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FrancoAngeli Journals

Contributi Scientifici

No. 50 (2018)

L’assenzio. Le illusioni della Fée Verte

Submitted
ottobre 9, 2018
Published
2018-10-09

Abstract

Absinthe, celebrated in time as “nectar of the gods”, is the Green Fairy that grants the access to a world of Dionysian intoxication.
However, behind all this hides the real danger, our mal du siècle, that is abuse and addiction: behind false illusions of a short-lived wellbeing, they conceal a world from which it is not always possible to come back.
The absinthe’s victims are people of all ages, but many of them are from the youngest generations.
The present article intends to investigate the absinthe’s history and its representations in the Arts, in order to debunk the myth about its ingredients’ toxicity and to draw attention to the dangers hidden beneath the seduction of this substance, which has a very high alcoholic content.
Following these data and observations, we can affirm that there is the need to put special attention to the absinthe’s comeback and to its growing fame among young people, too often and too easily entranced by the promise of oblivion though intoxication.

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