The work of Diamanda Galás (San Diego, 1955) constitutes a first historical case of total synthesis in vocal art, since it implies a compositional-performative competence that includes all styles of singing, learned and popular, and all existing phonatory techniques, even extreme and anomalous. According to a political conception of art, this technical-stylistic versatility is put at the service of the expression of trauma, of the evil inflicted and suffered by humanity. To this end, the voice gives a sound form both to the identity of the offender and to the identity of the victim, so that the unity of the vocal action represents the intrinsic moral ambivalence of man. Galás's use of the voice demonstrates that the traumatic vocal material is not expressively neutralizable, reducible to an element of a purely formal combination. Galás's work therefore serves as a paradigm for a general reflection on the aesthetics of trauma, where the function of antiphrasis is revealed to be structural: for the purposes of aesthetic transcendence, art cannot do without trauma. ; L'opera di Diamanda Galás (San Diego, 1955) costituisce un primo caso storico di sintesi totale nell'arte vocale, poiché implica una competenza compositivo-performativa che include tutti gli stili di canto, dotto e popolare, e tutte le tecniche fonatorie esistenti, anche estreme e anomale. Secondo una concezione politica dell'arte, tale versatilità tecnico-stilistica è messa al servizio dell'espressione del trauma, del male inflitto e subìto dall'umanità. A tal fine la voce dà forma sonora sia all'identità del carnefice sia all'identità della vittima, cosicché l'unità dell'azione vocale rappresenta l'intrinseca ambivalenza morale dell'uomo. L'uso galásiano della voce dimostra che il materiale vocale traumatico non è espressivamente neutralizzabile, riducibile a elemento di una combinatoria puramente formale. L'opera di Galás funge dunque da paradigma per una riflessione generale sull'estetica del trauma, dove si rivela strutturale la funzione dell'antifrasi: ai fini della trascendenza estetica, l'arte non può fare a meno del trauma.
Da una parte l'imbarazzo dello storico dell'arte nel prendere atto dei limiti di una formazione basata su rigide categorie, nicchie temporali, correnti, stili, strumenti che, seppur utili, risultano talvolta inadeguati alla comprensione del senso profondo dell'arte irregolare. Dall'altra l'esigenza di classificare, catalogare, descrivere, mettere ordine (anche in senso fisico) in una materia complessa, cercando di individuare le "emergenze" di un mondo sommerso, le coordinate a cui far riferimento per orientarsi, a partire dal desiderio di comprensione che segue un'esperienza estetica del tutto inconsueta. Infine la necessità del curatore di attivare un processo di estetizzazione e di comunicazione, necessari al riconoscimento e all'accreditamento culturale (di conseguenza alla salvaguardia e alla tutela) delle opere e degli autori, presso addetti ai lavori e studiosi, ma anche presso i decisori politici e il grande pubblico. In questo scenario, fra questi due e più poli, il giovane curatore diventa un equilibrista sul filo delle "nuove committenze" nel flusso informativo del contemporaneo sempre più impermeabile al trapasso di contenuti complessi e davanti ad un pubblico ora partecipe ora distratto e perplesso. Cataloguing, studying and curating Outsider Art. A field experience. On one hand there is the embarrassment of the art historian in acknowledging the limits of a training path based on strict categories, currents, movements, styles. Although useful, these instruments are sometimes inadequate to understand the deep sense of Outsider Art. On the other side there is the need to classify, catalog, describe, bring order (even physically) in a complex issue. Therefore, starting from the desire of understanding that follows a quite unusual aesthetic experience, the art historian seeks everything come to light from the underground and try to find the coordinates to orient himself/herself. Furthermore there is also the need of the curator to start a process of aesthetization and communication in order to gain the recognition and the cultural accreditation (hence aimed to the preservation and protection) of outsider artworks and artists. In this scenario, between these two and more poles, the young curator becomes as a tightrope walker surrounded by the information flow of contemporary art system, which is increasingly impervious to the passing of complex contents.
Rossella Stallone testifies her personal experience as user and lover of audio described art works. Starting from the assumption that accessibility to arts represents a form of democracy, she describes accessibility as a social value to be defended and promoted. Furthermore, Stallone points out the aesthetic quality of audio described products and the necessity to abandon a merely welfare logic.
