'Un abisso di bellezza e di scandolo': a study of Carlo Emilio Gadda's 'L'Adalgisa'

Thesis

This thesis is a monographic study of L’Adalgisa. Disegni milanesi (Florence: Le Monnier, 1944), a collection of narrative-satirical writings by Carlo Emilio Gadda (1893-1973). L’Adalgisa is examined from a variety of perspectives and paying attention to different critical issues, and in particular to the question of satire. The critical-interpretative category of satire provides a fil rouge unfolding throughout the thesis and is therefore introduced in chapter 1, which lays the foundation for the following chapters by dwelling on the history and theory of satire and on what is the meaning that Gadda assigns to it. Reconstructing the textual history of the collection which was assembled in the early 1940s, chapter 2 tackles the issue of the unity of the book and considers how the texts brought together work both as individual pieces and parts of a whole. The chapter suggests that the satirical representation of the social collective, albeit practiced across a range of varieties and manners, works as a binding factor and serves as a centre of meaning. Chapter 3 analyses how narration is carried out in the different disegni and focuses on the meaning of the dive that the author claims to take (‘quasicché a propria volta l’autore si tuffi’) into the water of his characters. The chapter argues that a mechanism of creation of satirical difference presides over the ambiguous manifestation of the narrative voice in many disegni. Chapter 4 explores the function of the 227 authorial footnotes found in the collection. The chapter reflects in particular on how the notes only apparently offer an extradiegetic and non-fictional space, while on the contrary they contribute to an extension of the fictional-diegetic boundaries of the narrative and draw the authorial self in it, incrementing the ambiguity of the satire found in the disegni. Chapter 5 brings into focus the significance of the theme of time for the collection, showing that the acknowledgment of time’s unrepeatability is part of the principle of truth upon which the satirical judgement of the Milanese community is expressed throughout the collection. Arguing for an understanding of the book through the category of satire, my thesis seeks to shed light on the mechanism of creation of satirical difference recognised as a constitutional part of satirical writing, offering an interpretation of the collection as a book which articulates a consistent, albeit internally diversified, reflection on three main subjects – the city/society, the individual, time – and on how they interact.

Authors: Mazzocchi, L

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-yemmp0oqr
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Italian bourgeoisie; Disegni Milanesi; Milano; italian literature; Italian studies; Milanese society; time; modernism; 20th-century italian literature; Italian canon; satire studies; twentieth-century italian literature; L'Adalgisa; Milan; Carlo Emilio Gadda; satire; authorial footnotes; footnotes
• Subjects: Social satire, Italian; Time in literature; Satire; Literature; Satire, Italian; Italianists