La virtù femminile rivisitata: Il messaggio di Giuseppe Parini come rilettura rococò della Nouvelle Héloïse di J.-J. Rousseau

This study offers a comparative reading of Giuseppe Parini’s Il messaggio and Rousseau’s La Nouvelle Héloïse through aesthetics and rewriting theory. The methodology combines intertextual comparison, metrical and formal analysis, and rhetorical-lexical examination in order to identify the mechanisms through which the Rousseauian model is reshaped within eighteenth-century Italian lyric poetry. The findings show that the motif of female virtue, presented by Rousseau as a temporal psychological conflict is transformed by Parini through three main operations: semiotic condensation in the reliquary object, formal containment in the sapphic ode, and rococo stylization of emotional language. This process shifts virtue from narrative development to an atemporal lyrical state aligned with the cultural horizon of aristocratic Italian Enlightenment. The article concludes that Il messaggio represents a creative and strategic cultural mediation that reformulates French sentimental pathos into formal grace and moral elegance rather than simple imitation.