Our work focuses on the symbolic representation of the end of the world(s) starting from « material imagination » and leading us to reflect upon the dramatic and literary dynamics (from Hugo and Shakespeare especially) upstream of Verdi’s operas. From the mythography of the four elements different figurations of time and end of worlds emerge. Indeed, time suddenly speeds up in Rigoletto in the midst of water imagery. In this work, Bakhtin’s « chronotope of crisis » comes into play, causing a reversal of the temporal direction and a precipitation of the passing of time embodied in the horse’ gallop-like concluding rhythm. This is the way Rigoletto's world finishes. On the other hand, a devastating and obscure time brings forth death in Macbeth which share an underlying Shakespearean substrate illustrating the end of universe and the beginning of the fall of Verdian hero.

Our work focuses on the symbolic representation of the end of the world(s) starting from « material imagination » and leading us to reflect upon the dramatic and literary dynamics (from Hugo and Shakespeare especially) upstream of Verdi’s operas. From the mythography of the four elements different figurations of time and end of worlds emerge. Indeed, time suddenly speeds up in Rigoletto in the midst of water imagery. In this work, Bakhtin’s « chronotope of crisis » comes into play, causing a reversal of the temporal direction and a precipitation of the passing of time embodied in the horse’ gallop-like concluding rhythm. This is the way Rigoletto's world finishes. On the other hand, a devastating and obscure time brings forth death in Macbeth which share an underlying Shakespearean substrate illustrating the end of universe and the beginning of the fall of Verdian hero.