The essay aims to explore the potentialities of collective writing for the deconstruction of the authorship in a cultural and political sense. Some historical experiences of collective writing from the avant-gardes are in fact cited in Roland Barthes'essay which, in a dialogue with Michel Foucault, opened in 1968 the debate on "The Death of the Author"; and even if the two scholars came to divergent outcomes as to the diagnosis of the author's health, both reflections were based on the assumption of the political implications inherent in the figure of the Author as it was built and mythologized by the bourgeois society. It will be seen how, from the end of the twentieth century, some collective writing experiences, in particular the Italian collectives Wu Ming and Scrittura Industriale Collettiva, have attempted to force and deconstruct the authorship by transforming collective writing into a tool of political and cultural struggle. However, the authorship remains unavoidable both for the aesthetic needs of literary criticism and for the commercial exploitation of the publishing market, which transforms this name into a brand to sell; the essay therefore intends to show that collective writing can not in itself be an antidote to the marketing of the author unless it is accompanied by paratextual strategies and extra-literary activities that are truly capable of deconstructing the mythology denounced by Barthes.
The Moment's Eternity. Literature and Photography in Russia Photography develops along with aesthetic views and literary investigations across the decades. Studying this fertile relationship, the essay outlines the most relevant steps focusing on some exemplary texts of Russian literature, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Improvements in the photographic technique, debates on artistic quality and on the ability to capture the experience this new medium shows, developed together with the birth of the great nineteenth-century novel, and with the affirmation of a new perception of time, later interweaving with political events of twentieth-century Russia. The dialogue with photography offers to the artists of the word new opportunities of investigation on time, memory and the self. The fleeting uncertainty of the moment that the photo shot reveals, testifies, in the texts, to the fragile identity that we try to find any time our eyes observe photographic portraits. The latter arrived to the present from remote or close time dimensions.
In the critical literature on Georg Büchner this monograph represents the first organic work devoted to the subject of the body – a pivotal issue for an understanding of his writings. The book investigates the significance assumed by the human body in three spheres of analysis: the political, the erotic and the scientific-philosophical. In the latter area the analysis hinges on the relations between Büchner's work and the writings of the three principal French materialist philosophers of the eighteenth century: La Mettrie, d'Holbach and Helvétius. The appraisal of this relation illustrates not only Büchner's appropriation of the legacy of ideas of French materialism, but also moments in which he satirises, sarcastically criticises or outrightly rejects certain central aspects of this vision of man and nature. From this analysis and the study of the political significance of the body and the erotic aspect, it emerges that the body, understood as Leib – human body, lived and living, the hub of subjective perception and experience – not only has a crucial function in the figurative layout of the literary works, but is also the focal point of Büchner's view of man, thus assuming a central importance both in the three areas examined and in the more strictly aesthetic sphere. This book won the Premio Associazione Sigismondo Malatesta "Opera Critica" - Letteratura, Teatro e Arti dello spettacolo - Edizione 2009.
Visitare un'esposizione di architettura è un'utile esperienza didattica per avvicinare gli studenti a un ambito disciplinare che non prevede insegnamento pre-universitario. A parte poche eccezioni, fino agli studi universitari la sensibilità allo spazio e alle sue implicazioni simboliche, funzionali, estetiche è affidata agli ambienti in cui capita di vivere. Ma i fenomeni riguardanti lo spazio e la sua trasformazione hanno anche implicazioni ambientali, sociali, economiche e politiche. La 14° Biennale di Architettura di Venezia ha affrontato questa complessità proponendola anche a un pubblico di non addetti ai lavori. Alcune delle questioni sollevate dalla mostra possono divenire chiavi di lettura per interpretare le esposizioni di architettura in generale e proporle agli studenti, non solo universitari, come occasioni di riflessione sulle scelte e responsabilità dell'uomo nella trasformazione dello spazio, dalla dimensione del domestico a quella urbana e del territorio. ; Visiting an architecture exhibition can be a useful didactic experience to approach a disciplinary field which is not a subject in pre-academic courses. With very few exceptions in pre-academic years, the awareness of space and its symbolic, functional and aesthetic implications is entrusted solely to the environments in which someone lives. However, space and its trasformation have also environmental, social, economic, and political implications. The 14th Venice Biennial of Architecture has faced this complexity and tried to present it to non-specialist spectators. Some of the issues raised by the exhibition have become central to the analysis and interpretation of architecture exhibitions in general, and have been proposed to students. These issues mainly investigate human choices and responsibilities in the transformation of space, from a domestic context to a more urban and territorial dimension.
