Autore
Boitani, Piero

Titolo
Oblio e letargo: storia breve di venticinque secoli di poesia
Periodico
Strumenti critici
Anno: 2023 - Volume: 161 - Fascicolo: 1 - Pagina iniziale: 3 - Pagina finale: 16

In this essay I trace, first, through Hesiod’s Theogony and Boccaccio’s Genealogie, the genealogy of oblio, oblivion. The mostly negative connotations of the word – and of the actual physical state it describes – are constant through the Middle Ages (witness John of Salisbury) down to Shakespeare, yet lethe has from the very beginning something in common with poetry and truth (a-letheia). The struggle between oblivion and memory (as exemplified in the terzine beginning with «Qual è colui che sognando vede») dominates Dante’s account in Paradiso XXXIII, but at one point in the canto he talks of letargo («Un punto solo m’è maggior letargo»), and seemingly with a positive connotation. I go back to the sources Dante employs here and pick up precise definitions by Hugutio of Pisa. Quoting Mallarmé, I show how «lethargy» evokes Argo the mythical ship, and Argo the constellation. The conclusion is with T.S. Eliot’s final lines in Four Quartets



SICI: 0039-2618(2023)161:1<3:OELSBD>2.0.ZU;2-3
Testo completo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/download/article/10.1419/106851
Testo completo alternativo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.1419/106851

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