Sumários
Discussion
2 Maio 2024, 14:00 • Chiara Nifosi
This last class revolved around the revision of some key topics treated during the semester; the students introduced the topics of their final essays and we discussed them together.
Vivien, "La Dame à la louve"
30 Abril 2024, 14:00 • Chiara Nifosi
This final story by Renée Vivien provides an unprecedented case for our study of the fantastic. As a genre dominated by a male gaze, Vivien's appropriation of it as a woman (and a Sapphist) raises many interesting topics to be discussed, namely the implications of her decision to write in a male first person. The protagonist in question is attracted by a mysterious woman around which his days during a maritime journey revolve. We analyzed in particular the following themes: the construction of femininity from the perspective of this man and the construction of an opposing model, that of the "Dame", based on the rejection of all stereotypes and on an evident disdain for men; the reversal of this perspective as the man sees his own masculinity through the female gaze of the "Dame" in a moment of vulnerability (the scene of the naufrage); the relationship between femininity and animality as it is developed through the symbiotic relationship between the Lady and her she-wolf.
Maupassant, "Le Horla"/3
23 Abril 2024, 14:00 • Chiara Nifosi
In this third and final class devoted to "Le Horla", we discussed a possible interpretation for the development of the narrator's psychosis, drawn from the field of psychology and psychoanalysis. We referred to the form of the diary as the attempt at opening a dialogic space where the individual consciousness contemplates itself in order to negotiate problematic content; in these respects, the Horla functions as the progressive externalization of a surrogate self from which the narrator takes some distance in order to understand it better; this attempt at understanding, though, slowly turns into a defensive mechanism that the protagonist can longer dominate; it is only with the final recognition that what is external is indeed a refraction of the self that a final outcome becomes possible (the decision that the Horla can be killed only by suicide, as exterior and interior coincide).
Maupassant, "Le Horla"/2
18 Abril 2024, 14:00 • Chiara Nifosi
In this second session on "Le Horla", we continued our reading of Maupassant's story by taking a look at the following aspects: the steps through which the experience of the uncanny/supernatural is rationally processed by the narrator, who constantly tries to find a possible rational account for his experience (somnambulism, hallucination, etc.); the relationship between place, solitude, and the alienation the narrator is victim of, especially by looking at the two episodes of the trip to Mont Saint Michel and the stay in Paris. In Paris, the narrator assists to a "séance d'hypnotisme", an experience that further convinces him of the existence of phenomena that are not graspable by the human mind (through the Pascalian rhetoric of the two infinites largely commented on in class).
Maupassant, "Le Horla"/1
16 Abril 2024, 14:00 • Chiara Nifosi
This first class on "Le Horla" mostly provided a theoretical and historical account of the progress of psychology in the 19th century, thus providing a frame through which the story should be read and interpreted. We mentioned Maupassant's concerns with the rationalization of supernatural or inexplicable matters as a dangerous positivistic attitude aimed at removing any spiritual content from human life. "Le Horla", then, is not just a story setting a model for the fantastique, but also a compelling reflection on some of the main scientific and philosophical tensions animating the century.