Quando si parla di invettiva, la caratteristica principale sembra essere quella dell'attacco, dell'insulto, della violenza verbale. Si dice infatti "pronunciare un'invettiva", o "lanciare, scagliare un'invettiva". L'invettiva è definita nel Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca (1612), con le parole di Francesco da Buti, come «riprensione, che l'huomo fa crucciosamente. E perciò si chiama invettiva, cioè commozione contro altrui». Essa pone a chi se ne occupa numerose questioni, tra le quali fondamentale è quella che riguarda la sua natura di genere letterario o di registro retorico appartenente allo sfogo o all'offesa contro qualcuno (un avversario, un'istituzione).Questo volume indaga proprio la forma invettiva così come si è presentata in alcuni testi della nostra letteratura, nel suo percorso storico dal Trecento al Novecento. Si è perciò trovata la formula di "scritture dell'ira" (enfatizzando le varie esperienze e i diversi contesti), attraverso cui collocare i testi riconosciuti di una tradizione letteraria italiana. In questa prospettiva, l'invettiva si presenta come una forma codificata di indignazione, di maledizione, di sdegno, che si esprime in un uso violento e rabbioso della parola, ma anche come operazione politica e religiosa, come estetica dell'eccesso, e infine come risposta a un vissuto personale tragico e difficile. When we talk about invective, the main feature seems to be that of the attack, the insult, the verbal violence. In fact, in Italian language, it is said "pronunciare un'invettiva", or "lanciare, scagliare un'invettiva". In the Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca (1612), the invective is defined with Francesco da Buti's words, as «riprensione, che l'huomo fa crucciosamente. E perciò si chiama invettiva, cioè commozione contro altrui». To those who care, it generates many issues, including the fundamental which relates to its nature of literary genre or rhetorical style fit for the outburst or the offense against someone (an opponent, an institution).This book specifically investigates the invective form as it is presented in some books of our literature, in its historical way from the fourteenth to the twentieth century. Therefore, it was created the formula of "scritture dell'ira" (emphasizing on the various experiences and different contexts), through which to place the text of a recognized Italian literary tradition. In this view, the invective shows up as a coded form of indignation, of a curse, of an outrage, which is expressed through an angry and violent use of the word, but also as a political and religious process, as an aesthetic feature of the excess, and finally in response to a tragic and difficult personal experience.
Tra sensi e spirito investigates the origins of a sort of 'Copernican revolution' that took place in western culture when music acquired an undisputed primacy over the other arts, becoming the privileged medium of metaphysical knowledge, if not actually the very emblem of absolute Truth. Starting from the analysis of the principal oppositions (between melody and harmony, word and sound, voice and instruments) emerging from the aesthetic debate that developed in the latter half of the eighteenth century, first in France and later in Germany, Tra sensi e spirito brings to light the essential ambivalence of music, in which we can discern a dual nature: sensual-erotic and mystical-spiritual. Examining these two aspects, supremely exemplified in the works of Wilhelm Heinse and Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder and the characters created by them, the book brings out the figure of the 'problematic' artist in a modern sense, who experiences with profound unease the ambiguity of the "criminal innocence" of the musical phenomenon: a musical phenomenon that acts at once as a redeeming and a 'narcotic' force, engendering a loss of contact with reality. - Tra sensi e spirito indaga le origini di una sorta di 'rivoluzione copernicana' vissuta nella cultura occidentale quando la musica conquista un primato indiscusso sulle altre arti, divenendo il medium privilegiato della conoscenza metafisica, se non addirittura l'emblema stesso della Verità assoluta. A partire dall'analisi delle principali opposizioni (tra melodia e armonia, parola e suono, voce e strumenti) che emergono dal dibattito estetico sviluppatosi nel secondo '700 prima in Francia e poi in Germania, Tra sensi e spirito mette in luce l'ambivalenza di fondo della musica, nella quale si riscontra una doppia natura: sensuale-erotica e mistico-spirituale. Esaminando questi due aspetti, che trovano una rappresentazione esemplare nelle opere di Heinse e Wackenroder e nei personaggi da loro creati, il volume fa emergere la figura dell''artista problematico' in senso moderno, che vive con profondo disagio l'ambiguità, la «delittuosa innocenza» del fenomeno musicale; un fenomeno musicale che agisce contemporaneamente come forza redentrice e 'narcotico', facendo perdere contatto con la realtà.
