the beaches, the volcano, the ruins of many civilizations, the cozy shops and restaurants -- but above all it is a place of inspiration.
With all its mysteries and natural wonders (Aeolus, the Cyclopes, Venus Ericina, Hercules were said to have lived in this island), Sicily became one of the topics of famous literary works like Dante's Divine Comedy and Homer's Odyssey. After them, Goethe, Dominique Vivant Denon, Guy de Maupassant, Oscar Wilde, W.B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, D.H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, and Tennessee Williams arrived in Sicily to visit and concentrate on their writing activities, among other things.
Oscar Wilde was lovestruck with the island's beauty and its people on his two visits to Sicily, once in Palermo and the other in Taormina, and we have letters to his friends to testify these feelings.
W.B.Yeats and Ezra Pound found inspiration in the natural beauties and the echoes of classic mythology, and the arts. Pound's letters, collected in Lettere dalla Sicilia (Edizioni del Girasole, 1998),reveals a dream the author had to live in Sicily, even though this dream never materialized.
In 1921, D.H. Lawrence and his wife Frieda lived in Fontana Vecchia, on the outskirts of Taormina, for over two years and there he wrote Lady Chatterley’s Lover, many short stories and poems - including Snake, in the Reptiles section of his book Birds, Beasts, and Flowers which details a powerful few moments when Lawrence is confronted by a snake at his water trough, in Taormina - and a couple of wonderful travel books. In 1927, Virginia Woolf visited Sicily while working on her Orlando.
Tennessee Williams's The Rose Tattoo is heavily influenced by the trip the American author took with his Sicilian partner, Frank Merlo (they even visited his family in Palermo), to whom the play is, in fact, dedicated.
But the inspiration does not come only from the natural beauties, the rich past, and the legacy left by many foreign as well as local writers (among these the Nobel Prize winners Luigi Pirandello and Salvatore Quasimodo, Giovanni Verga, Vitaliano Brancati, Leonardo Sciascia, to name a few); it comes from the appreciation of the Sicilian customs, cuisine (perhaps the most varied in Italy), the artistic talents displayed in the local production of pottery, embroidery, coral and wrought iron, and the warmth and ingenuity of the Sicilians.
Do not miss this opportunity. Savor the flavors of Sicily and take them with you, sealed in your words, in your paintings, in your photos, in your own heart.
"Sicily is the key to everything."
-- Johann W. Goethe
