A Trace of Non-Narrative Signification

The Musicalization of Fiction in Vitaliano Trevisan’s Prose

Abstract

This contribution intends to report some results of a larger study dedicated to the interaction between music and writing in Vitaliano Trevisan’s prose. In particular, the study is focused on the three non-novels: Un mondo meraviglioso. Uno Standard (1997), I quindicimila passi. Un resoconto (2002), Il ponte. Un crollo (2007), and the collections Standards vol. 1 (2002) and Shorts (2004). The essay follows principles and methods of comparative analysis of the specific field dealing with the musicalization of fiction, as a peculiar determination of musical-literary intermediality. Furthermore, considering the relevant role of jazz practice’s model, this contribution also fits into the field of jazz fiction. Within the poetics of the author, analogies, metaphorical association, hybridisation and imitation consciously operate in the narrative project. The musical interference is manipulated starting from the construction of the spatio-temporal narrative device, to consequently determine processes of deconstruction of the subject, shattering of the structures of the novel and cases of verbal music, as well as the poetics of collapse, the  aesthetics of repetition and the significant value of silence.