This essay is mainly based on my earliest work which is a combination of literary criticism with sociology and history of science. I started writing it while I was studying for my Master of Arts , “The Body and Representation”, at the University of Reading some years ago, and just in the last two years I decided to update it due to the increasing “modernity” of those issues. I guess that originally it was the work of a young poet becoming a man and a young man becoming a poet. Therefore, I think it is full of all the enthusiastic illusions and limitations typical of that age. I wish to thank Carolyn Williams Lyle, who was both a lovely teacher and friend to me at this important stage of my life. I also wish to thank the University of Reading for all the support they gave me in different ways. Last but not least, I wsih to thank the University of Salerno, which supported my studies financially.