Represent the Desire: Iseult’s Statue in the <i>Tavola Ritonda</i>

A desire that has been hidden for such a long time to the realms of the inexspressible will find alternative ways to begin to speak, even if this means to subject its content to a metamorphosis that could make it unrecognizable. As the dream activity translates thoughts in images, the unspeakable ca...

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Main Author: Giulia Murgia
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: UNICApress 2013-06-01
Series:Between
Subjects:
Online Access:http://ojs.unica.it/index.php/between/article/view/896
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author Giulia Murgia
author_facet Giulia Murgia
author_sort Giulia Murgia
collection DOAJ
description A desire that has been hidden for such a long time to the realms of the inexspressible will find alternative ways to begin to speak, even if this means to subject its content to a metamorphosis that could make it unrecognizable. As the dream activity translates thoughts in images, the unspeakable can be representable. This happens even in the Tavola Ritonda, one of the Italian rewritings (beginning of the 14th century) of the Prose Tristan, a 13th Arthurian French compilation. Tristan, became the unhappy husband of Iseult of the White Hands,tries to fill the absence of Iseult the Blond by realizing a statue of his lover. This episode’s model, absent from the Prose Tristan, can be found in the famous scene of the “Salle aux images” coming from Thomas, that the Tavola Ritonda rewrites in a “bourgeois” way by transforming the statue in a proper fetish symbol. This paper, that will turn to the notions of Unheimliche and Witz, will point out how the Tuscan writer canalizes the return of the repressed through ékphrasis, and how he tries to mitigate the uncanny of the inanimate double of Iseult by a comic conclusion.
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spelling doaj.art-5ad3fe0987154bc58a27d9e4f2b890cb2023-09-02T16:22:46ZengUNICApressBetween2039-65972013-06-013510.13125/2039-6597/896615Represent the Desire: Iseult’s Statue in the <i>Tavola Ritonda</i>Giulia Murgia0Università degli Studi di CagliariA desire that has been hidden for such a long time to the realms of the inexspressible will find alternative ways to begin to speak, even if this means to subject its content to a metamorphosis that could make it unrecognizable. As the dream activity translates thoughts in images, the unspeakable can be representable. This happens even in the Tavola Ritonda, one of the Italian rewritings (beginning of the 14th century) of the Prose Tristan, a 13th Arthurian French compilation. Tristan, became the unhappy husband of Iseult of the White Hands,tries to fill the absence of Iseult the Blond by realizing a statue of his lover. This episode’s model, absent from the Prose Tristan, can be found in the famous scene of the “Salle aux images” coming from Thomas, that the Tavola Ritonda rewrites in a “bourgeois” way by transforming the statue in a proper fetish symbol. This paper, that will turn to the notions of Unheimliche and Witz, will point out how the Tuscan writer canalizes the return of the repressed through ékphrasis, and how he tries to mitigate the uncanny of the inanimate double of Iseult by a comic conclusion.http://ojs.unica.it/index.php/between/article/view/896Tavola RitondaIsottaÉkphrasisMedioevodesiderio
spellingShingle Giulia Murgia
Represent the Desire: Iseult’s Statue in the <i>Tavola Ritonda</i>
Between
Tavola Ritonda
Isotta
Ékphrasis
Medioevo
desiderio
title Represent the Desire: Iseult’s Statue in the <i>Tavola Ritonda</i>
title_full Represent the Desire: Iseult’s Statue in the <i>Tavola Ritonda</i>
title_fullStr Represent the Desire: Iseult’s Statue in the <i>Tavola Ritonda</i>
title_full_unstemmed Represent the Desire: Iseult’s Statue in the <i>Tavola Ritonda</i>
title_short Represent the Desire: Iseult’s Statue in the <i>Tavola Ritonda</i>
title_sort represent the desire iseult s statue in the i tavola ritonda i
topic Tavola Ritonda
Isotta
Ékphrasis
Medioevo
desiderio
url http://ojs.unica.it/index.php/between/article/view/896
work_keys_str_mv AT giuliamurgia representthedesireiseultsstatueintheitavolaritondai