La cognizione del discorso. Gadda e la metafora della virilità fascista

Abstract

The Cognition of Discourse. Gadda and the Metaphor of Fascist Virility

In the political analysis of the work of the Milanese writer Carlo Emilio Gadda, there is a big controversy about the fascist or antifascist status of his ideas. For a long time, Gadda has been considered an antifascist icon, who with works as Eros e Priapo and Quer Pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana strongly and violently criticised the regime of Mussolini. Influenced by the discovery of the scritti tecnici in the early seventies, however, many scientists have also started to stress Gadda’s fascist adhesion. The propagandistic and scientific character of the articles made scholars focus on non-literary arguments to define Gadda’s position toward fascism, like his psychology, his Milanese background, his ideology. Ultimately however, scientists like Cristina Savettieri and Riccardo Stracuzzi have stressed the importance of a strictly literary reading of the discourse in Gadda’s work in order to get a view of its political value. On the other hand, studies of fascism stress the importance of discourse, metaphor in the construction of the national character, virility, supported by fascism. This character was created by family metaphors. We should investigate in which way Gadda treats these metaphors. Did he understand the discursive character of fascism? Did he use this knowledge in order to parody and criticize it? In La cognizione del dolore both nation and family are central. By consequence, it is an excellent work to investigate the appearance of fascist metaphors in it.