The scientific journal Ticontre. Theory Text Translation (e-ISSN 2284-4473) provides a platform for open discussion on the literary text that is not only innovative but also keen to acknowledge core components of the European and American tradition.
The essay reconstructs the history of the magazine «Altri termini», founded in Naples in 1972 and active for about twenty years. It focuses especially on its poetic research and on the articles regarding the theory of literature. Through a close reading of single contributions, it underlines the distinctive traits of this experience, the strength of which consists above all in the many elements of contrast within its cultural proposal. Moreover, the article aims to consider «Altri termini» within that dialectic between ‘myth of origins’ and ‘neurosis of the end’ that marks much of Italian poetry between the Eighties and Nineties.
Sezione monografica: Le riviste italiane di poesia degli anni ’70-’90
Copyright (c) 2020 Gianluigi Simonetti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The academic interest towards the magazines of the Seventies and Eighties, in the last five years, has been marked by an open gaze, aimed precisely at studying and not just at labeling in the wake of already determined categories. This article aims to investigate not the anthological canon, but the “essayistic” one of the magazines: that is, which authors of the now concluded past are investigated, which “maestri” of the present, which foreign authors, which theoretical points of reference are investigated. Reconstructing the focal points of the poetic debate can be useful in shedding light on one of the decades of greatest change in Italian poetry. It will be shown that many of the poetry magazines of the Seventies and Eighties, in fact, were founded as an attempt to fill the presumed literary “void” of the previous decade; consequently they are a relevant experimentation workshop, transversal to the most known literary streams. The journals studied are the following: «Tabula», «Tam Tam», «Altri termini», «Scarto minimo».
Copyright (c) 2020 Claudia Crocco https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
La poesia in prosa nel modernismo italiano
The purpose of this article is to highlight the modernity of five Italian authors of prose poetry who were born in the ’80s of the Nineteenth century and wrote their masterpieces in the ’10s of the Twentieth century: Camillo Sbarbaro, Dino Campana, Giovanni Boine, Piero Jahier, Scipio Slataper. The article traces the critical bibliography of these authors, then shows the innovative features of their works. Prose poetry is presented as one of the strategies through which the epistemological crisis that characterized modernism has been expressed. Sbarbaro, Campana, Boine, Jahier and Slataper sense the cultural crisis of the late nineteenth- early twentieth century, and translate it into a renewal of the forms through which literature can represent human consciousness.
Copyright (c) 2019 Claudia Crocco https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Il contributo di Michail Aleksandrovič Petrovskij (1887-1937) allo studio della forma novellistica
Between the 1920s and 1930s, M.A. Petrovskij, a Germanist, literary critic and translator, is working on a theory of the narrative composition, the aim of which is to draw the functional architecture of the tale, its “physiology”. The objective is to unveil the dynamic links that exist within the tale’s different components and which arise from the perspective that each poetic procedure used in the text assumes. Within the realm of this study project, the final result of which should constitute a real “poetics of the short story”, Petrovskij publishes some essays during the 1920s. In these, the Russian scholar not only combines a rigorous theoretical planning, aimed at the precise definition of the tools of the study and of their terminology, but he also uses a pragmatic approach, which foresees, from time to time, the close reading of one or two case studies. In this essay, the aim is to show the originality of the theoretical-conceptual contribution of Petrovskij’s research, focusing on some aspects of the theory of the composition of the short story and briefly examining a specific case study, the one concerning A. Puškin’s short story The Shot. The analysis of the first of the Five Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin also gives Petrovskij the opportunity to take a position with respect to some critical judgements that the formalist critic B. Ėjchenbaum, an insightful scholar of Puškin’s prose and a renowned theorist of the short form, had formulated during those same years.
Copyright (c) 2019 Adalgisa Mingati https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
In dialogo con la poesia di José Ángel Valente
Il contributo include le poesie Nozione dell’alba, Verso la parola e L’assente.
Sezione monografica - “El sueño de la nada” (a Valente en los noventa años de su nacimiento)
Copyright (c) 2019 Antonio Prete https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Introduzione alla sezione monografica “I confini del saggio. Per un bilancio sui destini della forma saggistica”.
