“Congiungendo l’incongiungibile”. Le citazioni della “Commedia” nella “Conversazione su Dante” di Osip Mandel’štam

Mandelstam’s essay Conversation about Dante was written in the summer of 1933. Today, some Dante scholars and translators consider Conversation “perhaps the most profound and original Dante essay of the 20th century” (Corrado Bologna, 2012), “a world event”, the result of “an encounter with a real,...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Kristina Landa
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nicola Catelli - Corrado Confalonieri 2022-12-01
Series:Parole Rubate
Online Access:http://www.parolerubate.unipr.it/fascicolo26_pdf/F26_5_landa_mandelstam.pdf
_version_ 1797699691190681600
author Kristina Landa
author_facet Kristina Landa
author_sort Kristina Landa
collection DOAJ
description Mandelstam’s essay Conversation about Dante was written in the summer of 1933. Today, some Dante scholars and translators consider Conversation “perhaps the most profound and original Dante essay of the 20th century” (Corrado Bologna, 2012), “a world event”, the result of “an encounter with a real, authentic Dante” (Olga Sedakova, 2007). At the same time, the essay is regarded by many contemporary scholars as an expression of Mandelstam’s own poetics, with Mandelstam seeing in Dante the ideal model of the European poet. In this perspective, the study of the citations from the Commedia in Conversation may be of particular interest. While testifying to the Russian’s profound knowledge of all three canticles, these citations, partially translated by Mandelstam, gave rise to an original interpretation of Dante’s text, based on the reading of philosophers and scientists who were contemporary to the author of the essay. In this contribution, I focus on a number of citations that illustrate Mandelstam’s reflection on Dante’s metaphors, which, according to him, are rooted “not in the word ‘how’, but in the word ‘when’”. Indeed, in the Russian poet’s vision, Dante’s metaphors describe all the phenomena of the universe in their “fluidity”, that is, in their becoming in the course of time. In particular, I attempt to show how these citations enabled Mandelstam to formulate his own ideas on poetic language, which were inspired by Henri Bergson’s L’évolution créatrice [Creative Evolution], which, as we know from the testimony of his wife Nadezhda, the poet read in the spring of 1933.
first_indexed 2024-03-12T04:12:32Z
format Article
id doaj.art-fef72e6bb1f44e50a3508ba05696613c
institution Directory Open Access Journal
issn 2039-0114
language English
last_indexed 2024-03-12T04:12:32Z
publishDate 2022-12-01
publisher Nicola Catelli - Corrado Confalonieri
record_format Article
series Parole Rubate
spelling doaj.art-fef72e6bb1f44e50a3508ba05696613c2023-09-03T11:00:13ZengNicola Catelli - Corrado ConfalonieriParole Rubate2039-01142022-12-01132681102“Congiungendo l’incongiungibile”. Le citazioni della “Commedia” nella “Conversazione su Dante” di Osip Mandel’štam Kristina Landa0Università di BolognaMandelstam’s essay Conversation about Dante was written in the summer of 1933. Today, some Dante scholars and translators consider Conversation “perhaps the most profound and original Dante essay of the 20th century” (Corrado Bologna, 2012), “a world event”, the result of “an encounter with a real, authentic Dante” (Olga Sedakova, 2007). At the same time, the essay is regarded by many contemporary scholars as an expression of Mandelstam’s own poetics, with Mandelstam seeing in Dante the ideal model of the European poet. In this perspective, the study of the citations from the Commedia in Conversation may be of particular interest. While testifying to the Russian’s profound knowledge of all three canticles, these citations, partially translated by Mandelstam, gave rise to an original interpretation of Dante’s text, based on the reading of philosophers and scientists who were contemporary to the author of the essay. In this contribution, I focus on a number of citations that illustrate Mandelstam’s reflection on Dante’s metaphors, which, according to him, are rooted “not in the word ‘how’, but in the word ‘when’”. Indeed, in the Russian poet’s vision, Dante’s metaphors describe all the phenomena of the universe in their “fluidity”, that is, in their becoming in the course of time. In particular, I attempt to show how these citations enabled Mandelstam to formulate his own ideas on poetic language, which were inspired by Henri Bergson’s L’évolution créatrice [Creative Evolution], which, as we know from the testimony of his wife Nadezhda, the poet read in the spring of 1933.http://www.parolerubate.unipr.it/fascicolo26_pdf/F26_5_landa_mandelstam.pdf
spellingShingle Kristina Landa
“Congiungendo l’incongiungibile”. Le citazioni della “Commedia” nella “Conversazione su Dante” di Osip Mandel’štam
Parole Rubate
title “Congiungendo l’incongiungibile”. Le citazioni della “Commedia” nella “Conversazione su Dante” di Osip Mandel’štam
title_full “Congiungendo l’incongiungibile”. Le citazioni della “Commedia” nella “Conversazione su Dante” di Osip Mandel’štam
title_fullStr “Congiungendo l’incongiungibile”. Le citazioni della “Commedia” nella “Conversazione su Dante” di Osip Mandel’štam
title_full_unstemmed “Congiungendo l’incongiungibile”. Le citazioni della “Commedia” nella “Conversazione su Dante” di Osip Mandel’štam
title_short “Congiungendo l’incongiungibile”. Le citazioni della “Commedia” nella “Conversazione su Dante” di Osip Mandel’štam
title_sort congiungendo l incongiungibile le citazioni della commedia nella conversazione su dante di osip mandel stam
url http://www.parolerubate.unipr.it/fascicolo26_pdf/F26_5_landa_mandelstam.pdf
work_keys_str_mv AT kristinalanda congiungendolincongiungibilelecitazionidellacommedianellaconversazionesudantediosipmandelstam