Dante and the Penguin. On Bertrand Westphal’s Line

  • Giulio Iacoli Università di Parma
Keywords: Deconstruction, Geocriticism, Imagination, Landscape, Limits, Horizon

Abstract

Conceived of as an answer to Bertand Westphal’s learned notes on the spatial implications of the horizon, my paper focuses on the way geocritical analysis structures its subject matters by recurring to a thorough deconstructing survey of the meanings which a certain place, or a certain idea of space, received in time.

What I define ‘the geocritical ethos’ provides the basis for a comparative view on the changing profile of the horizon as seen from the perspective of literary imagination: the wavering line reflects the uncertainties of the viator Dante, caught in his unique experience between the paralysing fixity of the Sacred Mountain and the infinite promise of space which derives from observing the maritime stretch; the description of an icy spot with a view, disputed between an exploring I and a penguin, pervades with exquisite irony the genre of scientific reportage, as brilliantly reworked by Daniele Del Giudice in his recent Orizzonte mobile.

Thus, in this critical rereading of the foundation of modern thinking we can grasp the essential liaisons involving geographical discoveries and the achievements of literary imagination: a bright path to modernity comes to the fore, signalling an ever-refining consciousness of human boundaries, and the way literary creation defies and transgresses the very notion of limits by displaying the fruits of a limitless imagination.

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Author Biography

Giulio Iacoli, Università di Parma

is Lecturer in Comparative Literature at the University of Parma. Among his interests are the XXth Century fiction, the relationships between literature and the arts, cultural geography and literary theory. The author of two monographs (Atlante delle derive, 2002, on Celati and Tondelli; La percezione narrativa dello spazio, 2008), he recently coedited the collection of essays Verba tremula. Letteratura, erotismo, pornografia (2010, with N. Catelli and P. Rinoldi).

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Published
2011-05-17
How to Cite
Iacoli, G. (2011). Dante and the Penguin. On Bertrand Westphal’s Line. Between, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.13125/2039-6597/119
Section
Cartographies of Comparative Studies