Sezione monografica: I confini del saggio. Per un bilancio sui destini della forma saggistica
Copyright (c) 2018 Federico Bertoni, Simona Carretta, Nicolò Rubbi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Introduzione alla sezione monografica “La poesia contemporanea dal 1975 a oggi”.
Sezione monografica - La poesia italiana dal 1975 a oggi
Copyright (c) 2017 Andrea Afribo, Claudia Crocco, Gianluigi Simonetti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
In the first decades of the twentieth century, in spite of Benedetto Croce’s authoritative and damning remarks against the category of literary genres in his journal «La Critica», a theoretical reflection on the novel as a genre develops in Italy, although in a somewhat fragmentary fashion. One of the most relevant figures engaging in this reflection is the writer, translator and critic Giuseppe Antonio Borgese: rooted in the German tripartite framework of Epik/Lyrik/Dramatik, his reflection on the novel partly overlaps with that of contemporary scholars such as Győrgy Lukács, Michail Bakhtin or Käte Friedemann and presents the issue of non-identification between author and hero as one of its key elements. This aspect, developed by Borgese both in theoretical and narrative terms (especially in his novel Rubé), is expressed with peculiar perspicuity in a yet unpublished letter he sends in 1945 to his former student Liliana Scalero: here, striking a parallel between his own novel and Goethe’s Werther, Borgese challenges the biographical interpretations that would affect for a long time the reception of his work.
Copyright (c) 2021 Daria Biagi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
This introduction offers a short overview of the latest multi-authorial collections of short stories dedicated to the theme of work and reflects on why this production deserves attention from literary criticism. It also identifies and underlines the main features emerged from the contributions collected in this monographic section.
Il lavoro nelle raccolte di racconti dagli anni Ottanta a oggi
Copyright (c) 2021 Filippo Gobbo, Mara Santi, Tiziano Toracca https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Introduction to the monographic section regarding Antonella Anedda.
Sotto la lente: Antonella Anedda. Spazi, luoghi, paesaggi
Copyright (c) 2025 Claudia Crocco, Marco Villa https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
«Gli europei non hanno fortuna nei rapporti con i cinesi»
This contribution investigates the reception of Goethe in Alfred Döblin's essays and narrative work. Starting with an analysis of some of the Berlin writer's autobiographical writings and the essays Goethe und Dostojewski and Wissen und Verändern!, the complex evolution of his relationship with Weimar Classicism is outlined and the influence of Goethe's morphology in Döblin's thought is highlighted. On the basis of the study of poetological writings, the points of contact between the classical concept of the autonomy of the parts and the modern epic conceptualised by Döblin are then shown. Finally, through the analysis of the structure and intertextual elements in the exile novel Amazonas, we focus on Döbllin's reading of the Faustian theme.
Copyright (c) 2025 Claudia Cippitelli https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Approaching the subject from within the history of literary genres, this essay explores several key compromises forged between poetry and the world of prose. At a theoretical level, the problematic outcomes of this encounter continue to manifest themselves in the ambivalent usage of the terms «landscape» and «space». The literary works most closely associated with «Modern Lyric Classicism» similarly exhibit traces of symptomatic negotiations, reflecting an unresolved underlying tension. In both directions, the work of Anedda constitutes a privileged point of observation.
Copyright (c) 2025 Michela Davo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
«Il posto del paesaggio» nella poesia di Antonella Anedda
The present article seeks to provide a reconstruction of the forms and functions of landscape, understood as relational space, as it appears in Antonella Anedda’s poetry. The objective of this study is to demonstrate the pivotal function of prior literary and figurative references in the ostensibly immediate depiction of the encounter between a subject and a segment of nature in poetic compositions. This article focuses in particular on two texts, Paesaggio (Dal balcone del corpo) and Esilii (Historiae), which illustrate how meditation on death, the body and identity falls variously within the orbit of the discourse on Anedda’s landscapes.
