'And He a Face Still Forming': Genesis, Gestation and Variation in Vincenzo Consolo's Il Sorriso Dell'Ignoto Marinaio

Author: O'Connell, Daragh

Source: Italian Studies, Volume 63, Number 1, Spring 2008 , pp. 119-140(22)

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Abstract:

This article analyzes Chapter I of Vincenzo Consolo's 1976 novel Il sorriso dell'ignoto marinaio from a variety of viewpoints: it traces the gestation of the novel from its earliest forms to its most recent elaborations; it analyzes some of the textual variants and undercovers many of the literary and non-literary sources which underpin the chapter; it argues that Chapter I is in fact a highly 'palimpsestuous' text, and many of its procedures suggest polyphony and Bakhtin's conception of encyclopaedism in what he called the 'Second-Line' novel. Moreover, Chapter 1 actually enacts many of Consolo's new poetics, which involve the accumulation and elision of various texts of diverse provenance, be they journalistic, creative or essayistic, into a polyphonic-palimpsestic space of singular authorial begetting.

Document Type: Research Article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/007516308X270155

Publication date: 2008-03-01

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