In Martin Walser's later work, religious themes take on consid-erable importance. The novel Das dreizehnte Kapitel (2012) offers a significant testimony to this. Here, Walser reworks the narrative conventions of the epistolary novel, placing at the core of the plot a love relationship that the two protagonists deliberately leave unfulfilled. Their relationship develops on a spiritual level, creating the conditions for both to reach a more mature understanding of themselves. The reflection on theological themes is a major component of their journey together. Karl Barth provides the exchange between Maja and Basil with figures of thought and worldviews. The Swiss theologian also occupies Walser in his essayistic writing ; this overlapping is a constant in Walser's activity, as he believes in a strong link between fictional writing and intellectual reflection.
This study examines the narrative and formal strategies of the "graphic epistolary" in French-language comics documenting Middle Eastern conflicts. The analysis focuses on the graphic novel Les amandes vertes. Lettres de Palestine by Anaele and Delphine Hermans, using Guy Delisle's Chroniques de Jerusalem as a comparative framework. The article explores how the hybridization of text and image revitalizes the epistolary genre to address complex historical and sociopolitical realities. Drawing on comic narratology (Groensteen) and epistolary communication theories, the author analyzes the interplay between subjectivity and objectivity, alongside the functioning of narrative instances (monstrator, recitant, narrator). The research demonstrates that the epistolary device, through its inherent intimacy and fragmentation, establishes a pact of trust with the reader. Consequently, personal micro-history becomes a powerful vehicle for collective memory and a critical re-evaluation of the human dimension within the Palestinian conflict.
This paper explores the intellectual and professional networks behind the publication of two volumes of Anna Akhmatova's poems by Einaudi in the Collezione di poesia series (1966 and 1992), drawing on the mate-rials preserved in the Einaudi Archive at the State Archives of Turin. The 1966 edition, translated by Carlo Riccio, holds significant symbolic capital : it marked the first Italian publication of Requiem and Poem Without a Hero-then censored in the Soviet Union-in a version authorized by the author herself. In 1992, Einaudi's Bianca' series was further enriched by a volume edited by Michele Colucci. Furthermore, archival records reveal an intriguing, albeit unfinished, project : a near-complete translation of Akhmatova's works by Tommaso Landolfi. By examining these archival documents, this study aims to recon-struct the Einaudian stage' of the poet's Italian reception, shedding light on the relation-ships between author, publisher, and translators.
After a brief overview of the state of scholarship about literary character, this paper focuses on three topics regarding the renovated discussion of the concept, which has taken place in the last fifteen years, with the consolidation of the syncretism between non-mimetic and mimetic theories, and the affirmation of transdisciplinary perspectives. First, it examines the issue of the ontological duplicity of character (Twofoldness), that is, the problematic status of the coexistence of its textual genesis and its mimetic value. Second, it addresses the issue of referentiality, offering some reflections on the characteristics of non-fictional character and the so-called "Napoleon Problem", which addresses the possible representations of the same actual referent. Third, it discusses several concepts used in describing the reader's responses to characters (Engagement, Attachment, Identification, Parasocial Phenomena, and Empathy).
Within the brief form of the short story, Alice Munro multiplies the levels of narrative enunciation by incorporating numerous epis-tolary forms, letters that characters send or receive. These modes of writing naturally interact with the construction of the story : they disrupt temporal planes, create space for a plurality of voices, and open up the possibility of recollection and memory. This essay offers an interpretation of the ways in which letters, in several stories from Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You (1974), articulate differently and further complicate rhetorical strategies, insofar as they also function as sites of narrative reversals. Within the fictional discourse, epistolary writing becomes a self-aware repository of falsehoods, implicated in fabrication and in the characters' processes of internal reworking. In this sense, the narra-tive of the letter acquires both a subjective and an objective significance, culminating in a point of conflict between the epistolary form and second-person narration.
This article explores notifiction as a contemporary reconfiguration of the epistolary form within the ecology of connected devices. Focusing on narrative works designed for smartphones-Bury Me, My Love (Enterre-moi, mon amour), Hanna la Rouge, and Lifeline-it examines how literary correspondence is rearticulated through chat interfaces and notification systems that structure attention, availability, and response. Drawing on approaches from literary theory and digital media studies (Mace ; Citton; Souchier), the article argues that notifica-tions operate as literary operators rather than paratextual signals. By mobilizing familiar gestures of digital literacy-scrolling, replying, waiting, resuming-these works transform routine interactions with screens into modes of reading and narrative engagement. The epistolary exchange is no longer merely represented but enacted through the same inter-faces that organize everyday communication. Notifictions impose a specific temporality that hybridizes fictional time with the reader's lived time : interruptions, enforced delays, and asynchronous rhythms prevent reading from unfolding as a closed duration. Instead, the narrative extends into the flow of daily life, producing an immersion based less on mi-metic illusion than on temporal and attentional entanglement. Notifiction thus emerges as a performative epistolary mode, revealing how literary forms adapt to-and critically engage with-the temporal regimes of digital culture.