Copyright (c) 2025 Emma Pavan https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The article analyzes the relationship between geography, writing, and ethics in the work of Antonella Anedda, adopting a geocritical and geopoetic approach. Through close readings of both poetry and prose (in particular Isolatria, Geografie, Notti di pace occidentale, and Historiae), it highlights how maps and borders are not mere backdrops or themes, but formal and narrative devices that articulate an oscillating perspective between the inside and outside, individual and collective, past and present. The map becomes a means of relating the self to the world, while the border is constantly challenged. Anedda’s writing, hybrid in both form and perspective, constructs an ethical space in which geography is grounded in a network of relationships, also including a reflection on media and the relationship between human beings and the environment.
Copyright (c) 2025 Martina Mileto https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Introduction to the journal’s monographic section Memory. The Present of the Past.
Monographic section: Memory. The Present of the Past
Copyright (c) 2025 Daniele Giglioli, Francesca Lorandini, Elsa Rita Dos Santos, Pietro Taravacci https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Werner Kofler’s play Tanzcafé Treblinka, premiered at the Klagenfurt Municipal Theatre on 12th May 2001, explores memory and oblivion of the Shoah in Austria. The drama consists of two speeches that follow one another without leaving room for dialogue. In the first, an elderly performer (A) recounts his remembrances of National Socialism and the Final Solution to a young man (B). In the second monologue, B denies the reported information. In developing his exposition, the character seems to possess historical knowledge, although he has no intention of remembering past events. The title of the work hints at Ernst Lerch’s biography, a post-war manager of a family business in Klagenfurt who was responsible for the mass extermination in the General Government during the early forties. Moreover, it calls to mind forgetfulness blended with entertainment (Tanzcafé) and memory of Nazi crimes (Treblinka).
Copyright (c) 2025 Daniele Robol https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
«There were always the stories. And they weren’t just stories, they were the truth»
How can memory be preserved when historical evidence is no longer there? Is it really possible to reconstruct a multi-layered history starting from a few remains left by a culture in danger of extinction? Do the red stones displayed in a souvenir shop really have “memory and power,” as Native American poet Joy Harjo believes in “New Orleans”? By analyzing a selection of poems included in the collection Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: 50 Poems for 50 Years (2023), the essay explores the relation between individual memory, tribal stories, and contemporary challenges. In traditional oral cultures, such as the Native American one, it is the art of telling stories that has the noble task of recovering, passing on, and preserving memory. In order to combat the cultural amnesia resulting from the annihilation and cultural alienation induced by colonialism and aggressive assimilative practices, it is towards the earth that one must turn. By listening to the stories contained in it, by amplifying them, and by passing them down to the next generation, Harjo recovers a memory buried in the bowels of the earth for millennia, while also interrupting and complementing official colonial historiography with alternative truths. With the earth as its focus, in this essay I will explore the role played by individual and collective memory in Harjo’s poetry and more in general in contemporary Native American poetry. Come preservare la memoria quando le evidenze storiche non ci sono più? È possibile ricostruire una storia stratificata a partire da pochi resti lasciati da una cultura in via d’estinzione? Davvero le pietre rosse esposte in un negozio di souvenir sono dotate di «memoria e potere», come afferma la poeta nativo-americana Joy Harjo in "New Orleans”? Attraverso l’analisi di poesie selezionate dalla raccolta Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: 50 Poems for 50 Years (2023), il saggio interroga il rapporto tra memoria individuale, storie ancestrali e sfide contemporanee. Nelle culture orali tradizionali, come quella nativo-americana, è l’arte del raccontare storie che ha il nobile compito di recuperare, tramandare e preservare la memoria. Per combattere l’amnesia, frutto dell’annientamento e dell’alienazione culturale indotti dal colonialismo e da pratiche assimilative aggressive, non resta che mettersi in ascolto della terra, amplificare le storie in essa contenute e ritrasmetterle di generazione in generazione. Tali storie hanno un’importanza fondamentale per Harjo, non solo perché recuperano dalle viscere della terra una memoria sepolta da millenni, ma anche perché arricchiscono la storia ufficiale con un controcanto capace di interrompere la storia coloniale. Sarà dunque a partire dalla terra che in questo saggio si esplorerà il ruolo della memoria nella poesia di Harjo e più in generale nella poesia nativo-americana contemporanea.
