Glory Days. Nostalgia identitaria nella poetica di Bruce Springsteen = Glory Days. Identitary nostalgia in Bruce Springsteen’s poetics

Abstract

Glory Days. Identitary nostalgia in Bruce Springsteen’s poetics. Since his early steps as a songwriter, Bruce Springsteen has made the explicit choice to write the narratives of the working class hero, reason why he is often strongly identified with this character, intimately related to the notion of the American dream. In the continuous struggle between a past from which Springsteen’s heroes want to escape, an unsatisfying present and an uncertain future, Springsteen’s concept of nostalgia emerges as an inevitable way to search for one’s own identity. Depending on the historical (and personal) background for each album in his nearly half-century-old career, Springsteen’s characters deal with different kinds of nostalgia, from romantic and restorative to dark and desperate. The pursuit of the American dream itself implies the loss of a stable past in the search for unknown boundaries, as well as several permanent conflicts (hope/disillusion, stability/escape, trust/betrayal, promise/failure), conveying a constant nostalgia which has its roots at the very heart of the American culture and which is a key element not only in the literary aspect of Springsteen’s songwriting, but also in his activity as a composer and a live perfomer