Tra il XVII e il XIX secolo il teatro era un vero e proprio centro vitale di aggregazione dei ceti sociali: in area italiana ogni città, piccola o grande che fosse, faceva a gara per realizzare il proprio teatro. In seguito a recenti atti legislativi, numerosi Enti Pubblici e Privati hanno iniziato un'intensa attività di recupero, valorizzazione e tutela del patrimonio architettonico teatrale presente nei propri territori di pertinenza, con proposte contrastanti riguardo le modalità di intervento. Ciò che appare di maggiore evidenza è la limitata conoscenza dei modi di costruire tipici degli organismi teatrali, per i quali è necessaria una puntuale ed attenta campagna di indagini utile per un recupero rispettoso, consapevole ed efficace. Il progetto di ricerca è volto all'approfondimento dell'architettura teatrale nel periodo compreso tra la fine del XVII e l'inizio del XX secolo. Vengono indagati i caratteri peculiari di questa architettura: dagli aspetti tipologici, formali e distributivi, a quelli materico-costruttivi ed estetico-ornamentali. L'analisi generale del tema sofferma l'attenzione alla realtà siciliana, ricca di esempi significativi. A partire da uno studio preliminare corredato da indagine storica, bibliografica, archivistica e iconografica sui teatri dell'isola si è giunti ad una conoscenza accurata del sistema teatrale presente nel territorio fra il XVII e il XIX secolo. Successivamente, attraverso una capillare campagna di sopralluoghi, in cui si è svolta una ricca indagine fotografica, con rilievi geometrici dimensionali e materici, si è verificato lo stato delle strutture censite, aggiornando l'elenco con i teatri realizzati in epoche successive ed analizzandone lo stato di fatto, gli usi attuali e le modificazioni avvenute. All'indagine in situ è seguita la restituzione e l'analisi singola e comparata dei teatri censiti, al fine di individuare i caratteri costruttivi, tipologici e formali dei manufatti architettonici. La finalità ultima del presente studio è appunto quella di porre all'attenzione generale il tema dei teatri storici, analizzando i metodi di intervento attuali e le questioni legate alle norme che negli anni si sono succedute. ; The research analyses the theatrical architecture between Late XVII - Early XX centuries. The typological and distribution peculiarities, along with materials, construction techniques and aesthetic features, are investigated. The research focuses on the Sicilian area, rich in significant examples. The analysis starts from a preliminary study based on historical, bibliographical and iconographic investigations and arrives to a deep knowledge of the theatrical system. For this purpose, a widespread campaign of inspections has been carried out: the official list of theatres drawn up in 1868 has been followed and updated with the architectures built later. Through photographic, geometric and material surveys, the present conditions of the theatres, their current use and the occurred changes have been analysed. The in situ investigation and the analysis of each building have been completed with the comparison of the theatres, in order to identify typological, construction and aesthetic characters. Furthermore, this methodology has been followed in the study of several Parisian theatres, carried out during a research period in France at the École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture Paris - Malaquais. The direct inspection of these French architectures has been connected to archival and library researches concerning their historical and construction features. This research highlights the relevance of the Sicilian experience in the construction of historic theatres, with the purpose of specifying intervention lines which combine the conservation of the architectural organism with the achievement of modern standards of comfort and safety.