Copyright (c) 2025 Lisa Marchi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The exchange between geographic knowledge and literary criticism has seen an increase in recent years following the recent spatial turn. In particular, since 2000s, numerous narrative texts have focused on the representation of everyday places and peripheral territories. This article suggests the term “ecobiography” to identify those texts whose narrative revolves around one or more places and in which the dynamics between society and nature are observed through a perspective that is halfway between the human and the non-human. Through Pianura (2021) by Marco Belpoliti and Una voce dal profondo (2023) by Paolo Rumiz, this analysis seeks to highlight the stylistic and thematic characteristics that give ecobiography an active socio-territorial function, recognising a historical, cultural and physical significance to places and the environment. Lo scambio tra sapere geografico e critica letteraria ha riconosciuto negli ultimi anni un incremento in seguito al recente spatial turn. In particolar modo, a partire dagli anni Duemila numerosi testi narrativi si sono interessati alla rappresentazione dei luoghi della quotidianità e dei territori periferici. Il seguente contributo propone il termine “ecobiografia” ad identificare le narrazioni in prosa incentrate intorno ad uno o più luoghi dei quali vengono descritte le dinamiche tra società e ambiente, adottando uno sguardo equidistante tra umano e non-umano. Attraverso Pianura (2021) di Marco Belpoliti e Una voce dal profondo (2023) di Paolo Rumiz, l’analisi mira a mettere in luce le caratteristiche stilistiche e tematiche che conferiscono all’ecobiografia una funzione socio-territoriale attiva, che riconosce un significato – storico, culturale e fisico – ai luoghi e all’ambiente.
Copyright (c) 2025 Irene Cecchini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Laila Ripoll is an outstanding author of contemporary Spanish theatre, who has dedicated an important part of her work to the theme of Memory. Like the radiodrama Guernica, el ultimo viaje, a dramatisation of an episode of the Civil War that has become a universal symbol. The text was issued in 2006, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the painting's return to Spain in 1981. The story is brought to life by some of the figures of the painting, the Bull, the Mare and the Cockerel, who come to life, speak and interact with Picasso and other characters. The article summarises the results of the research on the strategies and techniques of dramatisation of the event. These include the animation and anthropomorphisation of the characters of the painting, the presence of the muertos vivientes, characteristic of Ripoll’s theatre, such as Picasso, his partners and the architect Josep Lluís Sert, who commissioned the work from the artist on behalf of the Government of the Spanish Republic, and the role of Guernica (the event, the place and the painting) as a repository of Memory. Laila Ripoll es una autora señalada del teatro español contemporáneo, que ha dedicado una parte importante de su obra al tema de la Memoria. Como el radioteatro Guernica, el último viaje, dramatización de un episodio de la Guerra Civil que se ha convertido en un símbolo universal. El texto fue emitido en 2006, con motivo del 25 aniversario del regreso del cuadro a España en 1981. La historia revive a través de la narración del Toro, la Yegua y el Gallo, que aparecen en el cuadro, cobran vida, toman la palabra e interactúan con Picasso y otros personajes. El artículo recoge los resultados de la investigación sobre las estrategias y las técnicas de dramatización del acontecimiento. Entre ellas, destacan la animación y antropomorfización de las figuras del cuadro, la presencia de los muertos vivientes –característicos del teatro de Ripoll–, como Picasso, sus parejas y el arquitecto Josep Lluís Sert, que encargó la obra al artista en nombre del Gobierno de la República española, y el papel de Guernica (acontecimiento, lugar y pintura) como depósito de Memoria. Laila Ripoll es una autora señalada del teatro español contemporáneo, que ha dedicado una parte importante de su obra al tema de la Memoria. Como el radioteatro Guernica, el último viaje, dramatización de un episodio de la Guerra Civil que se ha convertido en un símbolo universal. El texto fue emitido en 2006, con motivo del 25 aniversario del regreso del cuadro a España en 1981. La historia revive a través de la narración del Toro, la Yegua y el Gallo, que aparecen en el cuadro, cobran vida, toman la palabra e interactúan con Picasso y otros personajes. El artículo recoge los resultados de la investigación sobre las estrategias y las técnicas de dramatización del acontecimiento. Entre ellas, destacan la animación y antropomorfización de las figuras del cuadro, la presencia de los muertos vivientes –característicos del teatro de Ripoll–, como Picasso, sus parejas y el arquitecto Josep Lluís Sert, que encargó la obra al artista en nombre del Gobierno de la República española, y el papel de Guernica (acontecimiento, lugar y pintura) como depósito de Memoria.
