Psyche and law of participation: the metamorphoses of the demon in Dino Terra’s novel (1929-1938)
Abstract
This paper aims to emphasize how Dino Terra takes hold of Lucien Lévy-Bruhl analysis about loi de participation into the narrative of his first novels between 1929 and 1938. Borrowed from Les faux-monnayeurs by André Gide, the demon in Ioni. Qualche tempo di due umani e d’un demone (1929) acts as a omniscient narrator. This figure, who is subjected to a profound metamorphosis in the following novel, Profonda notte (1932), through the hallucinated vision of the character lost in the Arctic, reverts to an almost traditional appearance in Fuori tempo (1938). In this last novel, the central character submits to the teaching of the scientific wizard, prof. Leo Vario, who is obsessed with «twisting time» and does not hesitate to converse with an elegantly dressed modern Devil. Initially the interpreter of the character’s unconscious, the figure of the demon, who later turns to the Devil, becomes embodiment of the unconscious, in a world which implements what French philosopher Lucien Lévy-Bruhl analyzed as law of participation.
Downloads
References
Bouchard, François, “«L’acqua oscura delle grotte»: il realismo sperimentale di Dino Terra”, La figura e le opere di Dino terra nel panorama letterario ed artistico del ’900, Ed. Daniela Marcheschi, Venezia, Marsilio, 2009: 39-52.
Bouchard, François, “«Verità psichica» e finzione romanzesca: Dino Terra, Massimo Bontempelli”, Letteratura e psicanalisi, Ed. Daniela Marcheschi, Venezia, Marsilio, 2017: 77-91.
Cazotte, Jacques, Le diable amoureux, Paris, Le Pot cassé, 1928.
Cazotte, Jacques, Le diable amoureux, Ed. Max Milner, Paris, GF Flammarion, 1979.
De Mijolla, Alain, Freud et la France 1885-1945, Paris, PUF, 2010.
Fondane, Benjamin, Lévy-Bruhl ou le métaphysicien malgré lui, Eds. S. Nicolas - D. Guedj, Paris, éditions de l’éclat, 2019.
Freud, Sigmund, La Science des rêves, traduit sur la 7e édition allemande par Ignace Meyerson, Paris, Alcan, 1926.
Gide, André, Les faux-monnayeurs (1926), Paris, Gallimard, 2006.
Gide, André, Journal des Faux-monnayeurs (1927), Paris, Gallimard, 2002.
Hubert, Henri - Mauss, Marcel, “Esquisse d’une théorie générale de la magie”, Marcel Mauss, Sociologie et anthropologie, Paris, PUF, 2010 (prima edizione, L’Année sociologique, 1902-1903).
Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien, Les fonctions mentales dans les sociétés inférieures (1919), Paris, Alcan, 1928.
Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien, L’âme primitive (1927), Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1996.
Terra, Dino, Ioni – Qualche tempo di due umani e d’un demone – Storia con avvenimenti rari normali curiosi e straordinari — Più delle considerazioni e altre cose interessanti, Milano, Edizioni Alpes, 1929.
Terra, Dino, Profonda notte (1932), Ed. Luisa Marinho Antunes, Venezia, Marsilio, 2015.
Terra, Dino, Metamorfosi, Milano, Ceschina, 1933.
Terra, Dino, Fuori tempo, Firenze, Fratelli Parenti editori, 1938.
Terra, Dino, Eteromorfismo d’uso quotidiano. Una guida al viver civile, Firenze, Sansoni, 1975.
Copyright (c) 2021 françois bouchard
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Copyright Notice
You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work, and to adapt the work. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
