TY - JOUR AU - Veronica Frigeni PY - 2014/06/01 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - The optical unconscious of History: towards a rhetoric of the uncanny in Antonio Tabucchi JF - Between JA - BW VL - 4 IS - 7 SE - Telling, Hesitating, Envisaging. Sites of the uncanny DO - 10.13125/2039-6597/1069 UR - https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/between/article/view/1069 AB - The aim of the paper is to investigate the possibility and the potentiality implicit in Tabucchi’s visual and temporal depiction of History, which takes the lead from an ethical and philosophical conceptualisation of historical time (bound up with remorse), eventually resulting in a poetics of the uncanny qua manifestation of dissent. In particular, drawing from Walter Benjamin the theoretical metaphor of “optical unconscious” and by highlighting the latter’s connection with Lacan’s idea of the Real, the analysis will focus on some of Tabucchi’s major works (among the others, Requiem, I volatili del Beato Angelico, Per Isabel), in order to prove their functioning as places of the uncanny. In the end it will be emphasised how such rhetorical structure not only distinguishes the historical dimension within his fictions, but also provides a unique perspective from which to rethink his own historical positioning. ER -