Copyright (c) 2025 Veronica Orazi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The essay explores the relationship between identity, nostalgia, and cultural memory in Georgi Gospodinov’s Time Shelter. The analysis aims to reflect on how the novel portrays the dynamics and risks involved in reconfiguring the past within the context of contemporary European society. Combining literary theory and cultural memory studies, the paper examines two pivotal elements of the novel, namely the autofictional genre and “time shelters”—time rooms that allow individuals to experience the past as if immersing themselves in the fictional worlds of literature. Particular attention is given to the double, ambivalent nature of (auto)fictional writing as both a biased mediator of cultural memory and a genuine tool for constructing personal identity. L’articolo indaga il legame tra identità, nostalgia e memoria culturale in Cronorifugio di Georgi Gospodinov. L’obiettivo dell’analisi è esaminare i modi in cui il romanzo rappresenta le dinamiche e i rischi connessi alla riemersione nostalgica del passato nel contesto della società europea contemporanea. Affiancando gli strumenti e le tesi dei cultural memory studies ai ferri del mestiere della teoria letteraria, il saggio si focalizza su due importanti componenti romanzesche: il carattere autofinzionale della scrittura e i “cronorifugi”, stanze del tempo che permettono di fare esperienza del passato secondo modalità simili all’immersione nei mondi della finzione letteraria. Particolare attenzione è posta alla funzione bifida della scrittura (auto)finzionale, mediatrice tendenziosa della memoria culturale e allo stesso tempo strumento autentico di costruzione dell’identità personale.
Copyright (c) 2025 Luca Diani https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Manuel Rivas (A Coruña 1957) is one of the most prominent contemporary Galician authors. His production ranges from fiction to poetry, theater to journalistic prose. The present study focuses on A man dos paíños (2000), which is divided into three parts: a fictional story (after which the book is titled), a photographic story (O álbum furtivo), and a journalistic story (Os náufragos). The main peculiarity of the work lies in the literary and aesthetic wager of ‘genre smuggling’. The author, who has always been refractory to pigeonholing, uses this metaphor to refer to the fusion of poetry and prose, reality and fiction, text and image. In the present study we will observe how this mixing of genres and codes, along with the rich paratextual apparatus, is functional to the transmission of memory and the creation of a shared gaze between the reader and the emigrant/castaway. Manuel Rivas (A Coruña 1957), figura di spicco della letteratura galega contemporanea, vanta una produzione che spazia dalla narrativa alla poesia, dal teatro alla prosa giornalistica. A man dos paíños (2000), l’opera oggetto del presente studio, si configura come un trittico composto da un racconto di finzione che dà il titolo al libro (A man dos paíños), un racconto fotografico (O álbum furtivo) e un racconto giornalistico (Os náufragos). La principale peculiarità dell’opera risiede nella scommessa letteraria ed estetica del ‘contrabbando di generi’, in una felice metafora coniata dall’autore, da sempre refrattario agli incasellamenti, per riferirsi alla fusione di poesia e prosa, realtà e finzione, codice verbale e codice iconico. Nel presente studio si osserverà come questa commistione di generi, insieme al ricco apparato paratestuale, sia funzionale alla trasmissione della memoria, principale filone tematico dell’opera, nonché alla creazione di uno sguardo condiviso tra il lettore e l’emigrante/naufrago.