La società odierna è caratterizzata dall'eccesso, dall'esasperata ricerca di bellezza sia psico-fisica (dalla ginnastica allo yoga, dalla moda alla cosmetica, dalla chirurgia estetica all'ingegneria genetica) sia materiale (dagli abiti agli accessori, dal telefonino all'automobile). Di fronte a questa realtà in cui l'apparenza, il piacere e il divertimento sono divenuti, in ogni campo, gli obiettivi dominanti l'estetica deve sforzarsi di superare i confini "canonici" di un'astratta speculazione accademica al fine di orientare in senso pragmatico la sfera d'indagine. Diviene, quindi, sempre più urgente individuare nuove categorie e adottare più adeguati modelli epistemologici. Da qui l'ipotesi di riconfigurare l'estetica ("iperestetica") in senso transdisciplinare e transartistico. Lo scopo è quello comprendere la complessità dell'esperienza attraverso il dialogo con altri saperi (ecologia, biologia, sociologia, psicologia, antropologia, gastronomia), ma anche di avviare un'indagine più ricca ed esaustiva sull'arte, le cui forme non sono più (o non solamente) identificabili con l'oggetto artistico, bensì sono da rintracciare tra le pratiche della vita quotidiana. Con questo obiettivo si giustifica la scelta, forse restrittiva ma non arbitraria, di privilegiare, come chiavi di lettura per questo lavoro, le teorie di due filosofi: il pragmatista americano Richard Shusterman e il neofenomenologo tedesco Gernot Böhme, poiché entrambi rivalutano, attraverso un esplicito richiamo a Baumgarten, il valore della conoscenza sensibile. Shusterman vuole riconsiderare, in chiave filosofica, alcune pratiche corporee (cosmetica, chirurgia estetica, ginnastica, yoga ecc.) e riconoscere il valore estetico della cultura popolare. Böhme, attraverso la nuova categoria di "atmosfera", vuole offrire strumenti interpretativi e critici con cui operare consapevolmente in molti settori del "lavoro estetico": dal design al packaging, dalla scenografia all'architettura d'interni, dalla moda alla cosmetica, dalla comunicazione alla pubblicità. Secondo questa duplice chiave interpretativa vari ambiti della vita quotidiana (dalla natura al design, dal marketing alla politica) saranno sondati al fine di riconsiderarli alla luce di una nuova estetica pragmatica. ; Contemporary society is characterized by excess, by the exasperated search for beauty, in both psycho-physical (e.g., from athletics to yoga, from fashion to cosmetics, from cosmetic surgery to genetic engineering) and material terms (from clothes to accessories, from mobile phones to automobiles). Confronting a reality where appearance, pleasure, and fun have become dominant concerns, the study of aesthetics has to move beyond the "canonical" confines of abstract academic inquiry in order to orient its research sphere in a pragmatic direction. There is an increasingly urgent need to identify new categories and to articulate more appropriate epistemological models. Addressing these concerns in the present volume, Elisabetta Di Stefano aims to reconfigure aesthetics in transdisciplinary and transartistic (i.e., "hyperaesthetic") terms. The goal is to understand the complexity of experience by establishing a dialogue with other disciplines (e.g., ecology, biology, sociology, psychology, anthropology, gastronomy) and also to initiate a richer and more comprehensive analysis of art, whose forms are no longer (or not solely) to be found in the artistic object, but also in the practices of everyday life. This goal explains the decision (which may be restrictive, but it is not arbitrary) to adopt as privileged interpretive frameworks the theories of two philosophers, the American pragmatist Richard Shusterman and the German neophenomenologist Gernot Böhme, because both reevaluate the significance of sensible knowledge through explicit references to Baumgarten. Shusterman aims to rethink in philosophic terms some bodily practices (e.g., cosmetics, cosmetic surgery, athletics, yoga) and to account for the aesthetic value of popular culture. Böhme articulates the new category of "atmosphere" in order to offer interpretive and critical tools with which to intervene consciously in many fields of "aesthetic work:" from design to packaging, from scenography to interior architecture, from fashion to cosmetics, from communications to advertising. Adopting this dual interpretive framework, the author examines various aspects of everyday life (from nature to design, from marketing to politics), in order to reconceptualize them in light of a new pragmatist aesthetics.
