A CONTRE-POIL. A DIFFERENT READING OF FRANCO MORETTI (AND SOME DETAILS FOR A HISTORY OF ROMANIAN POETRY) Cover Image

A CONTRE-POIL. UN’ALTRA LETTURA DI FRANCO MORETTI (E QUALCHE DETTAGLIO PER UNA STORIA DELLA POESIA ROMENA)
A CONTRE-POIL. A DIFFERENT READING OF FRANCO MORETTI (AND SOME DETAILS FOR A HISTORY OF ROMANIAN POETRY)

Author(s): Ioana Bot
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai
Keywords: boring literary history; unbearable inactuality; Franco Moretti; Mihai Eminescu; Romanian modern poetry.

Summary/Abstract: A contre-poil. A Different Reading of Franco Moretti (and some Details for a History of Romanian Poetry). Starting from a close reading of the Italian version of an essay from Franco Moretti’s (Italian) youth (titled L’anima e l’arpia and first published in Italian, 1982), the author plays with the concept of „unbearable inactuality” (as defined there by Moretti himself), applying it first to the very essay of Franco Moretti, and then – to the history of Romanian modern poetry (the period in which Mihai Eminescu also wrote). It is an argument for a ”slow literary history”, a ”boring” one (the concepts belong, again, to Moretti), as this model could substantiate – in a kind of reverse action, a contre-poil, as the French could put it – the very claim to aesthetic superiority of the work of Eminescu, the Romanian national poet.

  • Issue Year: 61/2016
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 19-27
  • Page Count: 9
  • Language: Italian