Copyright (c) 2025 Chiara Albertazzi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
This study focuses on an analysis of the interaction between the mechanisms of memory and the representation of landscape in Julio Llamazares’s Distintas formas de mirar el agua (2015). In this novel – which could be considered the culmination of a poetics in which memory plays a decisive role in its thematic and formal constants – the sentimental bond interwoven with the natural setting is configured, above all, as a form of symbolic reparation for the pain produced by a loss. Likewise, the author gives a structural value to the stories of small family groups, who are entrusted with the task of narrating the recent past of a betrayed homeland, where the alteration of the natural balance, caused by the economic crisis and the structural reforms promoted by the Franco government, represents only a part of the violence already suffered by the Spanish land during the Civil War. Lo studio intende analizzare l’interazione tra i meccanismi del ricordo e la rappresentazione del paesaggio in Distintas formas de mirar el agua (2015). Nel romanzo di Julio Llamazares, approdo di una ricerca estetica, attraversata da costanti tematiche e formali in cui la memoria assume un ruolo decisivo, il vincolo sentimentale intessuto con lo scenario naturale se da un lato si configura come la simbolica riparazione del dolore legato a una perdita, dall’altro consolida il valore attribuito alle storie di piccoli gruppi familiari: ad esse è demandato il compito di narrare il passato recente di una patria tradita, in cui l’alterazione degli equilibri naturali messa in campo dalle riforme economico-strutturali, promosse dal governo franchista, è solo una parte della violenza già subita dalla terra spagnola durante la Guerra Civile.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ida Grasso https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
La escritura del luto paterno y la reconstrucción de la memoria de vida
This paper aims to analyze two examples of contemporary mourning memories: Tiempo de vida (2010), by Marcos Giralt Torrente and No entres dócilmente en la noche quieta (2020), by Ricardo Menéndez Salmón. Firstly, the importance of this subgenre is contextualized: it’s a valid alternative to the homogeneous presentation of intimacy in the public sphere. Next, from the concept of autobiographical pact, we reflect on the metaliterary dimension of these works. In particular, both authors consider that the difficulty of writing on mourning it’s found in the tension between the unspeakable personal experience and the need to frame it in a public narrative. In the second part of the paper, an attempt is made to recognize the dominant public narrative in both works –namely, the acceptance of the father's legacy in a time in which it has lost its symbolic value– and the means that both authors use for its presentation and improvement. El objetivo del presente trabajo se sustancia en el análisis de dos ejemplos de memorias de duelo contemporáneas: Tiempo de vida (2010), de Marcos Giralt Torrente y No entres dócilmente en la noche quieta (2020), de Ricardo Menéndez Salmón. En la primera parte del trabajo, se contextualiza el interés que presenta este género literario en la actualidad y se razona sobre su validez como alternativa a la presentación homogénea de la intimidad en la esfera pública. A continuación, a partir de una reflexión sobre el pacto autobiográfico, se razona sobre la dimensión metaliteraria de estas obras. En particular, ambos autores cifran la dificultad de la escritura del duelo en la tensión entre la vivencia personal indecible y la necesidad de enmarcarla en una narrativa pública. En la segunda parte del artículo, se intenta reconocer la narrativa pública dominante en ambas obras –a saber, la aceptación de legado del padre en una época en la que ha perdido su valor simbólico– y los medios que utilizan ambos autores para su presentación y superación.
Copyright (c) 2025 Carlos Frühbeck Moreno https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Il Portogallo come «passato che non passa»
The Lusitanian Tetralogy by Almeida Faria represents an erratic journey through the landscapes and imaginaries of Portuguese cultural identity. The objective of this article is to examine the problematisation of these coordinates in the saga and especially in the three novels published after 1974 through the lens of cultural memory and oblivion. The novels address themes of decadence and intergenerational conflict within a family of landowners in the Alentejo region at the time of the Carnation Revolution. This paper aims to observe the process of reworking narratives and mythologies from the past as an important element in the attempt to provide new foundations for the process of national self-reflection. La Tetralogia lusitana di Almeida Faria si costituisce come percorso erratico tra paesaggi e immaginari dell’identità culturale portoghese. Obiettivo di questo articolo è osservare attraverso le categorie della memoria culturale e dell’oblio la problematizzazione di queste coordinate nella saga e soprattutto nei tre romanzi successivi al 1974. Tematizzando la decadenza e i conflitti generazionali di una famiglia di latifondisti dell’Alentejo a cavallo della Rivoluzione dei Garofani, si osserva la centralità della rielaborazione di narrazioni e mitologie del passato nel tentativo di dare nuove basi al processo di autognosia nazionale.