Nella tesi si osserva come nella cultura russa cambiava l'immagine di Roma. Se ancora alla fine del settecento l'antichità romana poteva risultare solamente uno strumento retorico-filologico da utilizzare per fare il proprio discorso più convincente, la generazione dei decabristi la stessa antica romanità la accostava alla cultura e storia russe tramite gli elevati ideali civici. La romanità ora risultava uno strumento di analisi della esperienza storica e politica della Russia anche nel contesto europeo. Da qui nasceva una serie di modelli russi legati all'antica Roma: il Catone di Radiscev, il Bruto dei decabristi, ecc. Vi attingeva generosamente anche una corrente di lirica russo-antica con i suoi ricchi riferimenti agli autori classici, Ovidio, Tacito, Orazio. Nasceva così una specie di Roma antica russa che viveva secondo le sue regole etiche ed estetiche. Con il fallimento dell'esperienza decabrista cambia anche l'approccio alle antichità: ci si distacca dalla visione storico-morale dell'antico, Roma non è più una categoria da emulare, ma una storia a sé stante e chiusa in sé stessa come ogni periodo storico. Essa smette di essere un criterio universale di giudizio etico e morale. Allo stesso tempo, una parte integrante della cultura russa all'epoca era il viaggio a Roma. I russi cresciuti con interesse e amore verso la Roma antica, impazienti ed emozionati, desideravano ora di vedere quella patria dei classici. Era come se fosse un appuntamento fra gli amici di vecchia data. Si affrettava a verificare di persona le muse di storia e di poesia. E con tutto questo si imparavano ad amare tutti i defetti della Roma reale, spesso inospitale, la Roma del dolore e della fatica. La voce importante nel racconto romano dei russi era anche la Roma del cristianesimo, dove ritrovare e ricoprire la propria "anima cristiana". ; In the thesis we observe how in Russian culture was changing the image of Rome. If still at the end of the Eighteenth century the Roman antiquity could only be rhetorical and philological tool to use to make your speech more convincing, the generation of the "Decembrists" used the same Roman images to approach the Russian culture and history through high civic ideals. The Roman antiquity now appeared a tool for the analysis of historical and political experience of Russia also in the European context. In this way was born a series of Russian cultural models related to ancient Rome: the Cato of Radiscev , the Brutus of the Decembrists , etc. . There were rich references to classical authors, Ovid, Tacitus, Horace also in the Russian literature. Thus was born a kind of ancient Russian Rome that lived by its own ethical and aesthetic rules. With the failure of the Decembrist experience also changes the approach to antiquity: the moral - historical vision of ancient Rome is no longer a category to emulate, but a part of History. It ceases to be a universal standard of moral and ethical judgment. At the same time, an integral part of Russian culture was the journey to Rome. The Russians who have grown with interest and love for the ancient Rome, eager and excited, wanted to see the homeland of the classics. It was as if it were a meeting between old friends. They wanted to see for themselves the muse of history and poetry, trying to lean also the real Rome, often inhospitable, the Rome of pain and fatigue. One of the major items in the Russian journey to Rome was also the Christian Rome, where to regain the own christian soul.
In the critical literature on Georg Büchner this monograph represents the first organic work devoted to the subject of the body – a pivotal issue for an understanding of his writings. The book investigates the significance assumed by the human body in three spheres of analysis: the political, the erotic and the scientific-philosophical. In the latter area the analysis hinges on the relations between Büchner's work and the writings of the three principal French materialist philosophers of the eighteenth century: La Mettrie, d'Holbach and Helvétius. The appraisal of this relation illustrates not only Büchner's appropriation of the legacy of ideas of French materialism, but also moments in which he satirises, sarcastically criticises or outrightly rejects certain central aspects of this vision of man and nature. From this analysis and the study of the political significance of the body and the erotic aspect, it emerges that the body, understood as Leib – human body, lived and living, the hub of subjective perception and experience – not only has a crucial function in the figurative layout of the literary works, but is also the focal point of Büchner's view of man, thus assuming a central importance both in the three areas examined and in the more strictly aesthetic sphere. This book won the Premio Associazione Sigismondo Malatesta "Opera Critica" - Letteratura, Teatro e Arti dello spettacolo - Edizione 2009. - Nella letteratura critica su Georg Büchner questa monografia rappresenta il primo lavoro organico dedicato alla tematica del corpo – tematica centrale per la comprensione degli scritti büchneriani. Il volume indaga la valenza assunta dal corpo umano in tre ambiti di analisi: quello politico, quello erotico e quello scientifico-filosofico. In quest'ultimo ambito, l'analisi verte sul rapporto tra l'opera büchneriana e gli scritti dei tre principali filosofi materialisti del Settecento francese: La Mettrie, d'Holbach e Helvétius. L'indagine di tale rapporto evidenzia non solo momenti di appropriazione del patrimonio di idee del materialismo francese, da parte di Büchner, ma anche momenti di satira, critica sarcastica o aperto rifiuto di alcuni aspetti centrali di quella visione dell'uomo e della natura. Da tale analisi e dallo studio della valenza politica del corpo e della tematica erotica emerge come il corpo, inteso come Leib – corpo umano, vissuto e vivente, centro di percezione ed esperienza soggettiva – non abbia solo una funzione centrale nell'impianto figurativo delle opere letterarie, ma costituisca anche il punto focale dello sguardo büchneriano sull'uomo, assumendo così un'importanza centrale sia nei tre ambiti esaminati che in quello prettamente estetico. Questo volume ha vinto il Premio Associazione Sigismondo Malatesta "Opera Critica" - Letteratura, Teatro e Arti dello spettacolo - Edizione 2009.
