Mondo ben ordinato e festa mobile. Due grandi configurazioni testuali della nostalgia

  • Piero Polidoro
Keywords: Nostalgia, Melancholy, Semiotics, Narrative texts, Narratology

Abstract

This article aims to describe and analyze two configurations nostalgia may assume; here with “configuration” I mean a set of themes, motives, causes which constitute an adequately stable and definite narrative core. I call the first configuration “well ordered world”; we can find it in a narrative text representing an idealized and simplified model of society. It is not needed it represents an utopian society; a society in which rules are well established and respected and social order is peaceful and widely accepted is sufficient. I call the second configuration “moveable feast”, after the book Ernest Hemingway wrote about his life in Paris during the 1920s. In this case the idealization of the nostalgic object goes towards a community of friends, recurring meeting places, a continuous stream of events. These two configurations are not mutually exclusive, but they satisfy different needs of our souls. The “well ordered world” is reassuring and it spreads in times of anomie. The “moveable feast” talks to younger audiences and works as a collective bildungsroman.

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Published
2020-08-17
How to Cite
Polidoro, P. (2020) “Mondo ben ordinato e festa mobile. Due grandi configurazioni testuali della nostalgia”, Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio. doi: 10.4396/SFL2019EC7.
Section
Emotions and communication