Copyright (c) 2025 Eugenio Lucotti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Sul buon uso della memoria in Antoine Volodine
The article aims to show the dialectic between remembering and forgetting within the post-exotic literature created by Antoine Volodine over the last forty years. Through the analysis of various works, this literature is interpreted as an attempt to re-elaborate the end of communist-oriented emancipation movements and to create the surrogate of a political action that has now become impossible: arising from the impracticability of the present with the aim of reconstructing the conditions of possibility for action in the future, it presents a transitory and subordinate character, functional to the transformation of melancholy into mourning, and therefore new life. L’articolo intende mostrare la centralità della dialettica tra memoria e oblio all’interno della letteratura post-esotica creata da Antoine Volodine nel corso degli ultimi quarant’anni. Grazie all’analisi di varie opere, tale letteratura viene interpretata come tentativo di rielaborare la fine dei movimenti di emancipazione di matrice comunista e di creare il surrogato di un’azione politica ormai divenuta impossibile: nascendo dall’impraticabilità del presente con il fine di ricostruire le condizioni di possibilità di un’azione futura, essa presenta un carattere transitorio e subordinato, funzionale alla trasformazione della malinconia per un mondo perduto in lutto, e quindi nuova vita.
Copyright (c) 2025 Emiliano Zanelli https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Multiperspective Fictions of Memory and the Implicated Narrator
Drawing on research at the intersection of memory studies and narrative theory, this article explores multiperspectivity as a storytelling mode particularly well-suited to engaging with representations of collective memory in contemporary fiction. While often celebrated as a narrative strategy that fosters perspective-awareness and enables counter-narrativity, I argue that multiperspective storytelling must move beyond simplistic dichotomies to effectively convey a multidirectional understanding of collective memory. Building on concepts such as postmemory and the implicated subject, I then introduce the notion of pseudo-multiperspectivity to examine both the potential and risks inherent in the proliferation of characters’ perspectives and memories. Prendendo le mosse dall’intersezione di memory studies e teoria della narrazione, l’articolo esamina il multiprospettivismo come strategia narrativa particolarmente adatta ad affrontare le complessità della memoria collettiva nella narrativa contemporanea. Sebbene il multiprospettivismo sia spesso considerato come una strategia formale in grado di contrastare forme narrative dominanti, il contributo cerca di mostrare come le narrazioni multiprospettiche debbano andare oltre facili dicotomie per offrire una comprensione multidirezionale della memoria collettiva. Prendendo ispirazione da concetti quali post-memoria e soggetto implicato, propongo quindi la nozione di pseudo-multiprospettivismo per esplorare le potenzialità e i rischi della moltiplicazione delle prospettive e dei ricordi dei personaggi finzionali.
Copyright (c) 2025 Gabriele D’Amato https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Modernismo letterario e pensiero antidigitale nella filosofia di Byung-Chul Han
Contemporary Korean-German philosopher Byung-Chul Han developed in recent years a severe and harsh analysis of digital technologies, critically assessing them in their essence and their mass application, which causes profoundly negative psycho-social behaviors. In particular, Han’s discourse focuses on the idea of loss of the world; in fact, the digital cancels all contact with reality and things, nullifying the relationship with material physicality, with its weight, body and contrasting consistency. The article intends to analyze the significant presence of the great 20th century modernist literature (especially Kafka, Musil, Proust) and coeval thought (W. Benjamin) in Han’s works. Modernist works pose some fundamental questions, starting from the unknowability of the world and his unwillingness to a quick and certain decoding. These elements, which the modernists interpret as problematic and negative, become, when viewed through a contemporary lens instead, full of a partly positive and significant value. Hence, Han develops an interpretation of modernism in which things have, on the one hand, a resistant charge together with an alienating presence, and, on the other, a epiphanic and auratic power. Ultimately, modernism becomes an initiatory and contemplative ideal opposed to the practical triviality of digital society.