Study and critical interpretation of the Ugo Foscolo's Epistolary Ugo Foscolo (1778-1827), one of the most interesting authors of Italian literature between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, lived during a period that was rich in historical events and political upheavals which had inescapable consequences on the ethical and civil role of the artist and simultaneous new fervour in the literary circles with an unprecedented opening towards genres and styles that were capable of attracting and conquering a larger audience than before. But Foscolo also has a strong reference to the classical culture and preceding poetic tradition which examines traverses and modernizes with excellent results. All this reverberates in his Epistolario which deservedly holds our attention for its abundance of finds, meaning in the contents and beautiful aesthetics. Despite being a work that has always been used by "Foscolists" for biographies and documentaries, the Epistolario, has not been examined through a theoretical-critical lens, apart from the beautiful treatise by Paola Ambrosino, which is a unicum in the vast Foscolian library and dates back to the [already] distant past of the Eighties of the previous century. Hence this work titled Studio e interpretazione critica dell' Epistolario di Ugo Foscolo [Study and critical interpretation of the Ugo Foscolo's Epistolary] was started with the intention of highlighting the characteristics of the writings of the genre, the richness of its relations with the work, the variations evidenced in the time frame of its extension (1794-1827) and above all the high literariness which makes it an essential work in the varied Foscolian corpus. Before entering the heart of the research, we have carried out a survey on the results of the most recent epistolography; considered the characteristics of the editorial work that is provided to us for our work and also referred to the sequence of the reconstruction of the Epistolario and the laborious work of the first editors. This corresponds to the chapters from 1.1 to 1.4 of the First Part in the index. Thus, we have organized our work in two phases: In the first part, we organized a classification of the letters (Chap 1.5) and then proceeded with their analysis by class. In particular, we have identified six groups or classes of letters based on the classification criteria of addressee and primary topic (corresponding to the headings of the chapters of the Second Part in the Index): Letters to family (Chapter 2.1), Love letters (Chapter 2.2), Letters to friends (Chapter 2.3), Political and military themed letters (Chapter 2.4), Literary letters (Chapter 2.5), Philosophical letters (Chapter 2.6). In this phase, our task was a thematic, and partly stylistic, study done "horizontally" to underline the ideas, the different aspects of the personality, the psychological-affective tone of the writer in different situations, trying to gather the sentiments, the relationships with the different correspondents and much more as a living experience translated as writings and style of the manner of the recorded communications in the letter. In the second phase of our work, we looked at the Epistolario from a diachronic perspective with regards to a historicist profile, proceeding with a "vertical" rereading of the Foscolian correspondence in continuous and flexible relation with a different society; the arrival of other literary, cultural and political experiences; the intrigue of the dramatic sequence of human events that the author went through. Most importantly, in this phase of the study, as illustrated in the Third Part of the thesis, and with the help of the preceding analysis, we have been able to highlight the intersections and the tangent points of the Epistolario with the elaborate works of Foscolo during his lifetime. It has nonetheless overturned or at least attempted to overturn the usual role of vassalage for which the epistolary and private writings was usually required, from support and illumination to works that were meant to be published. In this case, the letter has remained the principal and undisputed protagonist of the study, threating its relationships with other texts by the author as operations to reveal and evaluate the intrinsic significance. For this we have also give ample space for long, at times extensive, citations of the Foscolian letters, convinced that the richness, the aesthetic value of the epistolary prose of the writer would "directly" document as best and concrete evidence what we proceeded to affirm. The study undertaken, as we have illustrated in the Conclusion of the thesis, has permitted us many historical-critical and interpretative observations, enriched the biographical profile of author with certain interesting notations, explored the physiognomy of the relationships with many of his different correspondents and above all has confirmed the beginning of our belief that Foscolo consciously used the