The pursuit of solace through the writing of interiority accompanies protagonists who stand as witnesses to supernatural, absurd, or ineffable events. As in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) opens with the first letter sent from Tran-sylvania by Jonathan Harker to his employer Peter Hawkins and unfolds through the intimate exchanges between the young Mina Murray and Lucy Westenra. Numerous fur-ther instances could be adduced : the letters exchanged by Lanyon, Utterson, and Jekyll in Stevenson's Strange Case of DrJekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), those that determine the fortunes and misfortunes of Juliette and Justine in Sade's Justine (1791), and the documents whose circulation structures Stephen King's debut with Carrie (1974) all attest the narratologi-cal function of epistolary writing and its sustained interaction with specific genres-the Gothic and the novel of terror-and with a dominant mode, the fantastic. On the basis of these premises, this article interrogates the role played by the epistolary dimension, and by the quest for consolation among loved ones, in the historical development of these genres and of this mode. My aim is to deepen our understanding of the political valence attached to epistolary writing in modern Gothic, horror, and fantastic literature.
From his very first narrative experiment, Illazioni su una sciabola, the epistolary form emerges as a recurring structural device in Magris's writing. By the examination of two works distant from each other both chronologically and in their overall conception-Un altro mare (1991) and Alla cieca (2005)-this essay aims to reflect on the different uses and functions of that form, showing how the conscious deployment of epistolary stylistic features is integrated into choices concerning the diegesis, the rendering of the narrative characters' points of view, and the system of literary genres.
The Poetics of Censorship : Revisiting Ulysses The story of Joyce's persecution by the censors of the world covers notoriously the first part of his career and erupts all too famously in the Thirties during the US trial for obscenity. However, beyond the ideological and religious anathemas aimed at the young writer and which undoubtedly made his life and work difficult, and since Joyce was clearly far from silenced by his attackers, this essay interrogates the other face of censorship and its literary impact. Not only did censorship become a significant topic in the human comedy of Ulysses, but it also triggered stylistic and verbal explorations into non-canonical areas of expression, oblique and whimsical stylistics, coinage of words and proliferating narrative : enough to discourage censors and to engage creatively with readers.
Censorship is generally construed as an intervention of the governing authorities to prevent or suppress the dissemination of a text, image or film ; as a result, one tends to think in black-and-white terms of territories where freedom of expression does or does not prevail. However it is also possible to think of censorship as only the extreme manifestation of a range of social controls on both private and public discourse. This ar-ticle considers the growing pressure on artists in western countries to avoid any kind of statement or description that might even remotely be considered offensive by individuals or minority communities. Taking the form of a personal account it provides examples of the drastically altered atmosphere in the worlds of literary journalism, novel writing and film making. In particular it suggests that pressure exercised by social media and a writer's own editors and publishers can create as great a sense of vulnerability and inhibition as a direct intervention of the state.
This study explores the correspondence between Giovanna Bemporad and Paolo Vivante, highlighting their mutual influence. Through their letters, Bemporad's poetics emerge as Homeric translation and literary inspiration intertwine during her formative years.
The publication of the Russian novel Leto v Pionerskom Galstuke (eng. transl. A Summer in the Pioneer Tie) by Elena Malisova and Katerina Sil'vanova, which appeared on a digital platform for fanfictions in 2017 but was only shared with the wider public in 2021, was at the centre of a harsh controversy that led to a tightening of censorship on queer topics within the Russian Federation in 2022. Despite its success in the Russian-speaking world, the novel has not yet attracted the interest of scholars, and its impact on contem-porary Russian society has not been explored in depth. This article aims to shed light on the characteristics that made it so significant in the context of Russian publishing and legislation against LGBT+ propaganda. Through the analysis of the novel's main themes and the context in which it was published, I wish to examine the relationship between the publication of Leto v Pionerskom Galstuke and the tightening of queer censorship in Russia, as well as the role of low' literature in contemporary Russian culture.
Donec corrigatur. Considerations on Literary Censorship This brief semi-narrative exploration draws a picture of the cultural framework which has been modeling at least three generations of readers and editorial operators, an itinerary from the discovery, in the fifties, of the Index librorum prohibitorum (i.e. Index of Forbidden Books) as a guide, so to speak, for young adult books to prior censorship, effective after 1966, and from ideologic to market censorship.