Copyright (c) 2025 Andrea Rondini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Tempi di percorrenza di “Via del Popolo”
The paper focuses on the pièce Via del Popolo, an autobiographical work by playwright and director Saverio La Ruina, set on the eponymous street in Castrovillari, the author’s hometown and the place of his childhood. In the play, memory emerges prominently both as a theme – intertwining private and familial recollections with collective, social, and historical time – and as a method of dramaturgical construction. Employing a contemporary ars memoriae, evocative of the principles detailed in ancient mnemotechnical treatises, La Ruina transforms a small village street into a mnemonic and scenic space where lost local figures, customs, and both intimate and communal stories are brought back to life. Il contributo intende analizzare la pièce teatrale Via del Popolo, opera autobiografica del drammaturgo e regista Saverio La Ruina ambientata nella strada omonima della cittadina di Castrovillari, luogo dell’infanzia dell’autore. Nell’opera la memoria emerge potentemente sia come tema – la memoria di un tempo privato e familiare che si intreccia con il tempo sociale, collettivo, storico – sia come pratica di costruzione della drammaturgia da parte dell’autore. Attraverso una contemporanea ars memoriae, che rimanda curiosamente ai precetti degli antichi trattati di mnemotecnica, La Ruina trasforma una piccola strada di paese in uno spazio mnemonico e scenico, dove rivivono figure e consuetudini locali scomparse, storie intime e comunitarie.
Copyright (c) 2025 Angela Albanese https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Memorie rivisitate nella poesia di Ana Luísa Amaral
With the metaphor of the visiting rooms, Portuguese poet Ana Luísa Amaral presents a conception of memory and revisitation, both personal and cultural, that reduces the distance between lived life and memory, whether individual or collective, embracing the coexistence and overlap of different times. In both realms—personal and cultural—a process takes place that we can define, borrowing the poet’s own terms, as one of inversion or reversal. Cultural, poetic, or historiographic revisitation is not merely a retelling of what is already known but becomes a rewriting that places the act of remembering within an intimate dimension, overturning traditional perspectives on memory. This reversal of traditional memory opens the way to a more inclusive cultural and historiographic vision, one that intertwines individual experiences with collective memory. The metaphor of the visiting rooms effectively captures the complexity of this approach, rooted in a balance between ethics, freedom, and intimacy in the act of remembering. Con la metafora delle sale delle visite, la poetessa portoghese Ana Luísa Amaral presenta una concezione del ricordo e della rivisitazione, sia personale che culturale, che riduce la distanza tra vita vissuta e memoria, individuale e collettiva, abbracciando la coesistenza e la coabitazione dei tempi. In entrambi gli ambiti – personale e culturale – si compie un’operazione che possiamo definire, riprendendo le parole della stessa poetessa, di inverso o rovescio. La rivisitazione culturale, poetica o storiografica, non si limita a essere un semplice retelling di ciò che è già noto, ma diventa una riscrittura che colloca l’atto di ricordare in una dimensione intima, capovolgendo le prospettive tradizionali della memoria. Questo rovesciamento della memoria tradizionale apre la strada a una visione culturale e storiografica più inclusiva, capace di intrecciare il vissuto privato con il ricordo collettivo. La metafora delle sale delle visite sintetizza con efficacia la complessità di questo approccio, radicato in un equilibrio tra etica, libertà e intimità nel ricordare.
Copyright (c) 2025 Elsa Rita dos Santos https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The act of translating the oeuvre of Giuseppe Ungaretti into German demands a dual undertaking on the part of translators: the preservation of the poet’s surreal imagery whilst maintaining the semantic ambiguity that characterises his oeuvre to a remarkably high degree. Translation into a language such as German also necessitates compliance with different rules, particularly in terms of syntax, morphology and word formation. Ungaretti’s poetic texts, especially in the first decades of their reception in the German-speaking world (namely from the 1930s to the early 1960s), were translated individually in many literary magazines and anthologies and ‘reinterpreted’ by numerous intellectuals, Italian literature scholars and distinguished readers. Since 1960, the already considerable number of Ungaretti’s translators has been further augmented by the incorporation of eminent figures in German-language literature, including Ingeborg Bachmann, Paul Celan, Hans Magnus Enzensberger and Hilde Domin. This continuous negotiation (which had singular outcomes both before and after the ‘watershed’ 1960) led to the establishment of reference points that could be literary-cultural or purely linguistic. It is at these points that each translator of Ungaretti elects to ‘adapt’ or ‘de-adapt’ the German text from the original. The present contribution aims to identify the linguistic aspects (in terms of semantics, metre, syntax, morphology, productivity and lexicon) in which both adaptations and de-adaptations occur.
Copyright (c) 2025 Giovanni Giri https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0