letter as an art form. The Io epistolary of the author tells us of the trajectory of a life which , though short, was tormented and unsettled, dominated by passions and spent to write almost until the last day. He employs a new and unusual art with mastery, that of expressing himself , moving from one subject to the next, guided by a succession of thoughts, an impulse of the heart, the change of emotions, the small interferences while writing. This loses its way, which recalls the Sternian digression of the Sentimental Journey, makes the epistolary passages unexpected and unpredictable but always congruous, perspicuous to structure the text, and re-establish its affective and declaratory character with a powerfulness that conquers the addressee and us readers. The writing is governed by a unique style, where the force of the idea searches for words and this used in its harmonious completeness – words which «say things» never empty never an end to themselves- dominate the world, objects, relationships, situations makes one penetrate the passion, the breath of the soul of the writer. For all this one can discern an essential unitarity; a completeness of meaning and veracity of voice; a historical, literary and aesthetic value; a strong capacity for emotional involvement in the Epistolario which make it a very important catalogue of work in the Foscolian macro text, deserving of further analysis and worthy of a wider circulation amongst the public.
In my thesis I tried to frame the problem of the individual from an aesthetic, ethic and politic point of view, starting from Adorno's own words in Minima moralia, which say that "in the age of individual's liquidation, the question of individuality must be raised anew". The first part – the negative one – is all dedicated to reflect on the liquidation of the individual and its deep meaning. I decided to start with the lecture of the Dialectic of enlightenment, in particular of the famous 'excursus' "Odysseus oder Mythos und Aufklärung" (1947), that with high probability was written only by Adorno, paying attention to the first version of Adorno's chapter, entitled "Geschichtsphilosophischer Exkurs zur Odyssee". Regarding the background of Adorno's interpretation of the Urgeschichte der Subjektivität, I focused to clarify the influence of post-Nietzschean and anti-modernist thinkers like Rudolf Borchardt and Ludwig Klages – whose names have been removed by Horkheimer, but actually they are the setting for Adorno's interpretation of Odyssey – and the dialectic between conservation and sacrifice. Then, in the second chapter, I considered the real "age of individual's liquidation". Analyzing Adorno's essays of the Thirties and Forties about the crisis of the modern individual – from the lack of images, the decay of traditional language, the creation of a "synthetic language, essentially determined by the advertising" to the disintegration of the family's authority – I outlined a world of loss of experience, in which the individual could be helped neither by psychoanalysis nor by sociology. Inevitable was the confrontation with Martin Heidegger, to whom I dedicated the third chapter. His description of Dasein collides with the conception of the Adornische individual, but allows us to jump to the problem of the relationship between Dasein and Mitdasein, individual and collectivity. The second part of my thesis – the positive one – wants, indeed, to show that it is exactly the crisis of the individual to open the possibility for a "new human type" and aspires to an aesthetical-political and ethical prospective of the "otherwise", where it would be possible a new Enlightenment for a new human type. In the forth chapter, I analyzed a dialogue between Adorno and Horkheimer about the possibility to write a "new manifesto" and an inedited Adorno's manuscript, titled "Zum Marxismus" (1945), in order to show that the point is not a redefinition of the individual, but the attempt to understand the theoretical coordinates, within which it is even possible to rethink it. And the coordinates to rethink the individual, the new individual, are a new political, pedagogical and aesthetical Enlightenment, in which a new alternative is possible. If so far the history has showed its cruelest face, this does not mean that another one cannot exist. Only running through the reification of the individual, the letter can open a breach of utopia, only if the men know their situation of impotence, they can act on it and change it. Like this it is so shaped a dialectic of individual. In the last chapter, it was natural to concentrate my reflection to another interlocutor: Walter Benjamin. He is the one, who shows us a new street not only for a new individual, but also for a new collectivity. It is exactly the collective of Paris, Moscow and Naples, to outline a collective, which is not a metropolitan mass nor a Heideggerian community, but a crow, that could indicate a new way for a new collectivity.