The essay examines Giovanna Bemporad's activity as a translator, in particular the French section of her Esercizi (1948) and, in particular, the version of Baudelaire's La vie anterieure, a poem already favoured in contemporary anthologies : the analysis of Bempo-rad's version makes it possible to highlight the all-Italian dialogue between different and contemporary executions of the same poem, a dialogue that stimulates the translator's activity, introduces her into a precise cultural community-even with some problems-and at the same time distinguishes her, revealing her peculiar horizons of expectation. This contribution makes use of the rich material of the Fondo Bemporad kept at the Centro APICE (Archivi della Parola, dell'Immagine e della Comunicazione Editoriale) of the University of Milan, i.e. the author's correspondence and the various handwritten and typewritten drafts of her translations, constantly corrected and reworked through a `rude exercise' of approximation. In addition to the versions of Baudelaire's sonnet, the essay also examines a few stanzas of Rimbaud's Le bateau ivre, in order to compare Giovanna Bemporad's translation with the contemporary one by Beniamino Dal Fabbro.
Through an examination of archival documents and a study of editorial correspondence, this essay provides an overview of the translations from English that Giovanna Bemporad was involved with during her early years. Most of these works were not included in her book of verse or other publications. Among the various unpublished or unfinished trans-lations, I focus on the most eccentric case, both because of the limited material available (only five poems) and because the author seems to be outside the classical canon favoured by the translator : Robert Frost (1874-1963). Through the correspondence with her friend Gabriella Bemporad, the essay reconstructs the genesis of the project, while the analysis of these unpublished texts has made it possible to outline the variant process and highlight certain affinities with her poetics.
The contribution reconstructs and discusses for the first time the entire corpus of translations from German literature that Giovanna Bemporad published between the 1940s and the 1980s (translations that have been partly reprinted in volumes up to the present day). The focus is on how Bemporad makes her choices within the classical-romantic and later modernist canon. A number of hints for further in-depth studies are also provided thanks to the research carried out in the author's literary archive, kept at APICE (University of Milan), from which unpublished works of great interest for future research have emerged.
The article aims to illustrate and analyse the representation of the city of St. PetersburgLeningrad within the work of Elena Shvarts. Born in Leningrad on 17( th) May 1948 and died in St. Petersburg, on 11 (th) March 2010, Shvarts was one of the leading figures of the Leningrad underground in the 1970s and 1980s and she remains among the most important female poetic voices in 20 th -century Russian literature. The article reflects on the way in which the city of Petersburg simultaneously time shapes and is shaped by the author's poetics, with a special focus on the literary devices of metamorphosis and transfiguration, explored in their application to the urban fabric and the poet's personal reinterpretation of the Petersburg myth. Special attention is directed towards the relationship between the classical, poor, and underground myth of the city, which frames Shvarts' conception.
What does it mean to speak of a relationship between literature and the city ? The various contributions to this thematic issue of << Letteratura e Letterature >> provide different answers in terms of cultural, social and economic conditions, and yet all of them eventually converge on a multifaceted shared mental map through which cities, mostly famous cities - but also several modern extra European urban conurbations - have had - and still have - the power to change or - at least - shape communities and nations. This brief survey focuses on some defining traits of urban literature claiming that citizens/urbanites were the founders and vectors of those Western myths of modernity and modernization that spread out and affected the rest of the world. This resulted in a radical reshaping of lifestyles, collective and individual behaviors through literature, since poetry and novels are not just documentary sources but rather the means through which material and imaginary processes make sense of experience. City literature uncovers the most intimate knowledge of urban life exploring the endless dialectics of environment and civic consciousness.
People of Milan, hypocretes and unhappy, in short : Bourgeois. Notes about Pasolini's La Nebbiosa and Simonetta's Lo Sbarbato center dot The intervention proposes the analysis of two narrative texts, twins in many aspects, set in Milan in 1959 : La Nebbiosa , a screenplay by Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Lo Sbarbato , a novel by Umberto Simonetta. Both narratives feature young protagonists aged between fifteen and eighteen, born into a burgeoning middle class, then in strong ascent. The analysis aims to demonstrate how these books present a consistent portrait of young Milanese bourgeoisie : already on the verge of becoming secular, hedonistic, and disenchanted, while simultaneously impatient with their fathers, perceived as outdated enforcers of oppressive morality. However, this youth is destined to adopt what emerges as the foundational trait of the bourgeoisie : hypocrisy.
The << body of the city >> in Attilio Bertolucci's Viaggio d'inverno and La camera da letto center dot The article examines the representation of the city in Attilio Bertolucci's Viaggio d'inverno and La camera da letto . Although the composition of the two books takes place at the same time for about fifteen years, urban space is depicted in markedly different modes. The aim of the article is to connect these modes to the changes happening in Italian poetry in the second half of the twentieth century.
